Digital marketing consultant waits 45 minutes for Uber driver who happily drives cab away in opposite direction, and gets charged more than Rs 850 for it; company refunds money after Twitter complaint
Preshit Deorukhkar
Imagine waiting 45 minutes for an Uber after being told the driver is only 10 minutes away, only to have him cancel on you and be charged over R850 without ever having taken the ride. That is the nightmare digital marketing consultant Preshit Deorukhkar, 31, lived through on Thursday after calling an Uber to go to his Vikhroli office from Chincholi Bunder in Malad. Preshit was, however, refunded the money he was charged by the cab aggregator after he lodged a complaint on Twitter.
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Going in the opposite way
Speaking to mid-day, Preshit said, "Just like any other day this monsoon, I booked a ride on the Uber app and was assigned a driver [named 'P'], who the app said was around 10 or so minutes away. Little did I know that this was going to be a crazy ride. To start off, the driver continued going in the opposite direction, towards Goregaon, instead of turning around and coming towards the pickup point in Malad. I tried calling him, but the call wasn't going through. TrueCaller showed a different name altogether."
Here's where things went haywire. "He turned from Goregaon, and as he passed through the Malad Link Road towards Borivali, the trip had been started, while I was still waiting near my home for him to arrive. He never arrived at the pickup location, and instead went straight through Malad link road. Phone calls to him weren't going through and I couldn't contact Uber support because the trip was active, which is why I wrote to them on Twitter. There was also no way to cancel the trip without being charged an unnecessary cancellation fee. So I was looking to see what the driver was up to," said Preshit.
Trip cancelled
"I was already late for work, and rather than being mad at the driver or Uber, I figured I'll try and follow his route as seen in the app. He took quite a few stops and breaks through his long journey too. In the end, while he was on the Western Express Highway near Dahisar, the trip was cancelled — either by him or by Uber as they'd seen the tweets on Twitter," he added.
"After the trip, Uber charged me a ridiculous amount of Rs 857.43 for the ride. I contacted them and after a few hours, they responded saying that the fare charged has been reversed. "But there were no apologies from them about what had happened. A couple of hours ago today [Friday], I got a clarification from Uber stating that the driver has been offloaded from their systems," said Preshit, who'd also tweeted about the entire incident.
"Additionally, I've been following the comments and responses on Twitter from others and if you see, several have reported the same happening with them, wherein the driver has started the trip before actually picking up the customer, and then having Uber charge the customer for the trip. The same thing happened to one of my friends too, but Uber refuses to refund him," he added.
Driver waitlisted
When mid-day contacted Uber, a spokesperson said, "While this is unfortunate, we recognize that this was a fraudulent trip. Our team took corrective actions the moment this trip was brought to our notice. The driver partner has been waitlisted from the platform and the incorrect trip fare was refunded to the rider immediately."
Also read: No one from Uber even said sorry, says wife of man who was left comatose in cab accident
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