davie355

Last week I took several Uber rides in the Seattle and San Francisco areas. Three of my drivers neglected to start their "meter" until halfway through the trip.

I now have three receipts that show I was picked up in the middle of an interstate highway.

I feel remiss to cheat good people out of honest income, but otherwise no obligation to remind drivers to get paid. If I had a rude driver I would have been happy to stay silent, sit back, and enjoy a free ride.

Has this situation happened to you? What's your stance on the ethical issue? Would you go as far as to pay cash to make up the lost fare?

travelinmanS

Unless you really were picked up in the middle of the interstate then you should pay for your entire trip. To do otherwise is unethical and wrong. It's not like these guys are making millions.

squeakr

remind them. anything else is unethical.
and if you were in an uberx, heaven forbid you get in a bad accident and only the drivers personal insurance would cover you.

Eastbay1K

I had one driver "forget" to end my trip (and I called him several minutes later when he was a couple miles away, still on "my" ride) and another driver almost "forget " to end my trip until I reminded him before I left the car.

Driver one did some sort of manual over-ride of the fare and it ended up being a bit less than it originally should have (probably to avoid a later complaint).

I've never had a driver forget to start, and now I make sure the drivers don't forget to end.

davie355

When did it become a moral imperative to pay for others' mistakes?

zipo

Is there a way on the app to mark when you were picked up and when you were dropped off. this way incase someone "forgets" youll have proof?

CitizenWorld

I sure hope you're trolling there. It's like saying, "I know you didn't see that car coming but I have no moral imperative to tap you on the shoulder and stop you from becoming ketchup."

rjque

I've had this happen a couple of times in an Uber cab, where it is easy to notice. In those cases it was clear from the driver's reaction that he just forgot, and I asked him to add a couple of dollars to the final meter.

I've never had this happen in a regular Uber, and I think it would be more difficult to deal with there. The drivers can't alter the amount billed (at least, I don't think they can) and I sometimes don't carry cash when I'm taking Uber.

I've also had the situation happen where an Uber X driver kept the meter going for about a mile after he dropped me off. A quick e-mail to the company fixed the issue. In general, I don't take Uber X now because the drivers are not always very good and the quality of the car is often questionable.

gj83

If the driver forgets to start the ride it is on the driver. Uber (X and black) will not correct fares for our errors, but if a passenger emails to complain the route was long or the driver forgot to stop then Uber will adjust the fare.

There is a Fare Review button we can hit instead of going online after a ride and that can add tolls and such (no tolls here so I've never used that part) or to flag customers who are going to need to be charged cleaning fees, but we can't just add to the fare.

If the driver completely forgets what some do is to do the route backwards. I don't do that because then savvy customers may not understand what is going on but will notice they have not received a receipt yet.


Lyft, on the other hand, will always use the pick up point as the start of the ride so if the pickup point the passenger gives (due to bad GPS lock) is off the passenger will be charged more that they should.

davie355

Respectfully, this comparison is absurd.

A better analogy would be an hourly employee who neglects to submit a timesheet. That employee would not be paid -- and that would be fair.

Ber2dca

Honestly it probably would depend on whether I was happy with the driver. If he came across as a nice guy and did a good job, I'd probably remind him. If he's a grumpy S.o.B. who glared at me half the time I probably wouldn't.

emrdoc

I am not sure the feds would agree.

nonstarter

I had a driver forget to charge me and I later contacted uber to correct it. Easy enough.

sirdatary

Pretty sure you're right.

rosscali

A a novice UBER driver I can tell you that in the event the driver forgets to start the trip, he/she can complete the trip and then send a message to UBER support with the correct trip-start/trip-end location(s). Then I believe they contact the rider to confirm this before making a manual adjustment to the trip fee. Something else I've learned in two weeks of driving is the customer can change the trip destination once the trip has started, but the driver is unable to do so. (i.e. if you as a rider don't enter the trip destination for some reason, and want your driver to do it, and they make a mistake, they (the driver,) cannot change this, you might be able to.