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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

• csharpminor 1y 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 1y ago
    Send in a complaint to your state attorney’s general
  • vecinu 1y ago
    I notice this with my Uber cash credit I get from my AMEX Gold card. The prices are always higher.
  • c420 1y 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 1y 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 1y ago
    I have heard a lot of people speak about dynamic pricing, but I have yet to hear any benefit to the consumer or society as a whole. Basically any possible pitch for it is worse in every way than simple downward wealth redistribution.
    • paxys 1y ago
      Going by pure economic theory "dynamic pricing" actually benefits both buyers and sellers in a marketplace. There are plenty of cases where it makes sense – lunch menus at restaurants, grocery store coupons, retail bargain bins, dollar menus, happy hour deals, senior/youth/student discounts, even surge pricing in Uber & Lyft. Of course like with every aspect of economics how something is implemented matters a lot more than how it sounds on paper. Especially in the case of rideshare/food delivery, where the middleman has all the data and makes all the decisions.
      • NoTeslaThrow 1y ago
        Well that's certainly AN economic theory, but it feels a little polyannish/unreasonably hopeful. Like most of american macroeconomic discourse.
        • kevin_thibedeau 1y ago
          [flagged]
        • mcmcmc 1y ago
          Where exactly does macro come into play here?
      • jowea 1y ago
        Wouldn't perfect individualised dynamic pricing mean that the seller (Uber in this case) would get to capture the entire consumer surplus? Is that good?
        • pbh101 1y ago
  • dheera 1y ago
    I remember the days when Uber prices from SF to anywhere on the peninsula would suddenly spike exactly a minute or two after each Caltrain departed. If you just missed the train you paid a lot more. And then the many times that Lyft violated the triangle inequality in pricing: Ride from A->B followed by a ride from B->C was often cheaper than a direct ride from A->C, if you knew how to pick B correctly. I once confused the hell out of a driver when I got out and got back in the same car at some nondescript spot.
    • lurk2 1y ago
      > If you just missed the train you paid a lot more. That doesn’t strike me as malicious. If you just missed the train, other users probably did, too. How did you find the price differentials with Lyft?
      • dheera 1y ago
        > That doesn’t strike me as malicious. If you just missed the train, other users probably did, too. You may not have started with malicious intent but you may have unintentionally created a malicious algorithm that learned to squeeze profits off of lower income people who normally take the train to save money but just missed it.
        • lurk2 1y ago
          When the train leaves, some people miss it. They then use the app to hail a ride. The increased demand leads to a corresponding increase in price. This is how surge pricing works. What you seem to be suggesting is that this is inherently predatory, but it seems more likely that it’s just the result of a large number of people requesting rides at the same time.
          • dheera 1y ago
            What I am suggesting is that whether or not the people are predatory, they created a system that is mathematically predatory. In the pre-Uber world taxis would line up, the fare wouldn't be any different whether or not it is just after a train left, and more drivers would just know that there is higher demand at that location at certain times, without fare surges. I do love being able to hail rides with a phone app, but I detest this fluctuating pricing. It reminds me of why I like train travel in other countries but not so much in the US: In almost all of Europe and Asia, train tickets are fixed price based largely on distance travelled and class of train. In the US, Amtrak plays the idiot capitalist game of predatory money grabbing you if you need to make last minute emergency travel plans or changes.
  • delfinom 1y ago
    Hahaha. Play with any Uber promo code they may give you via physical mailer or otherwise. Open Uber in two browsers. Apply the promo code in one, don't in the other. Watch as they increase the service fees when using the promo code to basically equal the other non-promo order.
• paxys 1y ago
  Who is Visa / MC / AMEX going to side with? The company that gets them hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue every year or a random account holder? It doesn't really matter who is right or wrong.
  • dghlsakjg 1y ago
    If it becomes a systemic problem, the CC companies will absolutely drop merchants or entire industries. CC companies, especially in the states, almost always favor the cardholder over the merchant.
    • paxys 1y ago
      For individual chargebacks and small scammy merchants, sure. Uber meanwhile processes $40 billion worth of transactions a year. There is zero chance they are facing any kind of "discipline" from credit card operators. At that volume they write their own terms.
      • vkou 1y ago
        What's Uber going to do to VISA if VISA honors the chargeback? Not accept VISA? Your card provider needs to keep you happy far more than your card provider needs to keep Uber happy.
        • paxys 1y ago
          Going by that theory why doesn't Visa just jack up their prices by 10x? After all what are merchants going to do, not accept Visa? Turns out yes, that's exactly what they will do. Look at the number of business that don't take Amex for example for the same reason. Large companies especially have enough leverage to negotiate their own deals with credit card operators, like Costco does with Visa.
          • dtnewman 1y ago
            Costco is a bit different. If I don't have a Visa, i can pay with cash, personal check, or debit card. Sure, I'd prefer to pay with credit card, but it's not a huge deal for me to use a debit card there. With Uber, there simply isn't an alternative. If they don't accept Visa then i can't use a credit card (or most debit cards, since those go through the visa network too) and there isn't a reasonable way for me to pay at all.
• greenchair 1y ago
  I didn't know what a chargeback was till last few years when it became popular almost meme like. Probably lots of fraud there.
  • xerox13ster 1y ago
    [flagged]
• dawnerd 1y ago
  I’ve won every single charge back and yet to get banned. I’m sure it happens but I’m also sure it’s something companies threaten to reduce them since it’s basically an automatic fee they pay. It also hurts their rates if they have a higher rate of chargebacks.
• ryandrake 1y ago
  If you are at the point where your only option left is a chargeback, that is a “burning the bridges” moment anyway. Why would you want to continue doing business with a company that treats you like that? I would be grateful to be banned: it means I don’t have to go to the trouble of canceling my account. I’ve had to do a handful of chargebacks and I don’t know or care whether they banned me: I would never voluntarily do business with them again anyway.
  • mehlmao 1y ago
    One reason you might still want to use them is that they used anticompetitive blitzscaling strategies and ran at a loss to prevent competitors from taking off.
    • delusional 1y ago
      That could have been a great reason to support legislation. Really quite a shame that nobody put that forward.
  • delusional 1y ago
    I have a friend who had a bad experience with a company once. After drawn out fight for the equivalent of a months salary with lawyers getting involved and threats of collections, the company made a final statement. "We will refund you, but you'll be blacklisted". My friend was delighted, and responded to them as such. He thanked them, since now he wouldn't have to remember their name to avoid ever accidentally buying from them again. He found a local contractor to do the job instead.
  • lurk2 1y ago
    > Why would you want to continue doing business with a company that treats you like that? They might have a practical monopoly on these services. Most cities are going to be serviced by only Lyft and Uber, with one having more drivers than the other. If you get burned by both services due to their refusal to provide adequate customer service checks on automated systems, you initiate two chargebacks and then lose your ability to call a cab until you pay them the money on the chargeback.
• bronco21016 1y ago
  I have lived in this state for 5 years. Lyft works great! The full story is I requested a ride to an Air Force base and the driver was not able to take us there due to restrictions at the base. We requested the driver drop us off at a restaurant just outside of the base. The ride we were on was cancelled, a new one created, and calculated as if we were originating at our point of embarkation at the same time all of this happened. Which happened to be during surge pricing. I tried support for weeks. I was in an endless loop of scripts and going nowhere. At the time, the extra $200 or so charge was a significant amount for me so I charged it back with my card. The card had no issue with this but every time I try signing into Uber, they insist I pay them the remainder of their error from years ago. I won't go back and don't care one bit.
  • mgkimsal 1y ago
    I don't think I've ever used Uber. Have used lyft a few times, just to support a relative 'underdog' compared to Uber. Never had a problem. Probably less than 10 rides in the past 3 years though, so I'm possibly not a huge data point.
• ummmzokbro 1y ago
  Can confirm. Issued a successful chargeback after they bait and switched the Uber 1 subscription promising $5 for every late delivery only to revoke that portion weeks later. Support would not refund the yearly subscription despite an obvious change to the economic terms of the subscription and so a chargeback was issued which the credit card company agreed with. Ransomware screen now on the account to the effect of "Pay $100 Immediately To Regain Your Account" with no transactions possible unless the ransom is paid.
• jrs235 1y ago
  Then I guess do a chargeback, get banned, and good riddance to forcibly not having to ever use their crappy service(s) again?