
When are Lyft and Uber going to add a “refund” button within their app? - julien421
This morning - once again - I got charged 5usd for cancelling a ride even though I had good reasons to do so. This happens too many times because of Lyft&#x2F;Uber&#x27;s fault, not mine:<p>- I cancel a ride because the driver goes in the opposite direction
- The app keeps showing 2&#x2F;4 mins and it&#x27;s been 10+min I have been waiting
- Drivers calling me to ask to cancel the ride
- ...<p>If I want to get a refund, I need to spend too much time: DM + email -&gt; https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;julienbarbier42&#x2F;status&#x2F;959105112223264768 + wait for the refund to show on my bank account. (note: when I do ask for refund I always get it, the customer support is nice with me, all the time).<p>When it comes to paying Lyft&#x2F;Uber, this is automatically done, they don&#x27;t have to send me a DM and email to ask me to pay them for the service I used. Why would we have to spend so much time to get reimbursed for a service that we did NOT use?<p>Please Lyft&#x2F;Uber, add a button &quot;refund&quot; WITHIN the app. You technically can EASILY do it. It should be as easy to get reimbursed than to be charged. Of course, you can review complains &#x2F; claims, but I should not have to spend that much more time asking for reimbursement, especially when I right, I am a customer for a long time, I already have a good track record, and all claims I made in the past were confirmed by your team.<p>Why is this not already done?
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nxsynonym
It would leave too much room for fraudulent or abusive behavior. Would
exponentially increase the time their claims/customer service team has to
spend digging through refunds to sort the real ones from the bs.

As a bad customer: I don't like the drivers name - refund. I thought the
driver was too slow - refund. I just want to see what I can get away with -
refund.

Believe it or not, most people will exploit systems to the fullest extent.

~~~
benologist
Completely false. Steam's offered a 2-week refund window ever since their
criminal no-refund policy [1] was called to a judge's attention in Australia
and the end result is a very low refund rate - just 6% for Rust [2].

Google Play for years now have had a 2-hour window where you can reverse
purchases too just by going back to the store page and pressing the cancel
button. I think the vast majority of developers aren't even aware of it.

It's very easy to detect consumer abuse of such a policy at the store-level.
But I don't think consumers in general are trying to fuck companies.
Darkpatterns.org exists to point out how willfully the opposite is true, Uber
are just being thieves and they will be held accountable for it and a refund
button will appear but not until they've stolen millions more.

[1] [http://www.smh.com.au/business/media-and-marketing/video-
gam...](http://www.smh.com.au/business/media-and-marketing/video-games-
website-steam-fined-3-million-for-refusing-refunds-20161223-gthdux.html)

[2] [https://www.pcgamesn.com/rust/rust-refund-stats-sales-
number...](https://www.pcgamesn.com/rust/rust-refund-stats-sales-numbers)

~~~
nxsynonym
Steam and Google play are much different services and user bases.

I'd also like to see comparative transaction amounts before you claim
"completely false".

~~~
benologist
About half of Uber's users come _directly_ from the Play Store:
[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ubercab](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ubercab)

Do you have any examples of companies suffering unfairly from refunds because
consumer protection laws have made them mandatory for a long list of reasons
in many countries for decades already.

~~~
nxsynonym
User downloads != transactions. A user can download the app once and conduct
hundreds of transactions.

Refunds still exist, and are honestly easy to request. My point is that there
is most likely a very strong product/business decision as to why there isn't a
"get my money back now" button in the app.

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chrisseaton
> Drivers calling me to ask to cancel the ride

Tell them to cancel it if they want it cancelled!

~~~
dllthomas
There is an option for "the driver asked me to cancel" in the "why I'm
cancelling" drop down (or something to that effect).

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EdJiang
Uber actually already does this on occasion. Request a refund from My Trips >
Trip > I would like a refund. Depending on your reasoning, and the details of
the trip, it may issue a refund automatically.

For a cancellation fee, I’ve definitely gotten an automatically issued refund
in the past.

Disclosure: I work at Uber.

~~~
lhorie
Huh, I did not know about this. I just tried with a recently cancelled trip
and it did issue an automatic refund. Only nit: the option that gave me the
refund is called "Problem with cancellation fee", not "I would like a refund".

TIL, thanks!

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ramenmeal
This is my biggest complaint with these apps as well, its a terrible
experience and I'm surprised they haven't hashed it out yet. Generally I call
the driver and tell them I won't cancel and sometimes it works. If it doesn't
then I open up the other app and hope it doesn't happen again.

------
afrophysics1
Good middle-ground:

After matching with driver:

Wait 4 minutes.

if distance from driver >= initial distance from driver:

Pop up modal asks if you would like a refund, to be matched with a different
driver, or to wait.

~~~
wccrawford
Alternatively, if you've already waited double the estimated time, do the same
popup.

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tarentel
I have requested a refund because a driver asked me to cancel from the app.
I'm on iOS but if you go Your Trips -> Find it -> I would like a refund. I was
refunded in a very short amount of time from what I remember. edit: This is
from the Uber app, not sure about Lyft.

~~~
mnm1
I've done this on the Android app a few times and have always been denied by a
human. Now I just issue a chargeback with the credit card and don't even
bother to contact Uber.

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jon_richards
If uber charges you $5 and makes you spend an hour to reverse it, no one
reverses it. Those $5 add up.

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ypeterholmes
This isn't just a $5 issue. My friend had a driver start a ride without her in
the car, and then kept it going as they drove multiple hours to the tune of
$650. The whole time we were trying to stop it but there was no option. Months
of tweeting and emailing and calling later, they weren't budging. It wasn't
until I started a Reddit thread asking why Lyft allows drivers to scam riders
that they finally relented and refunded the money. Customer service!

~~~
clintonb
Months of tweeting? Next time just call your credit card issuer and have them
do a chargeback.

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lhorie
The cancel->refund pattern falls under the umbrella of a dispute. Drivers
don't want to drive 10 mins toward a rider and then see them cancel on a whim
with no consequence. In a case like that, the rider made a commitment that
they would pay some money, which would ultimately offset the cost of the
driver driving to the pick up spot, so the driver would want things to be made
right if the rider decided to cancel.

Determining who is right in each case requires human intervention. Human
intervention costs money. In some cities, it costs A LOT of money. Someone has
to pay for it. One solution would be to hide that cost in the price of all
rides, but no company is going to do that if it means having higher prices
than competitors across the board.

If it was more common that a driver is at fault in a cancellation than a
rider, the default behavior of the app would logically be to refund. The fact
that it is not tells you something about the incentives for all the parties
involved and where the potentials for abuse lie.

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muthuraj57
Ola (similar to Uber/Lyft in India) have refund button and it works pretty
well. One time I booked a ride and the driver cancelled it after 20 minutes
because of traffic, but I got charged for that. The Ola app had refund option
and I choose the reason "The driver cancelled the ride" and I got the money
back (to Ola wallet).

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mnm1
They intentionally charge you the $5 because they are assholes who like to
commit fraud. Dispute it with the credit card company. Don't even bother with
Uber. Go straight to your credit card website and put a dispute on it as soon
as it comes out of pending. I have not seen the fee with Lyft myself, but
Uber's charging of fees is absolutely ridiculous. They claim to charge a fee
after you've been waiting for a few minutes if you cancel, despite the fact
that the only reason you've been waiting long enough to trigger the fee is
because they are a bunch of fuckwads who can't provide decent service within a
reasonable amount of time. The fee is fraud and you should treat it as such.
As far as I can tell, the credit card companies do not even contact Uber
anymore, they immediately refund you the money because they know it's fraud.
Oh, and write your representatives, if you think that will make a difference--
it won't.

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warent
This thread has 36 points and 26 comments in 40 minutes, but it's halfway down
the second page somehow. Shouldn't this be on the front page? Is this being
demoted by the mods for some reason?

EDIT: The thread was flagged apparently. For what?

~~~
darkstar999
Because Hacker News isn't Uber or Lyft customer service. Nothing good could
come of this post.

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ikeboy
They do, go to trips, report a problem, request a refund or something.

