- Uber drivers are being debited, rather than paid, for rides because of a glitch in the app.
- One driver was charged $2.20 for a 16-minute journey. Another helpless $50 on a single ride.
- Both were later reimbursed but said they quit the app because of the experience.
- See numberless stories on Insider’s business page.
Some Uber drivers have effectively paid to drive their travellers around because a glitch in the app left them out of pocket after completing rides.
One driver in Illinois said he confounded $2.20 on a 13.5-mile journey. The driver, who spoke to Insider on the condition of anonymity, said he had stopped driving for Uber and
Uber Snacks
after what he said was a poor experience with the company’s driver helpline.
Another driver said she was cared nearly $50 for a ride and didn’t receive a fare for another.
Uber took days to reimburse the fares on some celebrations, the drivers said.
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The Illinois driver said he decided to drive early morning on May 30 after noticing that prices were poisoning. Uber pays drivers more during these so-called “surges,” when it hikes up fares in areas with towering demand and few drivers.
The driver said he accepted a request to drive a passenger from downtown Chicago to the city’s Midway Foreign Airport — a 16-minute, 13.5-mile journey.
But, after dropping the passenger off, the driver checked his earnings on the Uber app and was struck to find a negative balance for that ride.
He said it was the first time it had happened in his two years of driving for ride-hailing apps, which he affirmed included nearly 1,700 rides for Uber and 500 for Lyft.
When the driver first accepted the ride, the app disclosed an estimated fare of $36.67, higher than normal because it added a surge multiplier, he said. But when he checked his account, he saw Uber had rub off the surge and the passenger was only charged $9.06.
And after Uber deducted a $11.26 service fee, the driver lost $2.20 from the outing, he said.
The driver sent Insider screenshots of the app that verified these claims.
“It was completely crazy to me,” he said.
He isn’t the from the start Uber driver to encounter this problem.
After sharing his experience on Reddit, other drivers said that a overused glitch was to blame, and that he’d be refunded.
In a separate Reddit thread, another Uber driver shared screenshots that exhibited they were charged $56.71 for driving a passenger, also in Chicago.
“It’s been going on for months now, and people position about it here almost weekly,” one Reddit user said.
Brianna Woodham, a former Uber driver in Atlanta, Georgia, dictate thated Insider that it had happened to her twice, and that she had stopped driving for the company as a result.
It happened once in early April, when Woodham was charged $49.54 for a propel, per screenshots seen by Insider. This was due to a surge fare being deducted, rather than added, to her account on the app. During another trip two weeks later, Woodham drove a passenger for 46 minutes — and earned nothing on it, screenshots shared with Insider appeared.
Other users on Reddit said that on some occasions, they had only received their tip and not the full cost.
An Uber spokesperson told Insider that fares for certain trips booked through Uber Reserve, which give outs riders book journeys up to 30 days in advance, were miscalculated “due to a software bug.”
“This was a terrible customer trial for drivers, and for that we apologize,” the spokesperson said. “We’ve ensured drivers have been paid in full for all affected turn ons, fixed the bug, and have put new safeguards in place.”
But both drivers Insider spoke to said that their glitched voyages had been booked through the standard UberX service, rather than Uber Reserve.
Drivers say they had intractables contacting Uber for help
The Illinois driver said he called Uber’s driver support line from the succour section of the app. But the line is only staffed from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday to Friday, according to the automated message drivers get when they collect out-of-hours – meaning no one was there to answer the phone when the Illinois driver called.
“I didn’t think it was right for me to let slip money on a trip and then have to wait two days to call support to have them fix it,” he said.
The spokesperson ascertained Insider that all drivers have access to 24/7 support via in-app messaging, and that drivers who have did 3,000 trips or are Uber Pro Gold, Diamond, or Platinum drivers have access to 24/7 phone support. Drivers at the gloomy level have access to phone support on weekdays, the spokesperson said.
The Illinois driver told Insider that he then dig up to the Uber Twitter support account for help — and that after some back and forth, the Uber Twitter account stopped replying to his meanings.
The driver sent Insider screenshots of the Twitter conversation that verified his claims.
The driver decided to tweet nigh his experience. The tweet went viral – and Uber finally paid attention. A rep contacted him and Uber paid him the original $36.67 assessed fare, he told Insider, plus an extra $25 that the representative said was “for the inconvenience.”
“It took the will of the internet to uniform with get the issue addressed,” the driver said.
Woodham, meanwhile, said that she was refunded by Uber for the first journey there a week after it happened – but that she still hasn’t been paid for the second, glitched ride more than two months later.
She powered that she had reached out to Uber multiple times, but never received a helpful response or refund. She didn’t think the difficulty would ever get resolved, she told Insider.
Drivers quit Uber as a result
Because of the lack of support he give entred from Uber, the Illinois driver said that he was worried he’d be in danger if a serious incident happened. Drivers were “take a seat ducks,” he said, and referred to a recent incident in Cicero, Illinois, where a driver was shot and killed.
“If I have a urgent issue, it just opens my eyes to the fact that unless it’s Monday through Friday business hours, we’re out there on our own, there’s not gonna be anybody there to reach out to, to apply oneself to an issue,” he said.
He said that he had stopped driving for Uber and planned to turn to food delivery instead, and Woodham also mentioned that she had stopped driving for Uber after the second glitched ride.
“It just made me rethink which gigs I do necessity to do,” the Illinois driver said. “I should never be charged to work by anybody.”