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My pet peeve: If you add a credit card to the Uber app there is no way to remove it without replacing it with another valid payment method. If you google soluti

My pet peeve: If you add a credit card to the Uber app there is no way to remove it without replacing it with another valid payment method. If you google solutions to this you get third party recommendations to plead with their customer service to have it removed. Seriously? This customer-hostile approach really needs to be killed.

Animats 10y ago
Use 1111 2222 3333 4444, the credit card test number. This is valid at the check digit level, but known to all banks as a test number to be rejected.
- johansch 10y ago
  Thanks for the tip, that may be useful in the future! I ended up using my bank's "virtual credit card" service to create a virtual CC with a balance of 1 SEK to get rid of my Uber account. Anyway, I think this is shameful of them. I would be ashamed of this practice if I worked for them. There is no excuse. You can't blindly blame it on A/B evaluations and what ended up making the company the most money. It's simply unethical.
  - ryandrake 10y ago
    > I would be ashamed of this practice if I worked for them. There's no shame because there are no consequences. "Oh, you were the guy at Company X that wrote that annoying Dark Pattern Y, huh? Can you walk me through the ethics of that?" - Said no interviewer ever.
    - johansch 10y ago
      I was just discussing this with a former co-worker. [Here in Europe.] Also: I'm pretty certain that if you had a history of using dark patterns.. that would be seen as basically fraudulent behavior here. Investors would stay far away. We both shared our distaste for a typical american way of accomplishing personal financial success - fake it til you make it, etc etc. Maybe this is a part of what sets SV apart from Europe - and why SV keeps winning :). Fraud works.
      - kps 10y ago
        cough Volkswagen cough
        johansch 10y ago
        Sneaky germans.
- eric_h 10y ago
  I suspect there are many interfaces that would reject this number, as it's not a visa, master card or amex (which start with a 4, 5 and 3 respectively). 5105105105105100 and 4111111111111111 might be better alternatives (other test numbers that also pass the luhn check).
  - kagamine 10y ago
    And when using email addresses to test your software always use [something]@test.com instead of [whatevs]@example.com because the people at test.com love getting your random test data. /sarcasm Don't do this. http://contactx.test.com/contactX/contact-spam.cfm http://contactx.test.com/contactX/contact-spam.cfm
angry-hacker 10y ago
Is this even legal? I'm in EU and I was able to remove my credit card. Maybe it's an American thing?
- johansch 10y ago
  I'm in the EU and I was not able to remove before doing that trick with a virtual CC. What country are you in? (I'm in Sweden.) It's quite possible that officials/bank people in your country made noises about this and they white-listed this particular country.
  - angry-hacker 10y ago
    From Spain but when I did remove it I was physically in the U.K if it makes any difference. Although, if I think of it, I have also PayPal tied (but you can cancel that from their interface). Maybe Uber thinks I do have a payment method and they don't know I'm not allowing the charge from my PayPal anymore.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
nodesocket 10y ago
This might seem obvious, but why do you want to have an Uber account with no credit card attached? Usually SaaS require you to have a valid credit card attached always. I don't see the issue.
dgudkov 10y ago
You can modify your billing address to some nonsense. Payments shouldn't go through with a wrong billing address (although, I never tried it).
- johansch 10y ago
  Really, I would be equally happy to have them remove my Uber account altogether. Except it's equally cumbersome and non-obvious. There are no immediate actions to do it from within the App or the website: http://www.wikihow.com/Cancel-an-Uber-Account http://www.wikihow.com/Cancel-an-Uber-Account
ionised 10y ago
PayPal does this too last time I checked (admittedly about a year ago). It is frustrating as fuck.

Animats 10y ago

Use 1111 2222 3333 4444, the credit card test number. This is valid at the check digit level, but known to all banks as a test number to be rejected.

johansch 10y ago
Thanks for the tip, that may be useful in the future! I ended up using my bank's "virtual credit card" service to create a virtual CC with a balance of 1 SEK to get rid of my Uber account. Anyway, I think this is shameful of them. I would be ashamed of this practice if I worked for them. There is no excuse. You can't blindly blame it on A/B evaluations and what ended up making the company the most money. It's simply unethical.
- ryandrake 10y ago
  > I would be ashamed of this practice if I worked for them. There's no shame because there are no consequences. "Oh, you were the guy at Company X that wrote that annoying Dark Pattern Y, huh? Can you walk me through the ethics of that?" - Said no interviewer ever.
  - johansch 10y ago
    I was just discussing this with a former co-worker. [Here in Europe.] Also: I'm pretty certain that if you had a history of using dark patterns.. that would be seen as basically fraudulent behavior here. Investors would stay far away. We both shared our distaste for a typical american way of accomplishing personal financial success - fake it til you make it, etc etc. Maybe this is a part of what sets SV apart from Europe - and why SV keeps winning :). Fraud works.
    - kps 10y ago
      cough Volkswagen cough
      - johansch 10y ago
        Sneaky germans.
eric_h 10y ago
I suspect there are many interfaces that would reject this number, as it's not a visa, master card or amex (which start with a 4, 5 and 3 respectively). 5105105105105100 and 4111111111111111 might be better alternatives (other test numbers that also pass the luhn check).
- kagamine 10y ago
  And when using email addresses to test your software always use [something]@test.com instead of [whatevs]@example.com because the people at test.com love getting your random test data. /sarcasm Don't do this. http://contactx.test.com/contactX/contact-spam.cfm http://contactx.test.com/contactX/contact-spam.cfm

angry-hacker 10y ago

Is this even legal? I'm in EU and I was able to remove my credit card. Maybe it's an American thing?

johansch 10y ago
I'm in the EU and I was not able to remove before doing that trick with a virtual CC. What country are you in? (I'm in Sweden.) It's quite possible that officials/bank people in your country made noises about this and they white-listed this particular country.
- angry-hacker 10y ago
  From Spain but when I did remove it I was physically in the U.K if it makes any difference. Although, if I think of it, I have also PayPal tied (but you can cancel that from their interface). Maybe Uber thinks I do have a payment method and they don't know I'm not allowing the charge from my PayPal anymore.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]

nodesocket 10y ago

This might seem obvious, but why do you want to have an Uber account with no credit card attached? Usually SaaS require you to have a valid credit card attached always. I don't see the issue.

dgudkov 10y ago

You can modify your billing address to some nonsense. Payments shouldn't go through with a wrong billing address (although, I never tried it).

johansch 10y ago
Really, I would be equally happy to have them remove my Uber account altogether. Except it's equally cumbersome and non-obvious. There are no immediate actions to do it from within the App or the website: http://www.wikihow.com/Cancel-an-Uber-Account http://www.wikihow.com/Cancel-an-Uber-Account

ionised 10y ago

PayPal does this too last time I checked (admittedly about a year ago). It is frustrating as fuck.