I “vomited“ while Riding in back seat. yes, this is how vomit works… and had to pay a cleaning fee. All because I wouldn’t go out on a date with the driver. Lyft did nothing to help me because it is in their contract that the driver can sexually harass you, then charge for not having sex with him when he retaliates.
good job, Lyft. I’ll Never ride with you in the future.
Yesterday night at ~10:30, my mom called me an Lyft from the Chicago North Burbs to the South Side (about 25 miles), it was ~$60. I was returning from a trip and had a suitcase with me, which the Lyft driver put in the trunk, per usual. About 10 minutes into the ride (we had left Burbs and were now on the highway), the trip cancelled. I was confused, my mom (who called the ride) was confused, and the driver seemed to be confused too. He had me put in my address on his maps to take me home, and I promised him I would pay him when we got there (my mom and her partner were back in the Burbs trying to figure out what happened, but they are both older and could not figure it out). He dropped me safely off at home (I had my dad meet me downstairs), and paid him the full rate via Zelle (I offered to do PayPal or Venmo, he asked for Zelle).
He seemed so genuinely confused and caught off guard when the trip cancelled, saying stuff like "I have never seen this happen before", I really believed him - in fact I felt guilty because he was saying that Lyft wouldn't pay him for a cancelled ride. Besides, I was essentially trapped in his car (I am a pretty small college-aged lady, plus he had my luggage in the back!!) on the highway, so I don't know what else I could have done. I can't get a chargeback on the Zelle, I've accepted that, but was I scammed, or was it really a bizarre glitch?? What should I do if this ever happens again??
I just found out that the reason my Lyft app wasn't working was that my rider account was deactivated 2 years ago. I asked Lyft Help about this and just got a response that there were severe allegations against me as a rider and the decision is permanent. I have no recollection of any negative incident and Lyft is not telling me what the allegations are. Before this I was a 5-star rider with hundreds of rides. What the heck? Do I have any recourse here?
For context, I work in fitness and open a studio in another borough 3x a week. Because I have to be there so early, I schedule a Lyft for 4:15 am the night before. It's a 15 minute ride in NYC.
For the first three years, when I lived in Manhattan, this system worked perfectly and I never had any issues. About six months ago, I moved to Brooklyn, and for the last three months, it’s been an absolute disaster.
I’ve had multiple rides fail to show up. I’ve had drivers accept the ride and then ask me to cancel it. I’ve even had a driver refuse to pick me up while also refusing to cancel the ride himself. We basically sat in a standoff until 4:30 when he finally canceled. Just this morning I had my requested ride disappear after a driver was assigned and I had to call a car regularly (after I scheduled my ride the night before) and the request didn't exist in the app?! IT LITERALLY DISAPPEARED. I ended up 15 minutes late.
At this point, I don’t feel like I can rely on Lyft to get me to work on time, which is a huge problem when I’m responsible for opening my workplace. I’ve contacted support multiple times, and their response has basically been, there’s nothing we can do but here's a refund and $5.
Is anyone else experiencing this with scheduled Lyft rides in Brooklyn? Is there a better alternative? I can’t keep gambling on whether my ride will actually show up at 4:15. I also have a CSR so I'm a Lyft pink member on top of all of this.
I just finished an entire day of driving: 32 rides. Roughly 80% were college students.
I checked my earnings afterward.
Every single tip I received today came from a ride that wasn’t a college student.
So parents, you need to have this conversation with them, because I know damn well your child isn’t reading Reddit.
Tell your college-aged little student that when they summon a private car to take them from campus to their dorm because they don’t feel like walking or waiting for the bus, they need to tip the driver $1.
That’s it. One dollar.
I’m not asking your kid to throw down $5 for a three-minute ride. But if they can afford to summon a private car to take them six blocks, they can afford to give the person driving it a dollar.
And if that dollar is genuinely going to break the budget?
Take the campus bus. It’s there for a reason.
I had an unsettling experience with a rideshare driver a couple of days ago and I’m wondering if I’m worrying too much.
At pickup, the driver appeared to have stopped, so I walked behind the car to put my luggage in the trunk. While I was behind the vehicle, he unexpectedly started backing up. I moved away quickly, and he backed up again before stopping.
After I got into the car, he became extremely angry and yelled at me, blaming me for walking behind the vehicle.
Seeing how angry he became honestly scared me. I was a woman riding alone, and after seeing him lose his temper like that, I felt very vulnerable being in the car with him. I barely said anything for the rest of the ride and just wanted to get to my destination safely and get out.
I didn’t report him immediately. I waited about a day because I wanted some time to think about whether I really wanted to report the incident. Eventually, I decided to submit a safety report because I felt something like this should at least be documented.
I specifically told the company that I wasn’t seeking compensation and wasn’t asking for any particular punishment. My intention was simply to bring the safety concern to their attention.
What I didn’t really think about beforehand was that the company might take disciplinary action against the driver anyway. Afterward, I started worrying that he might assume I was the one who reported him and become angry enough to try to identify me or come back looking for me.
Fortunately, I was not dropped off directly in front of my home, so he did not actually see which residence I entered.
It’s been a couple of days, and I still catch myself looking outside to see if his car is around. I know this may just be anxiety after an upsetting experience, but I’m curious whether anyone else has ever felt this way after reporting a driver.
Has anyone had a similar experience? Did anything ever happen afterward? Am I overestimating the likelihood of retaliation?
Lyft gives out little kudos in the app for positive rider behavior, and one of them is for being a Top Tipper.
I’ve taken 10 rides and tipped on 5 of them. That was enough to get it.
So if you don’t have that badge…
Yuck. 😂
I drove Lyft every try night after work for a whole week. Recently for 5 days (100 dollars a night) straight in a row and to buy my new set of five 50k evals and copy trade them. Blew them all this morning on the second day.
It’s been an 8 month journey for me so far. About 22,000 dollars spent on evals and account resets.
I’ve passed evals I’ve taken payouts but I’m back at square one.
The $1114.26 you see from my Lyft driver earnings I pretty much spent most of that buying evals and resetting them.
Not giving up though.
So who in California signed their union card and how much are we paying in union fees
They only gave me $5.25 out of my $15 ride.
Hello,
I just had a ride from work just now. It was the usual $12 because I live about 11 mins away from my job.
The driver was nice and I was touched by her story so I tipped her the highest percentage.
Despite me being a waitress and it being our slow season.
Before leaving, the driver gives me a laundry advertising card, which is some sort of independent company she’s trying to start.
I thank her, tip her and exit the ride and then go to my bed to rest.
So here I am laying down, and I get a phone call from my sister. Stating that a driver was here to return someone to me. So I was like ???, I hadn’t lost anything.
So I come out and she stated that the rider after me had noticed that I lost the AirPod and so she came back to give it to me. So I am thankful, and then she shows me the app about needing to say that I received the item.
And so as I’m reading, it stated that it would give me a $20 fee if I received the item back. And she stated “no??? Lyft is supposed to be the one reimbursing me, why would the rider do that?.”
(20 may be nothing to whoever’s reading this, but once again it’s our slow season and waitress’ make 2-$3 an hour. And even during our busy season, it’s staffed so I’m not coming home with big bucks every day. )
And so I stated that I would decline the item so that they wouldn’t take the $20 from me (which I needed to get to work tomorrow), and she agreed, and stated that she would reach out to Lyft to make sure that they don’t take the $20 from me. And so I thanked her and hugged her. And she stated that she would contact Lyft. A few minutes after returning to my room, I noticed the $20 charge fee.
She had spoken to Lyft and told them that she returned the item but that the rider doesn’t have $20 to give (and me being just a measly customer, what company would care about me being poor right?).
Regardless, her reporting the item as returned is what triggered the $20.
And so I am call her using the phone number on the card, and she’s shocked and confused as to why they would charge me. I then proceed to explain what the policy reads. I recorded the conversation btw, if anyone wants a link to it for context!
Although, what doesn’t make sense to me is, if I didn’t even request the item as lost and the driver just shows up to my house to give it back to me, why would I be charged the fee? I didn’t even know she was coming nor did I ask her to come. I understand that it is to compensate the driver, but I never asked the driver come back and give it to me in the first place.
Point is, I’d rather miss a single AirPod than miss a day at work because yk, I need a job. And my job starts too early for me to take a bus. Losing that $20 quite literally drained my account.
So anyways, she states that she would speak with Lyft and tell Lyft that I specifically did not want the item back. And worse come to worse that she would send me $20.
So, I contact Lyft and work my way around the AI bot so I can speak to someone real. They repeat the policy. And so I call the driver, straighttttt to voicemail. Every time, straight to voicemail. And ask her if she can just send me the $20 (like she said she would), because Lyft will not reimburse me. No response.
And so that’s when I get angry and feel like I’ve been playedddd. And so I text her and say a bunch of stuff but for the most part being, “ I don’t want to believe you knew that this would happen but now you’re not answering at all, even though you said that you’d call me back and that’s worrying me.” No response.
So then I professionally (if I do say so myself) or formally rather, request formal review via the Lyft chat and they stated that there was no supervisor. But that they would send this over to a supervisor and I should expect an email you know, one of these days.
So then, my boyfriend calls me and as I’m about to rant, I get another phone call and it’s her. I did not record this call even though I should’ve! And so I pick it up and she’s angry. Stating that I’m being ungrateful, and although she was thinking about sending me the money, she’s not going to anymore because I’m being ungrateful. Trying to speak and she’s cutting me off, she even stated that she didn’t have any money sending apps, so I’m not even sure how she was planning on giving me the $20 anyways? ** **
But I told her that tipping her was already stretching an already stretched wallet. And that as a driver, she should’ve been aware of the policy. Hence, why her agreeing to our “decline return, so you won’t have to give me $20,” just felt strange. She’s still cutting me off, calling me ungrateful blah blah blah, saying that she recorded this call too so she record how ungrateful I am. And it’s like, I just want to be able to get to work tomorrow so I don’t get fired. 🥹
And so anyways we’re arguing and I’m not really getting any words in so I end the call and text her to cease communication with me and I’d wait for the manual review.
So anyways, thoughts ? Should I wait for the manual review or do a chargeback immediately? Who’s wrong? Am I an asshole, is she an asshole, are we both assholes? Who’s in the right and how do i move forward.
I could care less about losing access to Lyft. I mainly use uber anyways , and I’m regretttingggg that I didn’t today.
Anyways, now I got to figure out how im going to get to work. It’s looking like a 2 hour walk is my only option.
-end-
Edit: although it was fun arguing, I must call my bf now. That’s all folks! <3
Drivers and riders technically use the same five-star system, but the consequences are not symmetrical.
I’m sitting at a 4.99 right now because I got one 4-star rating somewhere in my last 100 rides. I did 18 rides yesterday. I can easily cycle through roughly 100 rides in less than a week, so that one rating eventually falls off pretty fast.
Most riders do not have that luxury. If you only use Lyft occasionally, a bad rating can sit on your profile for a long time.
Last night I accepted a 4.7 rider mostly because the ride paid well and, frankly, I was curious.
What does a 4.7 look like?
Well, in this case: a loud, high-energy group trying to fit five passengers into a car that can legally take four.
I told them I could only take four, and to their credit, they respected it. During the ride I told the account holder, “I took this because I was curious what a 4.7 looks like. Now I know.”
Then something interesting happened.
She told me she had absolutely no idea riders were being rated.
I showed her the rating in the app and explained that drivers see it before deciding whether to accept the trip. I also told her I wasn’t going to rate her poorly just because they initially tried to bring five people. I set the boundary, they respected it, end of story.
But I also told her some drivers absolutely will ding you just for trying it.
And if you’re wondering what you did to get dinged, you probably cost the driver one of four things: time, money, gas, or liability. Or you asked for something completely ridiculous.
That made me realize something: maybe some riders with mediocre ratings genuinely have no clue they’re accumulating a reputation score at all.
I’ve also noticed, purely anecdotally, that some lower-rated ride requests seem to pay unusually well. I cannot prove Lyft is doing this, but I’ve wondered whether they sometimes give up more of their cut when they need to make a less-attractive ride worth accepting. Could be coincidence, supply and demand, distance, or a dozen other things, so I’m not presenting that as fact.
Either way, your rating matters.
A driver doing 100 rides a week can wash out one bad rating pretty quickly. A rider doing a handful of trips a month can carry theirs around for a long time.
So if you didn’t know riders were rated too: now you know.
That little number next to your name is your reputation with the stranger deciding whether they want you in their car.
I got charged $75 for a mess I never made, and I’m honestly still shaking with anger.
This morning I took a 7:30am ride to work. The driver’s name was Prajjwal. The ride was completely normal. Quiet, smooth, nothing out of the ordinary. We didn’t say a word to each other beyond a hello at the start and a thank you at the end. I got out after about 20 minutes, thanked him, and went into work like it was any other day.
Then my boyfriend, who had booked the ride for me, called and asked if something had happened during the trip. I said no, why? It was quiet the whole way. That’s when he told me there was a $75 charge on the account. My stomach dropped.
We called customer care to figure out what it was for, and that’s when it got ridiculous. They said the driver had filed a complaint claiming I damaged his car, that I left “some sort of liquid” all over the seat and door. Liquid. From a ride where I sat still, said nothing, and touched nothing. I didn’t even have anything on me that could spill. My bag only had my ID, my work vest, and some papers. I wasn’t even carrying a water bottle.
We asked them what mess they were even talking about, and they had no real answer. No photo. No proof. Nothing. They had already confirmed the charge without hearing a single word from our side. And when we asked for the driver’s details so we could actually talk to someone about this, they flat out refused.
The whole thing reeks. Our guess is the driver used an old photo, or an AI generated one, to fake damage and pocket the money, and customer care just took his word for it and moved on.
I do not have $75 to lose. I work a minimum wage job, and starting my day getting robbed like this over something I didn’t do feels awful. I’ve done nothing wrong here, and I’m not letting it go.
Does anyone know what I can actually do about this, and has this happened to anyone else before?
I urge everyone to stop using lyft for your own safety.
Edit: I live in Canada, travel by train and bus every day. I was running late, that’s why I had to seek out for a ride.
Lyft or Uber. Or which is the less bad app
Lyft is doing fraudulent stuff and the Lyft mods on here is trying to cover it up. They deleted what I posted because they know im telling the truth.
Had a late night ride with a Lyft driver who repeatedly complained about how at this hour, all the drivers just want to go home and shouldn’t be giving rides to people. He brought it up multiple times and seemed pretty angry. I just tried not to engage, but my real question is couldn’t he have just refused the ride if he didn’t want to do it?
Honestly this is a scam. There is very little actual profit or earning potential for the driver after all of the fees and deposit. You start at least $550 in the negative, more if you take personal miles (including going home at the end of the night) and insurance and you won’t make it back for at least 3 days IF you drive 10 hrs a day then when you start your next week over you are -$211 again taking your whole first day pay. Lyft is only worth it if you already have a car you don’t mind putting miles on.
Alright, college crowd. Now that you’ve survived Saturday night and rejoined society, I have one small request: Please don’t order your Lyft until you’re actually ready to leave.
You are absolutely allowed to use the pickup timer. Seriously. Take your time. But here’s a little peek behind the curtain: while you’re upstairs finding your shoes, waiting for your friend to finish their drink, or figuring out who disappeared into the bathroom, I’m shopping the other app. 😂 I’m not mad about it. I’ve actually found this much less stressful. You don’t have to be in a hurry, and I don’t have to sit there getting irritated. We’re both participating in the marketplace.
I care about my hourly earnings. If I’ve been sitting outside for four minutes on a busy Friday or Saturday night and something substantially better pops up on the other app (and there’s a good chance it will), I may take it. Another driver gets dispatched to you. Hopefully they’re right around the corner. And hopefully you weren’t counting on me waiting five minutes because you needed to beat the line at the bar. 😂
Special mention: “I just have to pay my tab.” If you text me that, thank you. That’s genuinely all the information I needed. You just told me you’re not ready to leave. I’m not waiting to find out whether paying your tab takes 30 seconds or five minutes. Pay the tab. Then order the Lyft.
And here’s the one thing I’d love for you to spread to your friends: Before somebody orders the ride, don’t ask, “Is everybody ready?” Apparently “ready” can mean a lot of things. Ask, “Is everybody ready to walk out the door right now? I’m about to order the Lyft.” That’s the standard. The app gives you an ETA. You can literally watch the little car getting closer. Once that car starts moving toward you, that’s the countdown, not the signal to start getting ready.
So yes, take your sweet-ass time if you want. Just don’t assume your driver is going to take it with you. 😂 Get ready. Then order the Lyft. Spread the word.
And for those who read the original post: I heard you loud and clear. Way too fucking long. 😂
