You'd think they'd do that because it makes sense. I had a driver drive away from me after I requested a ride. The idiot accepted again after I cancelled and re-requested. I sent Uber a complaint, and a rep responded with broken English (Are they outsourcing their customer service now?). I responded saying that I have three choices in rideshare services in Boston, and that I really wanted to use Uber, but Uber has essentially forced me to use one of their competitors due to their terrible service. They basically gave me a credit to get me to go away.

I have not had such luck with Lyft. They don't respond to emails or messages, but will only respond on social media in exchange for posting my email address publicly to "look into my account." Afterwards, they gave me a credit to get me to go away and hope that they don't lose me as a customer.

These companies genuinely do not care, but they're still better than the cabbies around here though.

Yes. Uber's 1st tier customer service is all Manila based.

I was a victim of a no-show scam today. Driver suddenly stops moving on the map about 1/2 block away from the pickup point. He calls me and I tell him where I am. The map doesn't move, and suddenly he cancels me. Of course I get dinged with the no-show fee which at first CS tried to not refund. Finally they refunded it, but getting sick and tired of these scammy Uber drivers.
Cheers
Howie

I haven't been taking Uber lately, since Lyft often has the lower fare (since Uber raised their fees) although the cancellation fee was a problem for both platforms. (Also because Uber rides stopped earning ThanksAgain points for me after 1/31) Recently, Lyft has been better; with the app and customer service being more proactive. Here were my experiences.

1. Driver didn't bother to drive around the lagoon at MIA to pick me up at the Hilton. He simply hit the pick-up button, then hit drop-off right away. Gave me the perfect opportunity to give the guy one star. Lyft called me right away and told me that I will be refunded ASAP (apparently the up-front fares charge the amount on the screen regardless of what happens on the ride). I'm sure the trip time of 0:00 was raised a flag on their end.

2. Driver was absolutely terrible at navigating. She missed a couple turns, took a couple wrong turns, then when she pulled into the island where the MIA Hilton is located, she drove around the parking lot, and then left without coming to pick me up. At this point, it was more than 5 minutes, so when I cancelled (I didn't think that this driver would have been safe to ride with anyway) I was dinged the $5 cancellation fee. I contacted them about it, and the automated system simply credited me $5 towards my next ride without human intervention needed.

3. I requested a ride to my residence, and was matched with a driver making a drop-off nearby. He decided that he was "here" when he was one street over, so I cancelled on him (I'm sure he didn't want the ride anyway). No cancellation fee although I think the 5 minutes didn't start counting until after he dropped off the other person.

4. This past Wednesday, the day after the snow storm, I requested a ride. The driver made a bunch of wrong turns, and said he was "here" when he wasn't. Eventually the guy called me and I told him where I was. I live on a dead end street on a hill, and it was iced over and had snow banks. He didn't feel comfortable trying to drive up the hill, and I didn't feel brave enough to walk downhill on ice to go meet him, so I cancelled. This was well beyond the 5-minute mark (he took about 20 minutes to arrive even though the app said 7 minutes) and Lyft never charged me any sort of cancellation fee. I'd like to assume that Lyft took the road conditions into account and suspended the cancellation fees (or at least covered them in situations like this)

It is possible your driver was not lazy but was not at the airport. EWR requires drivers to be on property so some use root to spoof their GPS with a hot spot on property while they drive around hoping to get other fares in Newark.

I don't use Uber much, but did recently at SEA. First driver was within about 2 minutes of arriving, then cancelled. Later received an email that I'd been charged $5. Disputed online and got a $5 future credit, but I wanted my $5 fully refunded. Went through several back and forth's with the email customer service folks, with no luck. In fact, they were very snippy in their responses.

Escalated by DM'ing them on Twitter, and my $5 was eventually refunded.

I once had a driver with a sub-2 rating accept my ride. Then, his car never moved for more than 10 min. Eventually I cancelled and was charged a cancellation fee. I requested the fee back, obviously. Must be nice to just sit in your car and collect $5 cancellation fees.

Good grief... I drive and I ride and I recognize that Uber/Lyft makes a point to separate the driver from the rider so there are pieces to the puzzle that you guys/gals are missing.

That said for every 5 scamming drivers out of 100 you post about the driver get 10 times as many passenger scams.

People are greedy and deceitful and it goes both ways. Oh and the same crappy customer service the drivers get too when complaining about pax.

1. Driver is driving towards pax and gets cancelled on: $5
Too often there would be bad traffic or a distant driver was the only one willing to accept the trip. Next thing you know the pax cancels after wasting time and gas. If a driver heads towards you for 5 mins and then you cancel there is a fee. This feature was needed for the drivers but it can be abused.

Solution: Look at your phone if the driver doesn't move or takes odd routes without contact just cancel before 5 mins. If 5 mins pass screen shot your phone showing that the driver is not where you are and send that to customer service.

2. Driver stopped somewhere and then cancelled: $5 fee
Again to often a pax would type Hilton hotel and click on the first Hilton that comes up. In major cities there can be 3 or 4 Hilton hotels with 5 miles of each other. Also after choosing your location sometimes when you put your phone in your pocket your butt/thigh will move the pin. Driver arrives, waits, cancels, fee ensues.

Solution: Verify that the pin is where you are; don't be afraid to contact the driver. Do not text unless it is simple instructions like the gate code when the driver is near the gate. Drivers love pax who contact and if a mistake happens no worries just contact the driver before his/her time and money is wasted.

3. Driver gets really close, drivers aimlessly, cancels: $5 fee
Ok so when this one is not a scam there are many things that might have happened. First Uber/Lyft will automatically say the driver arrived when he/she arrives at the street address for a large complex or building. If your hotel is a resort inside of 123 Paradise Lane the clock starts automatically even if you're inside on 1423 Pretty Water Rd. Sometimes there's a code; sometimes Google/Waze doesn't know the address inside of the complex. This is SO IMPORTANT: make sure your telephone number on your account matches the phone you made the request with. If a driver calls and calls with no answer after 5 mins 1 sec. that driver is on to the next passenger leaving you with the cancel fee because time is money.

Solution: Keep your phone up to date, contact the driver if things seem off, answer that weird number that calls as soon as you request a car (it's your driver being call forwarded by Uber/Lyft).

Thankfully things have improved, at least on Lyft. Lyft (not sure about Uber) will auto-cancel rides on drivers who either take too long or drive away at no penalty to the rider, and will also automatically ping another driver. I've also haven't had very many (that stick out) unsatisfactory or bad rides in a while (I commute using Lyft) so it seems that Lyft has been doing a decent job weeding out those who don't make the cut.

This is very good advice. I've actually been doing this the entire time, but sometimes I feel guilty about canceling at 4:50 just in case the GPS location on their vehicle is not displayed correctly on my end. The caveat with canceling and re-requesting is that Lyft will sometimes match you up with the same driver, or surge/prime time may be in effect or has increased since the first request.

Today, across from St Pancras/KingsX in London in front of a Burger King --which I hadn't noticed until Uber correctly pointed out where I was -- I ordered an Uber. Minutes after the driver was supposed to show, the driver canceled without ever appearing.

Result was surprising to me (but not to others on this thread, obviously), I got a GBP5 cancellation fee.

When I complained on the Uber app later on, it gave me back the GBP5, but as a credit on a future ride. I won't need Uber on this trip and don't know when I will ever want them again in the UK. Guess all I can do is object to my credit card issuer.

I had a new one this week.

Got a call from a driver last night telling me he was outside my building waiting for me. Which was odd, because I hadn't ordered a car and was not even in town.

He canceled the ride and I was charged a $10 cancellation fee.

What was weirder--the receipt I got showed that the ride had been requested at 10:42 a.m. on Sunday and canceled at 9:15 p.m. on Sunday. Yet the driver showed up for the pickup on Tuesday evening and no one thought anything of it??

I spent a very frustrating morning going back and forth with their customer support people (who delivered the same boilerplate responses again and again and could not seem to understand the difference between "Sunday" and "Tuesday") to try to get a resolution. I finally complained on social media and the cancellation charge miraculously disappeared.

I spent the last couple months in Southeast Asia, and the issues with Uber drivers who no-show abound. I'd say a good third of my Uber drivers (mostly in Indonesia, but also Malaysia and once even in Singapore) accept, then never move (or sometimes drive away from me). On occasion, they even send me a text that says "ok." I then wait, nothing happens, and when I cancel (usually past 5 minutes) I'm charged a cancellation fee. When I start another request, often the same driver accepts again. I'm not sure if this is an organized scam, but it sure is annoying. The cancellation fee is IDR 10k (around 65 cents), which barely seems worth it for a scammer, but I guess if you can sit at home and collet 10 of these per day, you're making more than the average Indonesian.

My very first attempt at using Uber a couple/few years ago was not a good one.

Driver accepted a ride in the LA area, drove around/past my location twice, then cancelled. I argued with CS over several emails, but they wouldn't budge on not refunding me, only providing me with a credit for the $5 charge b/c driver apparently indicated I was a no-show.

When I re-requested, it was accepted and then promptly driver-cancelled a minute later.

Third try, surge was in effect (surprise, surprise). Third driver actually picked me up and took me back to my hotel.

Whole experience left a sour taste in my mouth. Between that and the cultural issues, privacy violations, etc. at Uber, I've been a Lyft user, only opting for Uber when Lyft is not available.

Did you ever attempt to contact the driver?

Uber is used by the public and driven by the public... Also not every cell phone is the same with the same settings.

I turn fine location off and opp to only use GPS to set my location.

Were you in a hard to find spot? Did you initially request on the street or were you up in a building? (that can cause your location to be spoofed somewhere else)

Moral of the story boys and girls: Contact your driver!!!

Okay so all of your issues are pretty straight forward...

Your "driver" showing up on Tuesday even though the ride was requested and cancelled on a Sunday was a glitch.

In-app complaints go out of the country and if you can not clearly explain your issue using no American idioms and using words that would connect with a ESOL person you will be out of luck with your issue.

Driver issues with passengers go to the same clearing houses and the results are comical at best.

Lastly, the social media pages are of course manned by Americans or at the very least more modern, savvy, and better English speakers.

I'm not advocating going to social media because all of your business will be on front street. Instead use it as a last resort after asking the in-app CSR to escalate your unresolved issue.

Usually middle management can better understand issues.