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The latest dark pattern in all these apps is that they will mess up your order/ride and then "refund" you in the form of account credit. There's no way to actua

• tristor 2y ago
  The worst part is I have never figured out a way to spend any of my Uber credits. I have hundreds of dollars in Uber credits I've accumulated over the years, and I regularly use Uber, and yet have never spent any credits.
  • darkwizard42 2y ago
    When you choose your payment method in the ride selection screen you should be automatically using credits (unless those credits are for something specific, like Eats, or something else). I'm able to see this in my Uber app today (set a destination, then at the bottom of the screen is a row for payment options, clicking that will show you Uber balances (uber cash), payment methods, and vouchers) and am located in the US. If you are not seeing this, I'm thinking you need to reach out to support via email and have a long (probably frustrating) conversation.
    • tristor 2y ago
      I do not see this, it always direct-charges my Amex. The only credits I get auto-spent are my $15/monthly Amex credits. Definitely will reach out to Support at some point (whenever I get fed up and have time to burn, probably while sitting waiting to board a flight).
      • darkwizard42 2y ago
        Okay, are you able to at least see your vouchers and other credits? I currently have a $5 credit applied from a cancellation dispute so I think it should be working for all credits.
        • tristor 2y ago
          Just figured I should reply here as a follow-up. I had a friend see my comment on HN and reach out to me directly. I found out I had enabled some option somehow that disabled the use of credits. I fixed it, and now everything is working correctly.
• hammock 2y ago
  Submit a credit card chargeback. They cannot charge you for a service not rendered
  • alfalfasprout 2y ago
    Then you can't use it anymore... that's kind of a problem when there's a duopoly in the rideshare space.
    • acdha 2y ago
      The answer to that problem is not giving them more money. They’re going to use that money to try to drive competitors out of the market and lobby for laws which harm riders and drivers.
      • rs186 2y ago
        It's not a choice for many people, like, easily many millions in a city.
        • Retric 2y ago
          Where exactly is Uber the only option?
          • mparkms 2y ago
            There are lots of places in the US where if you don't have a car your only reasonable options are an Uber/Lyft or calling a cab that may or may not arrive.
            • Retric 2y ago
              That’s not what I was asking. I don’t even have Uber on my phone because in my experience the’ve been the worst for years so I don’t use em. Thus being blacklisted by them seems like a non issue, unless there’s local monopolies somewhere.
• teeray 2y ago
  The worst thing is that you can't even do a chargeback, otherwise you get banned. There is no recourse for the consumer. If this is their solution for fighting chargebacks, they should get banned from accepting Visa / MC / AMEX.
  • csharpminor 2y ago
    Another sketchy practice: if you get Uber Cash through a card like Amex, when you go to use it the price for the ride is automatically $15-$20 more than someone who doesn’t have an Uber Cash balance. I’ve checked this side by side with colleagues at the airport getting ride quotes to the same hotel. When you have Uber Cash they will quote you more. You can find numerous Reddit threads on the topic as well. This feels very illegal to me, but not a lawyer.
    • radicaldreamer 2y ago
      Send in a complaint to your state attorney’s general
    • vecinu 2y ago
      I notice this with my Uber cash credit I get from my AMEX Gold card. The prices are always higher.
    • c420 2y ago
      Here's a story today about this practice: Bay Area traveler says Uber gift cards boosted fare https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43751945 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43751945
    • OptionOfT 2y ago
      https://www.nysun.com/article/dynamic-pricing-at-major-grocery-chain-can-vary-prices-depending-on-your-income https://www.nysun.com/article/dynamic-pricing-at-major-groce... The less they know about you the better. Good reason to not have Gift Cards inside of the applications.
    • NoTeslaThrow 2y ago
• bz_bz_bz 2y ago
  Earlier this month Uber sent me an email that they “discovered that [I was] charged for an additional period of Uber One membership after [I] contacted customer support. This was because [my] scheduled payment was already in process before [my] cancellation request was received.” I knew they must have gotten in trouble with a regulator because the incident they’re referring to was 2+ years ago. How did they rectify this issue they “discovered”? They gave me Uber credit…
• neom 2y ago
  Interesting (in Canada), if my order is wrong I just click the item that is wrong and the chatbot automatically refunds me either on my card or via a credit, and often gives me an extra $5 in credit for my trouble, wonder what account flag I have you don't.
  • gU9x3u8XmQNG 2y ago
    In my experience, in Australia; you don’t get to select the item that was wrong, and simply get a refund on the cheapest item. Seems the vendors are catching on, with orders often dramatically wrong without any consequence. This is pure speculation, however. I also found vendors would often substitute items out of stock with those of a lesser value, but write a semi-cute message on it. Nothing like buying some fancy cola, only to get a can of coke and a love letter.. Endless chatbot and help option loops; I gave up, and refuse to use their services - though use was rare anyway.
    • neom 2y ago
      I've never had any of these problems at all with uber eats, probably part of why I use it so often. I click "help with a past order" and the first option I get is "my order was wrong" if I click it, it presents me with my order and everything I paid for and asks me what to pick that is wrong, it then asks for a photo if it's a larger $ item (unless it's missing) and then it asks me if I want a refund via card or credit, and as I mentioned, it typically gives me a credit for the trouble. Super interesting to me we have such different experiences. Maybe because I have UberOne?
      • paxys 2y ago
        More likely because you have consumer protection laws.
      • deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]
• nradov 2y ago
  I still can't fathom why so many customers voluntarily subject themselves to abuse by food delivery services. Overpay for cold, late food (which the driver might have already sampled). I mean I can sort of understand the use case for customers who are stuck at home due to illness or something. But I've seen plenty of young people in good health waste scarce funds on UberEats and similar services. Why? When I want take-out food I just call the restaurant to order, then get in my car (or on my bike) and pick it up myself.
  • tuesdaynight 2y ago
    The last part is the answer for your question: they just don't want to get in their car if they can pay someone else to do that job for them. It's the same reason people pay for cleaning services.
  • MaKey 2y ago
    The last time I checked I just had to pay 1,50€ extra compared to ordering directly with the restaurant. The delivery itself is free with Uber One. Getting your food delivered for 1,50€ seems pretty cheap to me.
    • hansvm 2y ago
      I've tried a few times (whenever somebody sent that sort of gift card my way), and it was always >$10 in explicit fees, plus all the menu items being silently marked up 20%. Mind you, that's still not exactly "expensive" for delivery [0], but I can make better food both faster and cheaper than waiting, I can pick it up and actually use an insulated bag faster than waiting for delivery, and pretty much any other food strategy at least guarantees I'll actually have the expected meal and not have to waste my time with customer support (or money if I decide it's not worth the hassle). [0] Imagine you're a driver, you incur $3 in actual expenses, the delivery takes 15min, and they have to wait 15min for the food to be ready (this is the thing that makes pizza delivery more efficient -- as soon as you get to the store there's another pizza waiting). Suddenly that's a $14/hr gig without any benefits and where you need to purchase a special insurance on top of things, assuming the only part Uber keeps is the 20% fee they're scamming you out of. Beyond that, you're at a much higher risk of bodily harm than doing something like construction, and if those aren't good drivers I don't really want to be encouraging more of them to be on the street, especially with time pressures (and if they are skilled ... that's less than McDonald's pays even before you factor in benefits).
• b3ing 2y ago
  If you pay by PayPal you will get your money back, some company tried to pull that account credit on me and PayPal had my back
• albert_e 2y ago
  Same experience in India. Additionally for past year or so they have always consistently charged me higher than what they quote originally. I jump through the hoops to get a "refund" of the difference through automated support workflow. Ofcourse never real money -- just a credit applied to account or so they say. That credit can never be seen or verified because wallet screen is always down for maintenance or whatever. There is no email trail or anything else where you can prove you are owed an x amount of credit. That credit never gets applied to a future ride. Excellent "growth hack" I guess. I have done screen recordings of this support workflow shenanigans a few times. Never had the energy to fight it till closure. I know the kind of duplicitous run around the support is going to give me the first five times I raise this.
• DrillShopper 2y ago
  > If you are able to figure out the magic combination of options that will get you to a support agent they will say "sure we will refund your money" but that is still only going to your app account. This is exactly what chargebacks are for
• eastbound 2y ago
  I once had a 5€ surprise surcharge after a trip. Since Uber’s chatbots were a deadend, I brought up a full-on litigation against them (France). A month later, my litigation was closed and I received 5€ on my bank account.
• leirjtliewjtl 2y ago
  Silicon valley doesn't deserve credit for inventing this method. It's ancient. Back in the 90s Nintendo lost a suit for price fixing and somehow got the judge to let them "compensate" plaintiffs by giving them coupons toward the purchase of additional games. Comcast, AT&T, GM, Columbia Records, maybe the majority of Fortune 500 companies have done this. Tale as old as time. Silicon valley didn't invent shit.
• reverendsteveii 2y ago
  I discovered this with doordash during the pandemic. They would flat-out not bring things, or would make insane substitutions (one that springs to mind is maple syrup for flour, as though if i have enough syrup pancakes will just happen in some sort of drizzle-down economics) and when you talked to support they would refund the cost of the item as account credit but not the delivery fee. Which means that not only did they not unwind the transaction after they failed to deliver their part, the only way for me to get what I ordered in the first place was to order a second time and pay them a second delivery fee.