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Riders complaining of drivers calling, then refusing fare

47K views 746 replies 133 participants last post by  Cableguynoe 
#1 ·
Late night riders have been telling me the driver has been accepting the ping, calling them, asking where they are going and then cancelling the ride if they don't like it. There are at most 1 or 2 other drivers in the area when I am rolling so I think it's the same one. F him, if I can roll the dice so can he. Last night's event turned out to be a good fare, and it left me in a place where I got a $90 fare next. This is a slow period in the area, school is out and summer travel hasn't started yet and last night I went 2 hours without a fare, I'm either taking what I can get or staying home. Can't believe somebody can not be deactivated for too much of that.

Of course, I did my part to F him by telling the passenger to lie to the driver next time, look at the map and tell him you are going back to where he is, or I gave him a list of other places to tell the driver he is going to ensure he will come out. "Hey, my friend called and told me he wasn't going to be there, so I decided to go home instead."
 
#4 ·
That's an expensive decision after you have already driven to meet the passenger.

If a destination was too far out of my area I would offer to take him across the state line and relay him to another driver, especially if the full trip would be dangerous due to lack of sleep. But no way am I driving and then refusing a fare. Calling passengers wasn't part of the deal and they're under no obligation to talk to us on the phone. Just either take the ping or leave it for someone else.
 
#83 · (Edited)
Hear you Uber/Lyft guys complain about the stuff that we dealt with as taxi drivers for years but all you guys thought We taxi drivers were assholes,

Before you go talking crap about fare was higher for you taxi drivers,

When I started driving Yellow Cab in Pomona California in 2001, the daily rate for a 12 hour shift with $100 plus $0.10 per mile puls gas, I drove 6 days a week you add that up,

At least two or three days every week where i barely broke even, occasionally I will have a day with a total loss,

Now go cry me a river about not wanting to do short fares for no profit..

As Rat said, every single job (ride) cannot be profitable that's part of doing business..
 
#7 ·
Of course, I did my part to F him by telling the passenger to lie to the driver next time, look at the map and tell him you are going back to where he is, or I gave him a list of other places to tell the driver he is going to ensure he will come out. "Hey, my friend called and told me he wasn't going to be there, so I decided to go home instead."
Why would you screw around with your brother driver? All he was trying to do is to not take a fare that is a losing proposition.
 
#10 ·
Because he is screwing around with me, and he is not my brother. There is an element of luck when picking up fares. Last night I got two good fares in a row, very lucky, and I did not have to call. Other times I'm not so lucky, them's the breaks. In slow times a driver who is cherry-picking only the most profitable fares is trying to cheat the luck element by doing something we are not supposed to do, and leaving the less profitable fares for the other drivers. I call that dirty pool.

When there are only a couple of drivers on these things become more personal. I intentionally space myself out from the other driver, when he is in one good waiting spot I take the other if he was there first because I think it is better for the drivers to have easier nights and the riders get better service than to try and squeeze out a couple more dollars per hour at the expense of another driver. But I am very good at cheating if I want to, and if he wants to send me only the less desirable fares I will take more than that.

Also this is bad for business in general. More riders is always better, and if people find out there are no drivers available when they need them or even worse drivers who refuse to pick them up they will stop trusting Uber to get them home and do something else. Then our reputation will be as bad as the taxis.
 
#9 ·
Here's what I can't wrap my brain around.

Drivers complain about being pinged from 47 minutes away for a trip of 0.2 miles, because they aren't going to make $$ on it, particularly when Mr. 2/10ths of a mile wipes out the supply of mints and bottled water.

Yet, when a driver acts proactively to find out the length of the trip before driving the far distance for the loser trip, some drivers want to snitch on the crafty driver.
 
#11 ·
Then don't take the distant pings, that's all. It's a risk. Your deadhead to the ping is your investment. Anything more than 7 miles is unlikely to be profitable for me at regular X rates. It also makes a difference how much time it will take to cover those miles, and how busy the shift is and what else I might be missing in the time it takes to complete the ride. So I don't take such a ping.

Also what if the rider is lying about the destination or about a tip? When I get there I've already paid my investment, nothing I can do about it. So by calling the rider I am giving him a choice between lying to me or sleeping in a bus shelter for the night. And if I refuse to haul when I get there I get nothing at all for my investment. No matter what you choose, it's a loss if you don't get a fare once you start moving.
 
#16 ·
Lie to me and I will leave you there, I'll eat the cost on principle alone. The next drivers that pick them up is welcome for the better trained rider. SAme with groups of five of more in X I will leave even if I drove a ways to get there.

Seriously though, the driver you complain about is doing exactly the right thing, it is not his responsibility to provide service at a personal loss. If you are willing to blindly make these pick ups awesome, keep doing it maybe you'll get lucky occasionally and it's great for me.

I work in a large geographic area with 0-2 other drivers most of the time, 25 minute or more pings are not unusual and I ignore them the first couple times. If they ping multiple times and there is low probability of a closer ping I'll give the rider a chance to get a cheap ride, (there are plenty of cabs at all hours not like they are ever stranded) if it's unprofitable or comes with an opportunity cost, sorry, but at least I gave you a shot, I could have just continued to ignore your ping.
 
#17 ·
Here's what I can't wrap my brain around.

Drivers complain about being pinged from 47 minutes away for a trip of 0.2 miles, because they aren't going to make $$ on it, particularly when Mr. 2/10ths of a mile wipes out the supply of mints and bottled water.

Yet, when a driver acts proactively to find out the length of the trip before driving the far distance for the loser trip, some drivers want to snitch on the crafty driver.
A-****ing-men.

Snitches are assholes, whether they are drivers or passengers. Stay out of another driver's business, unless you are willing to pay his bills.
 
#55 ·
A-&%$@!*ing-men.

Snitches are assholes, whether they are drivers or passengers. Stay out of another driver's business, unless you are willing to pay his bills.
Lazy drivers are a$$ - 0. Do you contracted job or quit. Short fares suck.... but that's how the game works. Just like snagging $100+ surge fares. Not all business is profitable . I would dime them out in a second. Do your job or quit....
 
#18 · (Edited)
Then don't take the distant pings, that's all. It's a risk. Your deadhead to the ping is your investment. Anything more than 7 miles is unlikely to be profitable for me at regular X rates. It also makes a difference how much time it will take to cover those miles, and how busy the shift is and what else I might be missing in the time it takes to complete the ride. So I don't take such a ping.

Also what if the rider is lying about the destination or about a tip? When I get there I've already paid my investment, nothing I can do about it. So by calling the rider I am giving him a choice between lying to me or sleeping in a bus shelter for the night. And if I refuse to haul when I get there I get nothing at all for my investment. No matter what you choose, it's a loss if you don't get a fare once you start moving.
An "investment?" LOL.

It's not an investment. It's a gamble. It would be worth the gamble if I were sure the cheap-ass liar was spending a cold night in a bus shelter after I drive away.
 
#27 ·
You two are idiots....Uber it at fault for the cheap fare. driver did nothing wrong. Instead of reporting driver...why don't you report uber for the cheap fare they charge?...Uber loves you idiots!!!!
is*

Maybe the idiot is the driver continuing to drive as uber cuts the rates? As long as you guys keep driving, they'll keep cutting. Thanks!

One of travis' minions. He's very proud of you.
You have 793 posts in less than two months.

Do you even work?
 
#20 ·
Because he is screwing around with me, and he is not my brother. There is an element of luck when picking up fares.
How is he screwing "with you"? He may be gaming the Uber Corporation's system, and he may be inconveniencing the prospective passenger, but he isn't screwing you or any other fellow partner. Its your choice, as well, if you don't think you can make $$ on the fare, you don't have to go for it either.

The facts are that if the Uber Corp wanted to make sure all that every would be passenger is picked up, they could do it by buying vehicles and hiring employees to go out and chauffeur these customers around. Or they could boost the payments so that current partners would be willing to make the trips- put outlying areas in perpetual "surge" status, example given.

Last night I got two good fares in a row, very lucky, and I did not have to call. Other times I'm not so lucky, them's the breaks. In slow times a driver who is cherry-picking only the most profitable fares is trying to cheat the luck element by doing something we are not supposed to do, and leaving the less profitable fares for the other drivers. I call that dirty pool.
.
I can appreciate the concept of a "lucky" trip, but if I want to roll the dice and risk losing money I'll head down to the casino and try to hit a few points.

Its not dirty pool , its looking out for your own self interest just as Uber looks out for their own.

When I was driving a cab, and people called from far, out of the way places and weren't going anywhere, I'd pick them up if I was out that way. If not, sometimes they waited for hours and even didn't get a cab. Part of the disadvantage of living in the boonies.
 
#21 ·
I understand why many drivers cherry pick however you ARE screwing over other drivers by doing this. The mentality that, "I don't care if it hurts Uber," is also flawed in the fact that though, yes, it will hurt Uber - deservedly so since the fares are so piss poor that it encourages this sort of behavior - it also causes public ire against us drivers. What happens when the public gets pissed? The same thing that happened to the taxi industry. Massive regulation. A few years of this and every advantage that is offered by rideshare will be gone. Maybe I'm pissing into the wind here but that's my two cents.
 
#22 ·
Hogwash.

A ride that is my nightmare would likely be the dream ride for another driver. If Uber wants to avoid further regulation, they need to figure out a better means of matching riders with drivers that want to go where the passenger wants to go. They claim to be a technology company. Let them prove that and earn their commission by solving this problem. Until they do that, we drivers are forced to do what we have to do to get the information to decide whether any given ride is one we want to take.
 
#23 ·
Isn't this about picking up riders in a high-surge area, as opposed to the more general question of whether it is worth driving 10 minutes to pick someone up? If you're already in a high-surge area, then you'll probably only be traveling a few minutes to get to a rider who requests in that general area. At that point, if you're calling the rider to see how far they are going so you can maximize the effect of the surge by having it applied to a longer ride, then you're cherry-picking the best rides and making other drivers who don't select that way look like suckers. So, with that caveat about already being in a high-surge area, I agree with the OP: it is gaming the system and making other drivers look like suckers to call the rider to see how far they are going if you're already just a few minutes away from them.

Now, it is a different issue altogether if you get a ping 15 minutes away and call the rider to see how far they are going...anyways, those are my 2 cents.
 
#24 ·
Given that drivers are "independent contractors," they can accept what they want, cancel what they want, cancel for any reason (as long as it's not discriminatory), call riders, ask riders questions, ask for more money, ask for tips, and generally do ALL the things that independent contractors do.

Remember, Uber/Lyft are just your vendors. You hire them. They provide the network and take a cut of what you have charged your passenger (your client), kind of like Craigslist or eBay. They can't tell you how to run your business unless you're doing something illegal.
 
#25 ·
Given that drivers are "independent contractors," they can accept what they want, cancel what they want, cancel for any reason (as long as it's not discriminatory), call riders, ask riders questions, ask for more money, ask for tips, and generally do ALL the things that independent contractors do.

Remember, Uber/Lyft are just your vendors. You hire them. They provide the network and take a cut of what you have charged your passenger (your client), kind of like Craigslist or eBay. They can't tell you how to run your business unless you're doing something illegal.
That's the fantasy version of how this is supposed to work in theory.
 
#26 ·
I phone ahead to 100% of UBERX pickups and request the PAX destination. If the PAX questions my call, I politely explain that UBER fails to disclose this info to the Drivers. I've only had one lady get verbally nasty with me, and I retorted with "This is a rideSHARE application. I am SHARING MY RIDE - not UBER's". If you would like a TAXI you can call one.

Problem solved.

FWIW, 90% of the PAX I call don't mind. 8% dont answer the phone after 3 tries and I'm waiting, they get the Cancel-Rider No-Show all day long.
 
#28 ·
I don't do this because I only drive surge over 1.5 but I have no issue with it. Someone above said it right, Uber wants to call this "ridesharing" and insists that's why they don't have to play by the same rules as Taxi's re regulations and background checks. If its really a "share" then the driver has every right to pick and choose which jobs he wants to take. Its just another example of Uber wanting to hide behind the IC rules but treat drivers like employees when it suits them.
 
#29 ·
You couldn't be any more WRONG. The other driver is a independent contractor with the RIGHT to choose the jobs he wants. Uber knocks themselves out to try and deprive you of that right by hiding the destination, hiding the pax name, and frequently even hiding their rating. It's just plain stupid to drive 20 minutes to a pax (then 20 minutes back to your home or the busy area) to give someone a 10 minute ride to earn $2.00. You should be embarrassed that you are so wrong. If I call and they claim a long ride and then I get there and find out it's a short trip, I will IMMEDIATELY kick their nasty, lying ass out of my car and not their name/location so I never pick them up again.
 
#34 ·
The reasons why a taxi driver isn't going to want to go 10 miles out of their way for a short trip in the middle of nowhere is the same as it is for an uber driver. No one wants to lose $$, or at the very least lose the opportunity to actually make $$. That isn't going to change.

I suppose with hundreds of newly minted Uber drivers coming on board daily, and they are holding to their ideal of keeping the destinations top secret until the driver is there, they might be able to get a lot of these trips covered now. But in the long haul, I can't see how, people will wise up.

People who live in the sticks might be pissed about it, but it will never be profitable to haul them on short trips, and to expect drivers to take a loss on hauling them is a bit much. Paying more for travel is what living in distant places is about. The only solution is to put a surcharge on the trips.
Then the pax low rates you because they had to wait 18 minutes.
 
#38 ·
You couldn't be any more WRONG. The other driver is a independent contractor with the RIGHT to choose the jobs he wants. Uber knocks themselves out to try and deprive you of that right by hiding the destination, hiding the pax name, and frequently even hiding their rating. It's just plain stupid to drive 20 minutes to a pax (then 20 minutes back to your home or the busy area) to give someone a 10 minute ride to earn $2.00. You should be embarrassed that you are so wrong. If I call and they claim a long ride and then I get there and find out it's a short trip, I will IMMEDIATELY kick their nasty, lying ass out of my car and not their name/location so I never pick them up again.
You earn $2 for a 10 minute ride? I think I see the problem. Still that would be $12 an hour, lots of people work harder for less.

Eventually Uber is just going to change the tech so you can't contact the rider until you are at the ping. Then what are you going to do, scream and stamp your feet? I heard there was a "Take Me Home" feature once that allowed you to get back to your regular area with a fare, and that would be very valuable to all of us, but it was abused and now it is no more. Don't be so greedy, take your fares and your luck will even out.
 
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