Ride-share risks: when your ride goes wrong
Ride-share services rack up more complaints.
Ride-share services rack up more complaints.
Since the merger (and subsequent de-merger??) of Lime and Uber I've had a number of problems
- No problems with Uber and Lime before they merged
- Last summer I used the Uber App to unlock a Lime bike (probably because I had a free unlock offer from Uber). Bike died, so I unlocked another. That didn't work. Finally after about 5 bikes to complete a 2km journey I raised a complaint requesting refunds. Even though I was invoiced by Uber I was told to raise it with Lime.
- Both Uber and Lime make it difficult to seek support
- Then I found I couldn't use the Lime app because there was a conflict between my Uber and Lime accounts using the same phone no and email.
- Ultimately my bank refunded the charges and said it wasn't worth seeking a recharge from Uber/Lime.
More lately I get phone notifications from Lime urging me to enjoy free unlocks and rides because "we want you back". If I click those notifications and use the app to unlock a ride I don't get the discount / free ride. I get prompted to enter an offer code, but don't see any such codes in the notifications. That smells like a breach of the FTA 1986 to me ("misleading or deceptive conduct" is measured by objective result not subjective intention).
Small fry stuff and hardly earth shattering, but when you add up all the small change from these deliberate or inadvertent rorts , I can see a persuasive business model by not bothering to get it right 100% or even 90% of the time.
Claims arising from these effective microtransactions are not worth the non-recoverable Disputes Tribunal fee. If the Tribunal awarded filing fees and had the discretion to award interest on money claims I think these companies would become much easier to deal with when things go wrong.
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