I was on the street, not in a building. I don't think it was not a hard-to-find location, given that it is the global hq of a well-known consumer goods company. I did not contact the driver, but that was also the first time I had ever used Uber. I assumed that the driver would find me (2 other ubers came by and picked up other folks while I waited, so it's not as if I was hiding in some hard-to-find alleyway). The third guy had no issue finding me.

Meh maybe your driver was a scammer... Maybe he was a moron.

Uber is driven by the public and requested by the public.

Some drivers need to get off the road and some passengers are horrible human beings.

The only issue is you can't rate your scammer/idiot since the ride was cancelled.

The good news is that you can request Uber/Lyft to never match with the guy that cancelled.

This happened to me on Friday:

Ordered Uber while already at airport pickup spot.

Estimated time was 4 minutes (the distance from the lot the airport makes them wait in).

Put my phone in my bag.

Ride did not come after about 10 minutes so I looked at my phone and it still said 4 minutes. I also noticed 2 missed calls but did not recognize the number.

A few minutes later the guys pulls up and says he cancelled me as a no show because I did not answer. I said how can I be a no show when I am standing here the whole time? We argue, I tell him to get lost.

I try to order another one, and guess what? He is my only option as he is next in the queue.

I take a cab for double the cost and get hit with a $5 fee. He marked me as a no-show 2 minutes after I placed the order. This is BS.

I believe the reason he called is because he was shopping rides, because that happened before. My ride is a good one, but apparently they don't know that until they start the trip. This is an Uber problem.

So what options do you have if the person you don't want is next in the queue? I was going to e-mail Uber and ask them to block him but no way to e-mail? I'm an old fart and don't have a need for Twitter.

Uber said they would give me a credit.....which turned out to be a ride credit. I disputed with AX.

This happened to me twice in a row yesterday on Lyft - I requesteda ride, the car drives away from me, get assigned a new driver. That driver tries to call me and ask where I was going, then he drives away. The third driver eventually picks me up. I believe what happened is that I confirmed a non-surge fare while other services (Uber, Juno) were offering surges

Sorry - Uber drivers are professionals that drive based on rules and guidelines established by a large corporation. Riders are customers. Saying that both groups are simply “the public” is just a scheme for Uber to avoid regulation, offer poor customer service, treat their employees (drivers) unfairly, etc.

And the reason why these scam fees are so low is because when you dispute with Amex, they'll simply credit you instead of actually charging back the 5 bucks. You're made whole, Uber keeps the money, and Amex is the one that eats the 5 bucks. Uber knows this.

That is exactly what happened; they never even opened a dispute, they just credited me the $5

Hopefully AX will put the hammer down on scammer Uber at some point

You need to insist that Uber/Lyft remove it from your record or they won't hold it against the scammer.

Good luck with that. Lyft in my experience will give you a $5 credit because you are a "valued customer" and won't look into it at all. Uber will send you canned responses until you give up or get someone who actually wants to help.

When I complained to Lyft, the driver-cancel no longer appeared in my past ride history.

Had this experience in Boston today.

Instantly after I hit "request ride" I get a notification saying the driver has arrived, even though the car is 3-4 blocks from my hotel and doesn't move at all.

I let a minute pass, then I call the driver. Two rings, then voicemail.

I wait another minute and text the driver, "I'm out front of the XX hotel," no response.

I let a third minute elapse and see the driver still hasn't moved. I cancel. Bam, $5 fee, credited to my next ride when I submitted the form to request a review.

I've started getting into the habit of taking a screenshot once I am matched with a driver. Lyft doesn't take kindly to these scams, and armed with a screenshot, I can tweet them the screenshot and tell them what happened. The driver will be punished sooner or later. When I complain to Lyft, I stress the fact that they are wasting my time. Usually they're very apologetic and will refund any charges, and throw me a credit on my next ride as compensation.

Could you dispute it with your Credit Card? I once had a driver say that I took a trip that started and ended 10 miles from my house and only lasted 1 mile with a drop off at a freeway entrance. I reported this to Uber via the app and they gave me $20 credit plus reversed my charges.

It took all of 20 minutes to get this resolved.

If I don't see the car moving or I don't like the assigned driver (i.e. 2x farther than what was displayed prior to ordering) I simply hit cancel and switch to another provider. Or just order a new car. It's not worth the hassle of dealing with a cancel fee or waiting 10m for a car when the app suggested that there were cars within 2 minutes. I expect more people will be cancelling as long as these scams continue.

In the early days of ridesharing, in suburban areas I'd see cars sit at their origin for several minutes. If I had to guess, the cause was drivers waiting at home, getting into their cars only after receiving a ride request.