Aug 25, 2016

One for UBER

Taken from Google.com
Yesterday I had to run an errand. My dear friend Shimmy Gin is getting married and I had to get them a wedding present (which had been hinted to me quite a couple of times). The store where they had their Wedding List (or how are these things called???) was relatively close to my work, but not so close as for me to go there walking (I could, but really, that would have easily taken 45 minutes in each way to get there), so the sensible thing to do was to go there either by taxi or by UBER. I've been using UBER for quite a while now and have been very satisfied with the service. So, yes, I ordered a driver from UBER. Now, normally you don't need to mark into the app the pick up point (unless you want another) because the system knows where you are. So I entered the destination and requested the car. One was assigned, I went out of the building... and waited. There car was supposed to be there but it wasn't. Oddly the driver didn't call me. They usually do, when they arrive or are close to. This didn't and I had no way to contact him.

Then he called me and told me he was there, in an alley. There are no alleys here. I told him I was in front of the building, so supposedly he drove there but I didn't see him. It turns out he was at some other place. Ok. There is a park in front of my building, and the driver said he was at the other end of the park, that I must have typed down the address wrong. I didn't. Furthermore, he wasn't going to get around the park and come and pick me up. Unheard of. He asked me to cancel the trip. I tried to but the system wasn't letting me. Then I received an SMS from UBER telling me the driver cancelled my trip. Ok, that was unpleasant. I took a cab, went to get the present and on the way back I ordered an UBER, which came quickly to pick me up, and took me without any problems back to the building.

THEN I check my e-mails and there's a charge from UBER because I cancelled a trip 5 minutes into it. REALLY???? I tried to get in contact with them, but my app doesn't have the "Help" button the e-mail talks about, and the link to the site gave me no way to contact the company either. I got so mad, like you have no idea. Well, maybe you do. So I went on Twitter and ranted their heads off. A couple of hours later they replied, though I saw their replies only today. They got in contact with me, gave me an e-mail, I sent my complaint and they fixed it. They fixed it.

Yesterday I was so upset and was about to close my account, but today they solved it. It's still bad that they offer solutions that are not appliable. My phone is a Microsoft Lumia, and runs Android (as fas as I know), and if there is some particular problem with that... well, it's UBER's problem, not mine. The help site was also very unfriendly and sent me to those oh-so-Microsoft kind of pages where you are cut from anyway to place a complaint, but make you click through a list of "problems", none of which actually fit your problem, only to lead you to a dead end of "replies" that don't really do anything for you. That should be fixed as well.

I had to scream on Twitter to get attention, but once I grabbed hold of their attention, things went well. I just don't want to keep screaming my digital lungs out everytime I get wronged. They need to improve that.

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