Uber driver teaches rude customer respect by making him pay for ride twice.
'Are you going to keep talking, or are you going to do what I'm asking you to do?'
I drive for Uber in the Dallas area and have done so for about 7½ years. I accepted a reservation on the app for a trip from Royce City, TX [East of Dallas] to the Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport [about 60m or 100km] for 4:30 AM the following day.
My payout was $58 and some change, so reasonably good trip. I arrived 20 minutes early, and at 4:35 AM, the rider called because he needed more time to get ready. I said no worries. I would wait as long as he needed.
But then he wanted me to cancel the trip. His reason? He didn't want to pay for the waiting time or the cancellation fee. His 'logic' was that when he was ready, he would reorder the ride, and since I would be there already, I could accept the trip, and all would be well.
Yeah, not quite. Uber has a policy that if a driver is at the pickup location for a reservation on time and the ride is canceled for any reason by either the driver or the rider, the rider still pays for the whole trip, not just a $5 cancellation fee.
I tried to explain it to the rider, and he cut me off rudely and asked, 'Are you going to do this for me? If not, you can piss off, and I will arrange the ride without you.' I went into humble contrite mode while apologizing and asking his forgiveness for my presumptuousness.
I told him that I would undoubtedly cancel the trip and it would be no problem for me to wait the 30-45 minutes he required. As I was about halfway to East Jesus, TX, there was zero chance I would get another ride request in that time.
That's where the malicious compliance kicked in. Oh, I canceled the trip just as he demanded. Marked it as a 'no show.' He paid Uber twice, and I got paid twice for the trip. Wonder how long it took for him to realize it. The poor b%stard even tipped me after he got to the airport.
Here are some of the top comments from the post:
virtual_gnus says:
Yeah, you earned that tip by having to put up with him! I dislike Uber's (and Lyft's and DoorDash's, etc) business models, but if I were in this situation, I'd suck up the fact that I'm going to pay more than I originally planned.
FloatingFreeMe says:
Not particularly related, but I hate it when there’s a wait for a ride, and about eight minutes before a fifteen-minute pickup, the DRIVER cancels. So I have to order another one, and I’m now behind schedule.
Plagiatus says:
$58 for a 100km trip? That's a good one? Last time I needed a taxi to the airport at 4 am I paid 50€ for a 23km ride. How big is Ubers cut?
Is this take home pay or do you still need to pay gas and maintenance from this? I guess I see now why Uber can be so cheap... (And why it was outlawed/couldn't operate on the American model in most European countries)
What do you think? Was OP right to cancel the trip and make the rider pay twice, or should they have tried harder to explain?