Categories: bangalore, transport

Uber – Safety Concerns & Support Issues

Note: This is just a rant, but I think there are some important safety considerations to keep in mind (and for Uber to ponder about) here. Read on if you have the time.

Let’s first begin with a question that I enjoyed asking, after repeatedly trying to highlight some issues and not getting the answers. You will probably enjoy reading the answer.

Arun
29 September 2017 at 16:05
To: Uber Support

Alright. Here is one more question. Since I am receiving the same copy-paste replies without addressing my problem or concern, I was wondering if these questions are answered by humans or robots? Would look forward to hearing on this.

And here is the response from Uber.

Hi Arun,

I’ve done complete research and can inform that the airport charges on your trip are correct.
Tolls, fees, and surcharges can apply in different situations, but are most common around bridge and tunnel crossings, highways, and airport. You can know more about tolls/airport fees here I was charged a toll, surcharge, or fee.

As the charges are correct for your trip, I’ll not be able to make any adjustments for your trip.
 
For further questions, please write to us and Uber will be glad to assist you.
 
Your understanding is highly appreciated.
 
Sent by <Uber Support Person> on Friday, September 29, 2017 at 10:59:35 AM

 

Now let’s get into the details.

On my many journeys to the airport and back in Bangalore, I was used to booking Uber for the journey. I once used the comfortable BMTC buses, but due to some logistical inconveniences with it, I got used to plying on Uber in the last year or two. Until a recent experience made me switch again for good.

It was a simple issue of double payments towards the toll (Rs.125), but the complete lack of support from Uber and their ignorance towards some safety concerns that I subsequently raised, made me stop using their services ever since. Here is what happened:

At the toll gate on the way back from airport, the driver asked me to pay the toll. This was a bit of surprise for me, as the toll is usually included in Uber’s bill. But I normally don’t question these things during the ride. I presumed that the rules may have changed recently, or perhaps the driver may have wanted an advance (My payment option was cash). So I paid the toll without further ado. When the ride ended, the driver presented me the full fare, which I paid again without questioning.

I checked the bill next morning and saw that the fare included the toll. I wrote to Uber, indicating that I had paid the toll and yet my bill included the toll, and asked them to credit the excess payment. Even when I emailed them, I was least concerned, as this has happened to me in the past and Uber was prompt to credit my account for the double payment.

But this time, I was in for a surprise. Uber not only did not credit my excess payment, their customer-service repeatedly sent me emails that did not exactly make a lot of sense to me. They not only did not clearly acknowledge the double payment initially, but their emails did not seem to address my concern. 

Essential parts of the email-exchange will follow. But this brought me to greater concerns that I wanted to see Uber addressing. When Uber support seemed to not answer some of my questions directly, I wanted to have a phone conversation. But Uber did not offer phone support, and it made me further concerned about potential concerns of safety in using Uber. I took this up over emails below, but most of my questions were ignored. The emails here below. Some repetitive back-and-forth emails that are not essential for this story have been omitted:

It all began with my support request on Uber website:

Toll Or Parking Location : Airport Road
Toll Or Parking Fee Amount : 125
How Much Did You Pay Your Driver For The Toll Or Parking Fee? : 125
Share Additional Details : I paid this toll

Sent by Arun on Thursday, September 14, 2017 at 9:03:27 PM

And here is the response from Uber

Hey Arun,

Thanks for reaching out. Anytime your driver goes through a toll or travels into an area with a surcharge, that amount will be added to the fare automatically. These tolls, fees, and surcharges are most common around bridge and tunnel crossings, highways, and airports. In this case, your driver may not necessarily have to pass and pay at a toll booth.

On reviewing your trip, I see that the toll/surcharge BLR Airport Toll (12:00 AM – 11:59 PM) is applicable as per the route taken, hence I can confirm that you have been charged correctly. The same was listed in your trip receipt as well.
 
Hope this helps!

The response was prompt, efficient, and did not resolve my problem!

It was a while since I had had to connect with Uber support, and earlier, I was used to seeing my issues being resolved quickly. This was a surprise. And I did not know this was going to drag for a long time. My subsequent responses:

This was included in the price until recently and the driver used to pay this amount. Is there a change in the way this is done?

Sent by Arun B. on Thursday, September 14, 2017 at 9:19:29 PM

 

Also, my receipt says: toll, surcharges and fees – Rs. 284. Can you break this down into details? I paid the driver Rs. 860 and in addition I also paid the toll of Rs. 125 separately at the toll gate. My total spend is 860+125. I think Rs. 125 is to be paid by the driver at the toll gate but he asked me to pay it!

Sent by Arun B. on Thursday, September 14, 2017 at 9:23:54 PM

The response from Uber below. It did not appear that they were interested in looking at the double payment at all.

Hi Arun,

Happy to explain. Generally, anytime your driver goes through a toll or travels into an area with a surcharge, that amount will be added to the fare.

During airport rides to [mention the City] Airport, [pickup/drop], a Airport Convenience Fee (12:00 AM – 11:59 PM) of INR 125.00 is applicable. This fee includes the parking fee, CESS fees and other relative taxes that need to be paid to the Airport.

The driver partner needs to pay this in order to provide service to/from the Airport hence, we have a flat rate which is applied on the trip fare. Since, this is the same for all the riders, unfortunately, we cannot make any exceptions for this.

Please understand that this charge is solely compensate the driver-partner to make sure that his economics is not affected.

Hope this clarifies your concern.

Normally, I stop at this point and not bother to use the service provider again. It wasn’t much money to pursue further and was a waste my time. But looks like my ego came in the way and I had to keep at it! It particularly hurt me with the part of the message that said: we cannot make any exceptions for this”Whoa! If you haven’t already noticed it, go back and see how the support person did not even take enough time replace  [mention the City] & [pickup/drop]  in the above email! Clearly, Uber support staff did not even consider replacing the name of the city in their canned replies!

The conversation continued. Here is what I replied:

I’m not sure if you have tried to understand my issue. Please go through the issue on double payment I mentioned again.

1. I paid the toll to the toll collector at the toll booth.

2. The toll was also included in my bill. So I paid the full fare to your driver which included a toll component. So I paid toll twice. I need this refunded.

If you don’t understand any of what I said, let’s please have a call where I can explain. I think you understand that it would be painful to keep repeating the same story here. Would one of you wise guys resolve the double payment issue, or if you think I have difficulty understanding you, can someone speak to me and explain? I understand if you are no further bothered and send canned replies that have things like [city] not replaced in the response. Just say that you are not interested in handling this any more and I’ll just move on to find my other options and not bother you anymore!

Sent by Arun B. on Saturday, September 16, 2017 at 4:45:28 PM

 

Response to this, is where things turned bad! Uber was bold enough to indicate that the money I paid to the driver is my problem and Uber has nothing to do with it. Read below.

Hi Arun,

Happy to explain. Generally, anytime your driver goes through a toll or travels into an area with a surcharge, that amount will be added to the fare.

During airport rides to Bangalore Airport pickup, an Airport Convenience Fee (12:00 AM – 11:59 PM) of INR 125.00 is applicable. This fee includes the parking fee, CESS fees and other relative taxes that need to be paid to the Airport.

Please understand that this charge is solely compensated the driver-partner to make sure that his economics is not affected.

Unfortunately, any amount that is paid above the trip fare is considered an exchange outside the Uber system and so, we’ll not be able to make a refund in this case.

I understand that you would like to speak on the phone about this concern. Though we don’t currently provide phone service, I’ll be happy to work with you via email to fully resolve your issue as quickly as possible.

I request you to please share the details via email for me to be able to help you this will also ensure that the right team gets in touch with you for the resolution.

Hope this clarifies your concern.

Appreciate your understanding.

This is where I felt some concerns for safety of the passenger. If I had refused to pay the toll when asked by the driver, it could lead to a potential altercation with the driver. I think we all agree that at times these things may even turn violent. The other option would be to call Uber to resolve this. But Uber doesn’t provide a way to reach them. If a passenger ends up with some kind of an altercation with the driver, the above response seemed to indicate that Uber will not take any responsibility and never bother about it. 

It is time to remember from the past: severe safety concerns were raised with Uber in an incidence of serious crime associate with an Uber driver in 2014 (See http://bit.ly/2AaGriH – Indian Express). 

I decided to extend this further and question Uber about my concerns of safety riding with them. I also decided it may be a good time to work on a story for this blog, considering that I am spending so much time on this. It was no more about the Rs.125 that I believe needs to be returned to me.

Hello,

I have studied your response carefully and it looks like this is turning out to be an interesting story. Based on your response, and especially in concern with the statement mentioned in quote below, I would like Uber’s views and response regarding a few questions I have.

The statement in question: “Unfortunately, any amount that is paid above the trip fare is considered an exchange outside the Uber system and so, we’ll not be able to make a refund in this case.”.

With reference to this, I have the following questions. Kindly state your response to these. For your reference I have also attached a copy of toll-receipt, which was paid by me.

1. I presume that you acknowledge that the toll is included in the fare (Rs.860). This has been acknowledged by you already. I also presume that the driver is aware that the toll is included in the fare. In the event the driver is not informed by you that the toll is included in the fare, please state so. If the driver is informed by you that the toll is included in the final fare presented to the customer, please state so. Kindly let me know which is the case.
 
2. In the event that the driver is aware that the toll is included in the fare, and still asks the customer to pay the toll, this indicates that the customer has paid the toll twice, which should not to be the case. Do you acknowledge this? Please let me know a yes or no, with any substantiation if you want to add.

3. In addition, assuming that the driver is aware that the toll is part of the fare, and still asks the customer to pay at the toll gate, I would like to understand how Uber expects that customer to handle this situation. A possibility is that the customer can refuse the payment. This may also result in an altercation, potentially compromising the safety of the customer.
 
From your statement above, I understand that Uber doesn’t acknowledge to take any initiative or responsibility if the driver demands money that shouldn’t be demanded from the customer. Can you please acknowledge this? And also, can you please state what is Uber’s stand in protecting the customers (a) money AND (b) safety in such situations.
 
Your response would be helpful in better understanding your stand in such (and similar) situations. My refund claim itself, we can look at it later after knowing your response on the above situation.
 
Also please note: since you do not provide any phone support, I recommend that you respond to this email in detail and with full clarity without leaving room for assumptions. As email communications aren’t simple for getting clarifications and counter-questions, a detailed response will help me make a clear understanding and work on this further. In addition to the above, also kindly answer to the question below: Your support is signed with the following footer: Uber B.V. Vijzelstraat 68, 1017 HL Amsterdam, Nederland Kindly let us know if Uber Support is provided by Uber in India, or all communications with Uber and customers is handled by an entity in Netherlands.
 
Thanks, Arun

Sent by Arun B. on Monday, September 25, 2017 at 12:38:46 PM

It is at this point that all the responses from Uber became just repetition of old statements, and none of the issues that I raised here were responded to. Their answer, below, simply ignored most of my concerns on safety

Instead, it even had strange references to the possibility of the driver paying the toll I not having seen it! 

Hi Arun,

Thanks for writing in. Totally understand your concern here!

I’ve verified that the charge of INR 125.00 was correctly charged on your trip. The charge is applicable to pick ups and drop offs

The toll paid and it shows up on your Uber receipt, rest assured – all fees applied are valid. In certain cases, these charges are directly paid to the airport authorities.

Also, if you don’t see your driver paying the toll he may have paid the toll before picking you up. Only on provision of a receipt on their end, do we make their payments. Please do not worry, you’ve been fairly charged and the toll will be promptly paid for.

Hope this helps. See you in an Uber soon.

I followed up again, hoping to get answers on 26th, 27th and 29th September, and again on 1st and 6th October, repeating and reiterating the same questions. I also clearly stated that I am working on a story and your answers may go into the story. Yet, the responses were just reiteration of the same above statements or something similar. My safety concerns were never addressed and were completely ignored.

The responses, it also appeared to me, often did not even tally with my request. For example, one of the responses said: 

Hi Arun,

At Uber, we aim to provide a seamless service to our riders. Unfortunately, this does not seem to be the case here and I’m sorry to have heard about your experience on this trip.

I completely understand your frustration and if it were me, I would not have felt any different.

Always know, your feedback is really important and we are here to ensure that we resolve every issue you encounter. We ensure that with every concern raised to us, improvements are being made to better the rider experience.

Rest assured, your feedback has been recorded.

As always, please feel free to let us know if you have any further queries and we’d be glad to assist you.

I finally ran out of patience and quit this communication game. And needless to say, my days of using Uber for commuting to airport were over. This is a  superbly generic response that can be used for practically any complaints or queries without ever addressing the problem!

At some point in time, such non-relevant responses were all that I was receiving for my questions and I had another doubt. This is where the ‘robot question’ that I mentioned in the first place came into picture.

More on Uber and Safety

I did not really encounter a safety issue while on an Uber so far, but was concerned about a genuine possibility of running into problems, and was trying to understand how Uber would respond in such case. Perhaps I was becoming more aware of them; but between the time this exchange happened and now, I saw several more people having run into genuine safety issues when booked on Uber. 

 

And then there was another incident with Uber at Hyderabad.

What is concerning here is not just the incidences of violence, but also how Uber responded to it. If Uber SOS says ‘we can’t help, call the police’, it is certainly something to ponder about. 

My conclusions

It concerns me that Uber doesn’t have a way to reach out them immediately in case something needs to be resolved on the road. In addition, the kind of customer service I experienced in the above situation doesn’t warrant much trust.

I am no longer using Uber for my frequent airport trips. I have found a better, cheaper and very helpful service from home to airport. On the way back, I have returned to using BMTC buses. I am still using Uber occasionally for some short-distance travel, only when they are the last available option. Hopefully, I can stop using them altogether.

At global level too, recent incidences about how Uber has been in news, including paying hackers to bury a data breach incidence doesn’t instill much confidence in the company.

Unless Uber does something significant to reinstate the trust, they will not be among my first options as a means of commute in the city. 

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