Uber Car Driver Moves to a Different Direction, Requested the Passenger to Cancel the Trip Request
Uber service is one of the most patronized trip booking apps in Metro Manila as it is known for its secured payment, safety to passengers, and it offers more convenience to general commuters. Despite its good reputation, not all passengers received the expected exemptional service. Just like what we just encountered earlier when my partner tried to book a trip to Quezon city.
From the official website of Uber, its main landing page bears the message:
Tap the app, get a ride. Uber is the smartest way to get around. One tap and a car comes directly to you. Your driver knows exactly where to go. And you can pay with either cash or card.
Uber claims it's the "SMARTEST" and can give proper direction to its driver leading to the location of the passenger. Unfortunately, this wasn't the case earlier. The driver went into another location which was about 2-3 kilometers from us.
Series of Events
Let me list the details of the miserable incident to provide you a better picture of the case.
1. My wife sent a trip request using the Uber app. The pinned location was the exact street address where we at.
2. I noticed the location reflected in the app was pointing to a different address.
3. I immediately asked my wife to send an SMS to the driver to tell him our exact location since the app isn't giving the right direction.
4. After nearly 7-8 minutes, we still didn't receive a reply from the driver.
5. We tried to call the number of the driver and we got a voice message telling us that "the number can not be reached".
6. After 2-3 minutes, we received a response from the driver asking our location.
7. My wife called the driver and I personally talked to him. I requested the driver to change his route going to our location but he declined saying that it's way too far.
8. I reminded him that we've sent him an SMS 10 minutes ago to advise him of our address.
9. The driver disagreed and told me to cancel the request.
10. I insisted that we will be billed if we cancel the trip since it was already beyond the allowance per the Terms of Service(ToS) of Uber Philippines. So, I asked him to cancel the trip from his end if he will not proceed to our location.
11. The driver argued that he won't cancel the trip from his side. He also mentioned that he was just following the direction shown in the Uber app.
12. Just to end up the conversation, I told the driver that I will report the incident to Uber since we will be billed for a service that we didn't receive.
13. The driver asked me not to report him to UBER. I insisted that I am not going to report him but I will raise the case to Uber for investigation since it would be too unfair to my wife.
Repeated Wrong Pinned Location
This is not the first time that this case has happened to us. Back in March or April 2016, an Uber driver with car plate number MP1313 (Hyundai Accent) also committed the same error. He was heading to a certain Mercury drug store which was too far from Star Mall, EDSA. Another similar incident also occured to us last month. In February, it also happened when we book a trip from McKinley, Taguig city.
I don't like to appear that we are too bias regarding this matter. by just presenting our own personal bad experiences from Uber. It would be fair enough to discuss another instance which didn't involve us.
On May 27, 2016, an American client who visited our operations in Manila sent a trip request for Uber Black cars. The same exact error... Read Uber Driver Moves to Opposite Direction, Asks Passenger to Cancel the Booked Trip