5 ms·

Uber Eats sent my order to restaurants that were absolutely not open. After two times, and two refunds, they stopped refunding me because of a “pattern of suspi

by mvid 5y ago

Uber Eats sent my order to restaurants that were absolutely not open. After two times, and two refunds, they stopped refunding me because of a “pattern of suspicious behavior”. No way to escalate review to a human. None at all. So maybe be aware of your choice

nxmnxm99 5y ago
Why is there no way to escalate review to a human? I've never had trouble getting through to Uber customer support and having my issue dealt with
- mvid 5y ago
  Not sure. They must operate differently in Spain. I had photos, timestamps, everything.
axlee 5y ago
I have probably used Uber Eats for 100+ times over the past two (pandemic) years, and I've maybe have my orders being messed up 3-5 times, each time refunded within the next ten minutes. YMMV.
- cromka 5y ago
  That’s because you were refunded automatically without human intervention. This is what the author of the comment pointed out: once you do that too often in a short period of time, the bot assumes you’re scamming them and there’s no way to escalate that.
  - hilbert42 5y ago
    "...once you do that too often in a short period of time, the bot assumes you’re scamming them and there’s no way to escalate that." The only way that'll be fixed will be with legislation. It's not only Uber, it's Google et al - they all into it. Simply, they need to be halled kicking and screaming to plow some of their enormous profits back into customer servive. Trouble is consumer protection law is decades behind where it ought to be.
    - Nextgrid 5y ago
      > Trouble is consumer protection law is decades behind where it ought to be. Potentially, but on the other hand, card disputes are a thing and I'm baffled as to how little people know about them or have misunderstandings such as them only being available for credit cards (the law may give you extra protections there, but the standard Visa/Mastercard dispute rules apply equally regardless of whether it's debit or credit). Just like Uber and similar Silicon Valley scum gets away with this because they have a monopoly and can do as they please, so do the card networks - and the card networks are on your side in this case, so use that to your advantage.
      - cromka 5y ago
        If you successfully request a chargeback, they will almost certainly ban you from using their services forever. It’s usually in their T&Cs.
      - hilbert42 5y ago
        "I'm baffled as to how little people know about them or have misunderstandings such as them only being available for credit cards..." Right, and reckon I'm no exception. One of the principal reasons why we have democratic governments is that they are there for the protection of the citizenry. The trouble is that by the time governments venture into these murky areas much damage has been done. Here, the problem is that no one has spelt out the details in advance —i.e.: what the ground rules are and the consequences if they are broken. Alas, governments are never proactive in many areas where they need to be. There's just so much going on in modern life that we can't expect citizens to keep up with everything that's going on. We need short, actuate and informative one-liners that people can check before and or during any operation that they're involved in. This ought to be the role of government.
  - philliphaydon 5y ago
    I don’t quite understand. Maybe Uber eats is different in asia to America. But in Taiwan when I raised issue with an order it goes to a chat. They asked for a photo. I sent. And they confirmed the issue and issued a refund. In singapore there’s no Uber eats. But most popular is probably grab which is what I used. If I raised an issue with grab. I get a phone call. Explain to person over the phone and depending on the shop I get a new order or a refund. The only time it’s difficult in singapore is some of the Indian food restaurants use their own delivery drivers, not the grab drivers. So there’s no status updates and any disputes must go with the restaurant directly. But when ordering it states the restaurant uses its own drivers so you can avoid ordering from them.
    - mvid 5y ago
      Uber Eats has no calls, no chats, nothing. At least not in Spain. I can "escalate" an issue but it is always the same response, clearly automated
hilbert42 5y ago
Moreover, you can't even phone Uber Eats! I had a huge delivery of Chinese food left on my doorstep (it was still quite hot). Obviously, delivered to the wrong address. The bill was fully itemized and stapled to one of the Uber bags and it came to just short of $200 but there was no correct address and no telephone number to be found on it anywhere. Anyway, I did my best to contact Uber Eats to get the delivery person to collect it but to no awail. Checked everywhere for a telephone number including searching the internet and found nothing except the number that explained how to place an order. When I rang it, it had a recording - no hunan to be found anywhere. I couldn't log in on online as I didn't have an account. And no one reappeared from Uber to reclaim it. Anyway, I gave up. There was so much food I couldn't get it all into the freezer. It lasted several weeks. Saved a lot on food bills over that time. Damn fuckwits!
- waste_monk 5y ago
  Even if the bag was sealed, I don't think they could take it back once it left the delivery person's custody. That's usually how these operations work (but not sure about Uber Eats specifically). Too much risk of food tampering or other mischief.
  - hilbert42 5y ago
    Very likely. But he couldn't have gone more than a couple of minutes. I'm surprised I didn't hear him. What I'm still unclear about is that someone nearby ordered the food, as I didn't answer immediately why didn't he ring hone to base or to the planned recipient for an address correction?
    - alexvoda 5y ago
      This kind of situation is fixed by pin verification like there is for Uber rides and other services like some package delivery companies.
- tedmiston 5y ago
  > No way to escalate review to a human. None at all. > Moreover, you can't even phone Uber Eats! Uber Eats does have human phone support. https://gethuman.com/chat/UberEATS https://gethuman.com/chat/UberEATS UberEATS Phone Number: 800-253-9377
PakG1 5y ago
They only stopped refunding you? They completely banned my account and my wife's account. We're still not sure what we did and they won't explain to us. Even escalated on Twitter and communicated by email. All we were told is that they have a zero tolerance policy for fraudulent behaviour and that the decision was final. WTH?
- imroot 5y ago
  I was blacklisted on Uber a few years ago when I reported a security vulnerability to them. They said no such vulnerability existed. I sent them video. They said I must have been doctoring the video because they couldn't reproduce it. They then banned me. This was in 2015. They were then sued because the vulnerability apparently identified someone's affair[0]. I sent my email exchange with Uber to the attorney who sued Uber, letting them know that they were aware of the bug two years prior. You know, because no good deed goes unpunished. I get by just fine with DoorDash and Grubhub these days, but both of those platforms have the same issues that UberEats does. --- 0: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-38948281 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-38948281
  - southerntofu 5y ago
    Thanks for sharing this anecdote. > I get by just fine with DoorDash and Grubhub these days, but both of those platforms have the same issues that UberEats does. To get back to the original point, don't you think you would be better off saving as phone contacts the few restaurants you buy from, or maybe writing down the numbers on the fridge if you live with other people?
- Nextgrid 5y ago
  I was banned from Deliveroo because I guess I should just be happy to absorb the cost for ~20% of orders which arrived wrong instead of calling them out and asking them to do their job properly.
elygre 5y ago
Using Wolt, there is a separate step where “a human at (restaurant) has seen your order”. Presumably that resolves this problem.
ssharp 5y ago
I’ve had food sitting at restaurants for over an hour before while Uber attempts to find a driver. After a particularly frustrating instance where Uber told me to cancel but didn’t refund me for me, I did manage to find a support inbox that’s read by an escalation team and I had a real life human calling from SF let me know that they would refund me. The effort it took to get the refund was ridiculous though as every contact option Uber presented me resulted in robo responses telling me since I initiated the cancel that I’d be responsible for food costs, even when I included chat screenshots of their agents telling me to cancel.
- pwdisswordfish9 5y ago
  > I’ve had food sitting at restaurants for over an hour before while Uber attempts to find a driver. If you're in a metro area ordering during ordinary hours and having this happen, it's almost certainly because the restaurant has developed a bad reputation and people refuse to work with them. The thing about Uber's intermediation is that if you had this sort of experience by ordering directly through the restaurant, you'd rightly associate the experience with the restaurant's failures, but with Uber, it feels like Uber failing. > a particularly frustrating instance where Uber told me to cancel but didn’t refund me for me UberEATS drivers are like Fedex or USPS for food. They have no special powers here. Expecting one to refund "for" you is like having a mail person show up at your door and then berating them for the screwup of whatever business sent you the wrong thing, etc.
  - ShroudedNight 5y ago
    > UberEATS drivers are like Fedex or USPS for food. This is to be expected, but it's not clear how this is relevant to your parent given it appears to have been Uber customer-service agents directing them to cancel, not a driver.
  - Nextgrid 5y ago
    > the restaurant has developed a bad reputation and people refuse to work with them Do you mean delivery drivers refuse to pick up from there? How is that a customer's problem? That's a potential breach of contract between Uber and the delivery drivers. Uber Eats positions itself as an end-to-end managed service where you pay money to receive delivered food, and charges hefty fees (on both sides of the transaction) for doing so. It's up to them to make sure this works by implementing appropriate penalties for drivers or restaurants who default. However in typical Silicon Valley fashion their business model is to screw everyone so I'm sure the restaurants and delivery drivers have equally little recourse when things go wrong or to provide feedback so bad/misbehaving actors are allowed to remain as long as it's not causing a problem for Uber. > UberEATS drivers are like Fedex or USPS for food Not really. FedEx/USPS doesn't manage the customer relationship, doesn't broker the transaction nor takes a fee off the transaction amount itself.
Nextgrid 5y ago
I got banned from Deliveroo for a similar reason. I was a heavy user (several times a day every day) and mistakes are bound to happen - I'd estimate that maybe 20% of my orders ended up having something wrong. I guess they just assumed that 20% is an acceptable cost that the users should bear despite all the fees they add (to both the user-facing price and the fees they charge to restaurants)? Uber Eats wasn't much better and tried to still make me pay for delivery fees even when the only item in the order was wrong/damaged, but a chargeback quickly took care of that.

by mvid 5y ago

nxmnxm99 5y ago

Why is there no way to escalate review to a human? I've never had trouble getting through to Uber customer support and having my issue dealt with

mvid 5y ago
Not sure. They must operate differently in Spain. I had photos, timestamps, everything.

axlee 5y ago

I have probably used Uber Eats for 100+ times over the past two (pandemic) years, and I've maybe have my orders being messed up 3-5 times, each time refunded within the next ten minutes. YMMV.

cromka 5y ago
That’s because you were refunded automatically without human intervention. This is what the author of the comment pointed out: once you do that too often in a short period of time, the bot assumes you’re scamming them and there’s no way to escalate that.
- hilbert42 5y ago
  "...once you do that too often in a short period of time, the bot assumes you’re scamming them and there’s no way to escalate that." The only way that'll be fixed will be with legislation. It's not only Uber, it's Google et al - they all into it. Simply, they need to be halled kicking and screaming to plow some of their enormous profits back into customer servive. Trouble is consumer protection law is decades behind where it ought to be.
  - Nextgrid 5y ago
    > Trouble is consumer protection law is decades behind where it ought to be. Potentially, but on the other hand, card disputes are a thing and I'm baffled as to how little people know about them or have misunderstandings such as them only being available for credit cards (the law may give you extra protections there, but the standard Visa/Mastercard dispute rules apply equally regardless of whether it's debit or credit). Just like Uber and similar Silicon Valley scum gets away with this because they have a monopoly and can do as they please, so do the card networks - and the card networks are on your side in this case, so use that to your advantage.
    - cromka 5y ago
      If you successfully request a chargeback, they will almost certainly ban you from using their services forever. It’s usually in their T&Cs.
    - hilbert42 5y ago
      "I'm baffled as to how little people know about them or have misunderstandings such as them only being available for credit cards..." Right, and reckon I'm no exception. One of the principal reasons why we have democratic governments is that they are there for the protection of the citizenry. The trouble is that by the time governments venture into these murky areas much damage has been done. Here, the problem is that no one has spelt out the details in advance —i.e.: what the ground rules are and the consequences if they are broken. Alas, governments are never proactive in many areas where they need to be. There's just so much going on in modern life that we can't expect citizens to keep up with everything that's going on. We need short, actuate and informative one-liners that people can check before and or during any operation that they're involved in. This ought to be the role of government.
- philliphaydon 5y ago
  I don’t quite understand. Maybe Uber eats is different in asia to America. But in Taiwan when I raised issue with an order it goes to a chat. They asked for a photo. I sent. And they confirmed the issue and issued a refund. In singapore there’s no Uber eats. But most popular is probably grab which is what I used. If I raised an issue with grab. I get a phone call. Explain to person over the phone and depending on the shop I get a new order or a refund. The only time it’s difficult in singapore is some of the Indian food restaurants use their own delivery drivers, not the grab drivers. So there’s no status updates and any disputes must go with the restaurant directly. But when ordering it states the restaurant uses its own drivers so you can avoid ordering from them.
  - mvid 5y ago
    Uber Eats has no calls, no chats, nothing. At least not in Spain. I can "escalate" an issue but it is always the same response, clearly automated

hilbert42 5y ago

Moreover, you can't even phone Uber Eats! I had a huge delivery of Chinese food left on my doorstep (it was still quite hot). Obviously, delivered to the wrong address. The bill was fully itemized and stapled to one of the Uber bags and it came to just short of $200 but there was no correct address and no telephone number to be found on it anywhere. Anyway, I did my best to contact Uber Eats to get the delivery person to collect it but to no awail. Checked everywhere for a telephone number including searching the internet and found nothing except the number that explained how to place an order. When I rang it, it had a recording - no hunan to be found anywhere. I couldn't log in on online as I didn't have an account. And no one reappeared from Uber to reclaim it. Anyway, I gave up. There was so much food I couldn't get it all into the freezer. It lasted several weeks. Saved a lot on food bills over that time. Damn fuckwits!

waste_monk 5y ago
Even if the bag was sealed, I don't think they could take it back once it left the delivery person's custody. That's usually how these operations work (but not sure about Uber Eats specifically). Too much risk of food tampering or other mischief.
- hilbert42 5y ago
  Very likely. But he couldn't have gone more than a couple of minutes. I'm surprised I didn't hear him. What I'm still unclear about is that someone nearby ordered the food, as I didn't answer immediately why didn't he ring hone to base or to the planned recipient for an address correction?
  - alexvoda 5y ago
    This kind of situation is fixed by pin verification like there is for Uber rides and other services like some package delivery companies.
tedmiston 5y ago
> No way to escalate review to a human. None at all. > Moreover, you can't even phone Uber Eats! Uber Eats does have human phone support. https://gethuman.com/chat/UberEATS https://gethuman.com/chat/UberEATS UberEATS Phone Number: 800-253-9377

PakG1 5y ago

They only stopped refunding you? They completely banned my account and my wife's account. We're still not sure what we did and they won't explain to us. Even escalated on Twitter and communicated by email. All we were told is that they have a zero tolerance policy for fraudulent behaviour and that the decision was final. WTH?

imroot 5y ago
I was blacklisted on Uber a few years ago when I reported a security vulnerability to them. They said no such vulnerability existed. I sent them video. They said I must have been doctoring the video because they couldn't reproduce it. They then banned me. This was in 2015. They were then sued because the vulnerability apparently identified someone's affair[0]. I sent my email exchange with Uber to the attorney who sued Uber, letting them know that they were aware of the bug two years prior. You know, because no good deed goes unpunished. I get by just fine with DoorDash and Grubhub these days, but both of those platforms have the same issues that UberEats does. --- 0: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-38948281 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-38948281
- southerntofu 5y ago
  Thanks for sharing this anecdote. > I get by just fine with DoorDash and Grubhub these days, but both of those platforms have the same issues that UberEats does. To get back to the original point, don't you think you would be better off saving as phone contacts the few restaurants you buy from, or maybe writing down the numbers on the fridge if you live with other people?
Nextgrid 5y ago
I was banned from Deliveroo because I guess I should just be happy to absorb the cost for ~20% of orders which arrived wrong instead of calling them out and asking them to do their job properly.

elygre 5y ago

Using Wolt, there is a separate step where “a human at (restaurant) has seen your order”. Presumably that resolves this problem.

ssharp 5y ago

I’ve had food sitting at restaurants for over an hour before while Uber attempts to find a driver. After a particularly frustrating instance where Uber told me to cancel but didn’t refund me for me, I did manage to find a support inbox that’s read by an escalation team and I had a real life human calling from SF let me know that they would refund me. The effort it took to get the refund was ridiculous though as every contact option Uber presented me resulted in robo responses telling me since I initiated the cancel that I’d be responsible for food costs, even when I included chat screenshots of their agents telling me to cancel.

pwdisswordfish9 5y ago
> I’ve had food sitting at restaurants for over an hour before while Uber attempts to find a driver. If you're in a metro area ordering during ordinary hours and having this happen, it's almost certainly because the restaurant has developed a bad reputation and people refuse to work with them. The thing about Uber's intermediation is that if you had this sort of experience by ordering directly through the restaurant, you'd rightly associate the experience with the restaurant's failures, but with Uber, it feels like Uber failing. > a particularly frustrating instance where Uber told me to cancel but didn’t refund me for me UberEATS drivers are like Fedex or USPS for food. They have no special powers here. Expecting one to refund "for" you is like having a mail person show up at your door and then berating them for the screwup of whatever business sent you the wrong thing, etc.
- ShroudedNight 5y ago
  > UberEATS drivers are like Fedex or USPS for food. This is to be expected, but it's not clear how this is relevant to your parent given it appears to have been Uber customer-service agents directing them to cancel, not a driver.
- Nextgrid 5y ago
  > the restaurant has developed a bad reputation and people refuse to work with them Do you mean delivery drivers refuse to pick up from there? How is that a customer's problem? That's a potential breach of contract between Uber and the delivery drivers. Uber Eats positions itself as an end-to-end managed service where you pay money to receive delivered food, and charges hefty fees (on both sides of the transaction) for doing so. It's up to them to make sure this works by implementing appropriate penalties for drivers or restaurants who default. However in typical Silicon Valley fashion their business model is to screw everyone so I'm sure the restaurants and delivery drivers have equally little recourse when things go wrong or to provide feedback so bad/misbehaving actors are allowed to remain as long as it's not causing a problem for Uber. > UberEATS drivers are like Fedex or USPS for food Not really. FedEx/USPS doesn't manage the customer relationship, doesn't broker the transaction nor takes a fee off the transaction amount itself.

Nextgrid 5y ago

I got banned from Deliveroo for a similar reason. I was a heavy user (several times a day every day) and mistakes are bound to happen - I'd estimate that maybe 20% of my orders ended up having something wrong. I guess they just assumed that 20% is an acceptable cost that the users should bear despite all the fees they add (to both the user-facing price and the fees they charge to restaurants)? Uber Eats wasn't much better and tried to still make me pay for delivery fees even when the only item in the order was wrong/damaged, but a chargeback quickly took care of that.