
An Uber support experience - erentz
http://krisprice.nz/an-uber-support-experience/
======
sudonim
My guess is that the OPs email address soft-bounced 3 times and was added to
Uber's suppression list within their sendgrid account (they are a sendgrid
customer).

There's probably no way for Uber support to see what's happening in their
sendgrid account and this was probably failing silently. Uber's app was
attempting to send the password reset email, but your email was on the
suppression list and delivery was stopped before it was attempted.

~~~
apinstein
This is probably accurate. We had a similar situation occur frequently on our
platform and fortunately Mandrill has awesome built-in support for ensuring
your support team never does this to anyone. Read the article here:
[http://blog.mandrill.com/email-as-a-service-as-a-
service.htm...](http://blog.mandrill.com/email-as-a-service-as-a-service.html)

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chrissnell
Why would you go to such lengths to patronize a business like this? Sticking
by them in the face of such poor service just reaffirms their customer service
practices.

~~~
icebraining
I would have gone to such lengths as well - beats being berated by taxi
drivers for taking short trips.

~~~
rhizome
In SF, Uber drivers are virtually indistinguishable from taxi drivers.

~~~
Anderkent
Except for being easy to hail, guaranteed to take card, and have easily
accessible online receipts. So easily distinguishable.

~~~
rhizome
I wasn't clearly enough distinguishing the drivers and the service: in their
parking and driving. Thought I did have an Uber driver who had their seat
slung so far back and low that my girlfriend and I had to sit on the same side
of the back seat.

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aabbccddee
I got semi screwed by uber support once before I even used it.

I signed up for an account a while ago and had the app installed. Never used
it. I start getting notifications of me having placed orders and getting
picked up in an entirely different continent. I contact uber. They say that
there was some fraud across a number of accounts and cancelled the payments.

Then coming back from the airport, I had planned to try uber for the first
time and use my $20 coupon to get home. I was unable to place an order because
all of my payment methods reported errors and I was told to reenter credit
card details, even for Google wallet. Like the author in this article, I tried
calling support but was unable to find a number. I ended up having to take a
$130 taxi rather than a $40-50 uber home and it took quite a while to contact
them (I'm still unsure my account is usable).

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ranman
Pro tip when dealing with this level of ineptitude is to cold email a few
execs (guess their email from linkedin). Normally the problem will filter down
to someone with the intelligence to calmly read through the thread and
diagnose the issue. Frontline support at many customer facing SV companies are
not correctly trained to escalate and technically troubleshoot. Developer
support tends to be a lot better.

~~~
pla3rhat3r
This tip is the equivalent to "Dial 0 when you reach an IVR." Having been in
Support in the past I can tell you there is nothing worse than having someone
email some random Exec because you're not getting anywhere with Support. While
I'm not trying to defend what happened here, I can certainly empathize. I
liken to someone who has worked as a Waiter/Waitress. When they go to a
restaurant they'll have more empathy for someone than someone that hasn't done
that job. But yeah, they should have noticed what the problem was in a better
way and, if things were escalating, either pass it off to someone else or let
their Manager know things we getting heated.

If you really want a "pro tip" about Support, ask your Rep to inform their
Manager. If things aren't going well you have every right to keep going up the
chain of command. If that doesn't work, keep going. Somehow you'll reach the
right Exec instead of just guessing.

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jschwartzi
This is how not to do customer support. I remember when I was trying to get
Facebook disconnected from my Spotify account, 3 different support agents
asked me if I wanted to have all my old playlists and stuff transferred. After
the third person I just gave up and created a new email address to create a
new account.

I guess the new web doesn't care about paying customers anymore.

------
bhatbha
Recently moved from android to iOS and faced the same problem. There's Lyft
where I live, so I ended up just deleting Uber.

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Animats
What do you expect? Uber has no way to authenticate you if email doesn't work.

Is Uber, by any chance, using "constantcontact.com" ("With Constant Contact,
you can create effective email marketing...") for transaction emails? That's a
terrible mistake, because they're basically a spammer and get blocked or
opted-out. Bay Area FasTrak uses them for billing email, which causes some
problems. An opt-out for all of Constant Contact will cause email sent through
them to fail before it hits your own mail system.

~~~
icebraining
_What do you expect? Uber has no way to authenticate you if email doesn 't
work._

Technically they do - they could send an SMS to the registered number, which
as OP points out, is unique.

~~~
adrr
There's also more than just phone. Could use the full credit card #. They can
also send the device a push notification with a security token and have the
user reset password with it in lieu of an email based token.

~~~
icebraining
_Could use the full credit card #._

I doubt they're storing that.

~~~
anulman
You're likely right, but they could always get crafty with Braintree APIs:
[https://developers.braintreepayments.com/ios+ruby/reference/...](https://developers.braintreepayments.com/ios+ruby/reference/request/credit-
card-verification/search)

------
ishanr
it would actually be faster to manually send the reset link. this is a case of
premature optimization in companies.

~~~
tensor
Allow support staff to get reset links would be a huge security problem.
You're basically giving your support staff unchecked access to anyone's
account.

------
trs0817
Uber is the Comcast of app companies. A profit first, customers second, and
employees third service.

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jurassic
Sounds like Uber needs to write more integration tests.

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scurvy
Another takeaway: all that raised capital and Uber can't open a call center in
middle America?

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hartator
Gmail logs?

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scurvy
I would have given up after the second canned response and just switched to
Lyft. Why are you so insistent to use a company that treats you that way and
is showing very little technical prowess?

~~~
icebraining
From the domain and other posts, OP probably lives in New Zealand, where Lyft
doesn't operate.

~~~
scurvy
Sounds like a market ripe for disruption.

