What started as a very pleasant exchange between an Uber driver and me quickly grew ugly — when he refused to drive me home.
I Just Wanted to Get Home
I arrived at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) after midnight a couple of weeks ago. I was up early that morning and tired; I attended the Chicago Seminars and then flew home via Detroit.
I walked to the LAXit (pronounced “L.A. Exit” — get it?) section at LAX to order a ride share home. That’s the only place non-premium ride-sharing vehicles may pick up LAX passengers.
Uber was about five bucks cheaper than Lyft, so I went with that. (I selected the Capital One Savor Cash Rewards Credit Card for payment because it awards 10% cash back on Uber rides through November 14, 2024.)
My driver (we’ll call him “Bob”) had over 3,000 rides and something like a 4.8 or 4.9 rating to his name. Great!
Bob arrived a few minutes later. He was a wiry guy, maybe in his 50s, and had a hippy-ish thing going on.
He greeted me warmly while putting my luggage in the trunk. (I told him I could but he insisted.)
I got in the car and we made some friendly small talk while settling in. He tapped his phone and loaded the itinerary.
“Oh, no,” Bob said.
“What?” I asked.
“Oh, no,” he repeated, “I’m so sorry.”
“What’s the problem?” I said, even though I already had a hunch. I live in the western part of the San Fernando Valley — about a 35-minute ride at that time of night. Still, I’ve had no problems getting rides home, even when traffic makes the ride two hours. Plus, many places in L.A. are (at least) a half-hour drive away.
“I’m not going that way.”
“Yes, you are. You’re taking me home.”
“Chris, I’m so sorry, I can’t.”
My tone grew sharp.
“Why not?” I said.
“Because I planned to go home after dropping you off.”
“Which you still can, if you don’t want to pick up any more rides after you take me home.”
“No, no. You live too far away. See?” He zoomed out his map, pointed to my house, and then pointed to a spot in West Los Angeles. “That’s where I live. This doesn’t work for me.”
“So, you’re refusing to take me,” I said. “That’s (fertilizer).”
“Yes.”
“You’re kicking me out of the car?”
“I’m so sorry.”
I got out of the car, got my suitcase out of the back, and got back on the curb. I wanted to scream at him — but knew that wouldn’t solve anything. Plus, plenty of people were holding cell phones; I didn’t need to become a viral moment!
Wait — it gets better.
I wandered away and wanted to find someone else to take me home. But I couldn’t search for another Uber — Bob hadn’t canceled the ride! I initiated a cancellation — but Uber warned me I’d be charged a cancellation penalty. Now, it was almost 1:00 AM. Fine. I’ll get it sorted out later. I canceled the ride and was hit with a $24.49 fee. Lovely.
I paid the extra five bucks out of principal and took a Lyft home. (10X on my Sapphire Reserve, of course. 🙂 ) I filed a complaint with Uber during my ride. They eventually gave me $24.49 in Uber Cash (not a refund). A few days later, they refunded the entire amount to my card.
Hello! You Accept Rides From a Major Airport!
Just over 33 million passengers arrived at LAX last year. And the Los Angeles metro area is massive. In fact, Los Angeles County could fit Manhattan, Boston, Minneapolis, Cleveland, Milwaukee, and San Francisin within its borders — and still have plenty of space left over. That doesn’t take into account Orange County, either.
If you’re going to pick people up at an airport — especially LAX — be prepared to drive more than, like, five miles away.
I get that Bob probably wouldn’t have found anyone needing rides after dropping me off. But he still would’ve earned whatever price he accepted plus a good tip from this 4.98 star rider.
Am I missing something?
“He was working the system…and here’s what you should’ve done.”
One of my family members is a full-time rideshare driver. I shared this experience with him to learn more about ridesharing.
“That’s poor driver etiquette,” he said. “He shouldn’t have accepted (the ride) if he wasn’t willing to take it.”
First of all, Bob should’ve had an idea where he would take me. He should’ve been provided an approximate dropoff location (perhaps even cross-streets), distance in miles, and how much he’d earn.
“He was just lazy,” my family member said. “He was working the system.”
He also explained that Bob probably was looking for a big, fat ride. How so?
Well, I canceled the ride. So, Bob got a chunk of that cancellation fee. Plus, he was still parked at LAX with hundreds of people requesting rides (yes, at 1:00 AM on a Sunday). Who knows how long he kept this little game going until he found someone going to West L.A.?
Where did I go wrong? You probably already know.
“You should’ve told him, ‘Please cancel this ride right now’ before you got out of the car,” he said. “You’re not charged a cancellation fee if he won’t drive you.”
Final Approach
An Uber driver refused to drive me home from the airport because it meant going out of his way. If you run into a driver who won’t take you, make sure they cancel your ride so you’re not charged a cancellation fee.
However, I’ll still take Uber and Lyft because most of my experiences have been fine- if not great. I still remember some rides from years ago because the drivers were hilarious and had me in stitches, or they provided me with some helpful information, or were just exceptionally kind. Some rides had all three.
Have you ever been kicked out of a ride share because your destination was out of the way — or you did something else?
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I commute to and from ATL weekly. I only take taxis in F (international) as they are always lined up waiting, it’s a flat fee, they accept cash and I don’t have to wait with hundreds of people after a long trip in a very far-away line for an Uber/Lyft.
I’ve had this happen numerous times. I used to live in downtown Baltimore, and flying into BWI sometimes at night I would go through 2-3 Uber drivers before I got someone willing to go that direction. Most of the time they’d call and ask where I was going, and if it wasn’t Washington (where they’d come from, taking a ride to BWI), they would say they couldn’t do it, or wouldn’t show up, or would park at the wrong end of the terminal and claim I didn’t show up.
Used to have this issue in FLL as well… my company would have quarterly events at the Westin at Ft Lauderdale Beach and we had a corporate Uber account to direct bill. One day it took me and a colleague over an hour to get a driver willing to take us the short distance… we got lies on the phone from “I just got ticketed so I’m with the police” to “I just had an accident, can you please cancel the ride.”
Honestly if drivers don’t want to drive, they shouldn’t be in it and Uber should do more to throw drivers off the platform – they certainly are willing to boot riders in a heartbeat based on unverified driver reports.
Thanks for sharing Chris. I had a driver call me once prior to the ride asking me where I wanted to go. When I told him where, he said that he wasn’t interested in picking me up. I asked him to cancel the ride but he refused to do so. That began a game of chicken with neither of us canceling the ride for more than an hour. I just chose the other rideshare app and got to my destination. He must have used another app too to drive too.
Uber driver here, despite I don’t work in that specific market, I can see some reasons why that happened. This will be highly depend on which market area and country we’re talking about due to various reasons, such as local laws and regulations. Also, I only work with Uber, so I cannot speak about Lyft and I can only imagine that’d be another very long tangent.
In certain market areas, Uber doesn’t offer drivers ANY information about the drop off destination until the ride starts, meaning drivers will only know where they’ll be dropping off their customer(s) after the driver pick up. Until then, it will only tell us how far(distance) and long(time) it will take from the driver to the pick up location.
Some areas DO offer *some* information about drop off location by keeping up with their criterias(Uber tier level – Gold or higher -, star rating – 4.75 or higher -, acceptance rate – 85% or higher -, and cancellation rate – 5% or lower -, all combined), which YMMV. You’ll lose this information “privilege” effective IMMEDIATELY if you’re 1% lower than their criteria. However, it will still be a vague information, as in which direction it’s going from A to B(as in East, West, Northwest, etc.) and how long(time only) the trip is going to be after pick up. This is still not a sufficient information for drivers as they still don’t know where exactly they’re going in a pinpoint level of detail, how much they’re getting paid for the ride, and how far(distance in mi) is it from A to B.
Some markets are fortunate enough to have the full detail of the ride before they accept. But still, you’d have to keep up with their criterias, which means you’d have to choose to accept some rides that doesn’t even cover an entire fuel cost, let alone maintenance, labor cost, and wear and tear of the car. Hence, some driver decline those offers at all cost, meaning they’d likely not meet their criterias, especially the acceptance rate. Hence they’ll have ZERO information about the ride except where to pick you up. That’s it. It’s debatable to blame drivers not keeping up with their criterias, but it will not be discussed for sake of staying within the main topic.
Regardless of all these nuances, drivers only have 5 – 6 seconds MAX to decide whether to accept or decline WHILE (hopefully) driving safely without being distracted too much, while having passengers in their car if applicable, let alone having good cellular service, which might not be good depending on where the driver is located.
With that said, I see on both sides. Uber is definitely manipulating drivers to keep up with their criterias, so that they can throw some low ball offers and still get away with it because we’re sorta forced to accept it and they obviously want to increase their profit margin by not paying drivers properly.
This definitely cause a huge inconvenience for a lot of customers, especially for EV drivers as EVs refuel time is still longer than ICE vehicles and limited number of public fast chargers in some areas. Which without those vital information, in worst case scenario, Uber drivers can unintentionally strand you in the middle of the ride as their car would run out of juice. And you’d have to order a second ride(or third or who knows how many times you needed) to get to your destination. This has happened to my previous passenger and I was the second driver to get them to the intended destination. And good luck getting refund with them if this were happened to you.
Far too many headaches for me to deal with after a long trip dealing with TSA, flight delays, US Customs, checked baggage delays, work stress, etc. when I just want to get home to sleep. Remember – I am the customer. Nothing beats a taxi waiting for you at a much more convenient spot at the airport. Uber/Lyft can usually work for me going to the airport but no way on my return…even if it’s a little bit more expensive.
I completely agree. Again, I see both side and you have a right to be treated as such. Full stop. Hence, I never turn down my customer if I am already at the pick up spot, even though occasionally it’s not the direction I wanted to go. As Chris pointed out, I can go back home after I finish my ride. Sure I’ll lose money on the way home, but that’s part of the responsibility of a job. Deal with it.
The only few exceptions when I turn down are when it’s a complete radio silence after waiting 5 minutes, and customer being disrespectful or violated Terms of Service with rideshare such as physical violence, sexual harassment to drivers, and the like.
That’s the ideal world that majority of us want. But the issue with rideshare in general, is that there’s no consistency of service quality whatsoever. Some fellow co-workers are irresponsible with their job responsibility, which is a shame that rideshare companies don’t really take it seriously to shut their account down. But in the end, the relationship between drivers and rideshare companies is independent contractor, not an employee and employer relationship.
Rideshare business is slowing down as those bad apples ruin the entire case of good apples like me trying to do my part, but I guess my effort is not enough to retain customers enough to maintain the flow of business.
Not trying here to convince anyone to use rideshare for those who’re disappointed with the service. Rather, I want to illustrate the full picture of how and why it’s happening so frequently.
Thanks for giving us this perspective!
Had something similar last night….
Lyft was $52 for extra comfort (seemed decent to me) – driver accepted and didn’t move for over 5 minutes. I texted and called, no responses. After 5 min more I texted he needed to cancel if we wasn’t going to honor the ride. He did when I called his bluff. Lyft found another driver who stood around for 2 mins but then made his way and had a nice ride. Interesting note at the end of the ride it showed a higher price – $62 – but I was charged to my card the original lower price.
Driver the first time was probably mad fares surged up right after he accepted (maybe monitoring Uber or something) so played the wait game.
It sounds like Frankie is a Taxi driver haha.
Nope. Just enough bad experiences waiting with tons of people in ATL far away from the main terminal and dealing with nonsense and games. Taxis are just lower maintenance after a long trip. But from home to airport Uber works well.
What an awful story. You also ought to be able to rate a driver that you cancel with, for example if something like this happens or if they are supposed to arrive in 10 minutes and are still in the same spot 10 minutes later. Yes you can get your money back but such a driver can have a 5 star rating yet be doing things like this over and over again. Hopefully Uber and Lyft are tracking which drivers consistently get canceled because of not getting any closer and taking action when it happens more than a couple of times.
Great tip! I never would have thought of that.
Unrelated to your horror story, but here’s another rideshare tip. I had a 5.0 Lyft passenger rating until a few years ago when I made the mistake of politely asking an LA Lyft driver who began raving about how Trump is the second coming and Biden is Satan personified if we could talk about something else. To be nice, I gave him a 5 anyway; he was otherwise a decent driver. He gave me a low rating but, luckily, I had enough 5’s that it didn’t drop me much and I’m now back at 4.9. Lesson learned: Never wave a red flag at a bull that’s foaming at the mouth.
Thanks for sharing Chris. I live in a far west suburb of Chicago, and have had this happen but fortunately it’s after they’ve accepted the fare but before picking me up. They’ll call and ask where I’m going. I’ve learned not to take that call – it’s not a condition of service that I provide an answer. In some cases, they’ll just cancel if I don’t answer. In others, they’ll realize where they have to drive to, and I can feel the frost start to build on the windows. Still, I tip very well, as I know it’s not the fast dash & cash they are looking for.
Uber has done well for me wrt refunds & credits. But I do wish there were a way to provide feedback when a driver cancels, in realtime. Maybe put them in the penalty box for a couple of hours, so they can’t catch any fares?
Folks arguing that Uber should kick people off for cancelling, remember they want more drivers. That allows the price and wait times to remain low. Does anyone have a problem ordering UberBlack from LAX? That’s because they are paid high enough that they don’t engage in games. I get the frustration, but you can’t want it cheap and quick AND not have drivers play games. It’s an either or situation, so pick your poison.