A friend was recently in Milwaukee (first time ever. He was there for a conference).
He, his wife, and another friend, wanted to go out to eat.
They were given a wrong address. Could have been the source, or it could have been they screwed up writing it down. It was definitely a wrong address, though, that they gave to Uber.
The driver picked them up, and took them to the address, which was deep in Da Hood. Not a good area for three middle-class white folks to be wandering around.
The driver insisted they get out, even though it was clearly a wrong address, and a downright dangerous neighborhood (my friend has some experience with rough neighborhoods. If he said it was bad, it was bad).
My friend offered to pay whatever it took, to get to the correct address (they had figured out their mistake, by then), but the driver refused to do that. It was probably algorithmically prohibited.
My friend had never used Uber before (and never will, again), so wasn’t aware that you are supposed to be able to appeal to Uber.
I have a feeling that my friend offered to rearrange the driver’s dental work (Did I mention that he was familiar with tough neighborhoods?), and got the driver to drop them off in a better area, where they caught a cab.
Sounds like a bad customer experience. I doubt Uber ever heard the story. My friend never bothered contacting them, and I will bet that the driver didn’t.
If I was that driver, you bet I'd be contacting Uber to try and get your friend banned for life. Threatening a driver is never ok, even less so when it's not his fault.
I don't think that'd hold up against a legal review. It seems like an unreasonable position that some neighbourhood is so terrible that standing there for 20 minutes is an imminent threat. It might even be true, but that isn't a baseline a judge should really accept. The residents who live there obviously get through the day.
It may well have been very dangerous, but realistically it is hard to make dropping someone off in a residential area a crime. Threatening a driver with physical violence is definitely a crime though.
This is the address they gave to the driver,full stop. After the job’s done, you can’t just tack on extra requests like it’s a buffet. He delivered exactly what you asked, not a mind reading bonus round. It’s not his fault you gave the wrong address, he’s not clairvoyant.
Threatening someone for being a complete asshole is always okay, and even cool.
I really do not care how uncomfortable it makes the driver to move a family a few extra blocks to somewhere vaguely safe. I’d similarly threaten him if he tried to drop my family off in a forest, or on the side of a highway, even if that’s what the GPS, God’s Position System, tells them to do.
If your job ends in a way that someone who was your customer is now in danger, you absolutely deserve to be threatened.
> Threatening someone for being a complete asshole is always okay, and even cool.
"Being an asshole" is in the eye of the beholder. Plenty of people thing CEOs are assholes, you are saying that it is "always ok, and even cool" to threaten them? Some people think that religious folks are assholes. Some people think blue haired lefty folks are assholes.
I think you need better criteria for violence than "I think this person is an asshole". Even if you had a standard definition for asshole, threatening violence is an escalation. Someone flips you the bird, sure, they are an asshole, doesn't mean you can move to threatening to punch them.
The driver doesn't know these people, doesn't have any protection against them should they do something unpredictable or make a mess of his car outside of the Uber ride. The driver is also making a threat assessment here -- "why did they have me drive to this place and then insist I drive somewhere else? Is this a scam somehow? Is this a precursor to a violent crime?"
lol, three innocent people begging to be taken somewhere safe sure are scamming you. Stop pontificating on situations you’ve never experienced anything within a thousand miles of.
You are disagreeing with the concept, and then saying you only heard one side of… what story?
I just do not care if my customer service agent has a bad time after putting me in a dangerous situation.
Do people not realize that this is how the world works? If you are serving customers, putting them IN DANGER, yes EVEN if it was at their own request, is what is actually wrong.
You don’t let someone ride a roller coaster unrestrained. You don’t let someone eat room temperature meat. You don’t drop a family off in an extremely dangerous neighborhood. Any employee would be right to be ridiculed for allowing any of these things - ESPECIALLY when a child is concerned.
Well, there were no children. It was three adults, but two were women.
I don’t think that it would be OK to threaten any customer service person with physical harm (but it happens all the time, nonetheless. Check out notalwaysright.com), but I also know that customer service people have a responsibility to ensure the safety of their patrons. Kicking folks out in a bad neighborhood could have cost Uber quite a bit, and it’s surprising that there seemed to be no recourse. It’s entirely possible the driver was ignorant of company policy.
I've lived in urban areas my whole life. Including some of the largest cities in North America. While there's places I consider higher risk, and routes I wouldn't typically take, simply existing in some neighborhood in Milwaukee isn't some existential threat to life and limb.
Keep your head down and walk a few blocks to somewhere safer and get a cab/uber/lyft out of there if needed.
Heck, book another Uber, you know at least one driver is in the neighborhood.
I lived in Baltimore. There’s some truly scary spots, there.
As for booking another Uber, anyone that has lived in less-than-pristine areas, knows that these neighborhoods can be “blacklisted.” You can’t get Ubers or cabs to come in.
Sure, and you know what? If we were talking about Baltimore I might concede some ground here. But unless I'm WAY off base, Milwaukee isn't anywhere close to parts of Baltimore when it comes to "existential danger from walking in the streets".
Once you spend time in an actually dangerous neighborhood - one where people can spot your out-of-place-ness before you even get out of the car - one where the good guys are the ones telling you to get the hell out before you find yourself in a real bad situation - ones where the gas station attendants are hard as hell - you’ll understand that your experience of walking through vaguely poor neighborhoods is not akin to dangerous neighborhoods.
Nobody who has ever been in a dangerous neighborhood would have this opinion unless they’re truly callous
If your friend thinks it's okay to threaten to assault a driver, especially for an issue that wasn't the driver's fault, then it sounds like "da hood" is where he belongs...
Not sure if he did. He probably didn’t have to. He’s a big guy, but also one of the most decent people I know (but let’s not assume anything). He never said he did. It was my assumption (ASS out of U and ME). It’s also possible he bribed the driver enough. He could certainly afford it. I didn’t actually ask him. I do know that he (and the two women with him) were pretty terrified of being left in the middle of that area, and scared people can get pretty pithy. This guy used to run night clubs in Miami. It would probably have been a lot less of an issue, if he had been alone.
What he was amazed at, was the driver’s insistence that they get out, without any recourse or care. A Waymo could do the same, I guess, but they could also sit in it until the company contacted them, or the cops showed up.
A New York cabbie would probably threaten him right back, but would also have known they were headed for a bad patch, and maybe have asked if they had the right address. This was their first time ever, in Milwaukee, and I suspect Milwaukee cabbies are of a similar stripe to New York cabbies. I know quite a few former cabbies.
Funny how the least verifiable thing in the story is the one everyone hooked on. I guess I could ask him. It happened last week. Not sure if I’d want to spoil everyone’s good time calling him a criminal, if it turns out he was just able to shame the driver into accepting a couple of Jacksons to get out of there. If he did, I suspect Uber would sanction the driver, for accepting a fare, outside their system.
So basically, you’re admitting key elements of your original story were made up?
> A Waymo could do the same, I guess, but they could also sit in it until the company contacted them, or the cops showed up.
How’s this different from an uber? If this guy is as big and strong as you say, the uber driver has no more ability to force him out than a Waymo does.
> So basically, you’re admitting key elements of your original story were made up?
Sure, and I regret it. I didn’t think it was a “key element.” The part that struck me, was the inflexibility of the driver. A real cabbie might laugh at you, but happily take more money to get out of there.
If he had refused to leave (which he did), then the driver might be legitimately worried. It sounds like the driver didn’t really understand which neighborhood he was in, or he would have been a lot more scared. A classic robbery technique against cabbies, is getting them to drive to bad neighborhoods, then robbing them.
The thing that struck me, was the complete lack of situational awareness, or customer service ethos, on the part of the driver. That seems to be an inevitable result of the Uber business model, and folks that sign up as Uber drivers, need to be aware of the dangers and responsibilities.
When you have people in your car, you have their lives in your hands, and your employer’s brand integrity, as well. The driver’s behavior resulted in some brand damage to Uber. My friend’s behavior may have resulted in a permanent ban, but he certainly didn’t care, as he’s done with Uber, anyway.
If, on the other hand, the driver had been sympathetic and helpful, he could have had three grateful, enthusiastic evangelists for Uber. Any experienced customer service person knows that having an upset customer, that admits they are in the wrong, but is also upset, is gold. It can easily be mined for the advantage of the service provider, or turned into a complete shitshow (which is what happened, here).
In the end, it sounds like it turned out OK for everyone (except Uber, who permanently lost three customers).
Heh. Just as another point. I mentioned the story to another friend, who used to be a cabbie, and he said "Oh, that was a gypsy cab robbery. Classic."
Apparently, the way that it works, is that the cab takes you to a bad neighborhood, then tells you to get out, unless you pay. If my friend had tried getting physical, he would have been staring into the muzzle of a .38, so the talk of physical threats was likely bullshit face-saving. He also said that the driver won't relent for less than $100, so it's likely my other friend was fleeced pretty bad.
The way it works, is that the "cabbie" looks for parties with women and/or children, because that means there's unlikely to be a problem. They look at hotels, because that means out-of-towners, and there’s a lot fewer cops around than airports (this chap was disturbingly familiar with the technique. Many of my friends are former Bad People).
With Uber, and the way that they track drivers, he suggested that the person who picked them up, was probably not the contracted driver, but was in cahoots with the driver. The call was canceled by the real driver as a "no-show," and the ride was never on the clock, or the driver drove empty.
Hey, listen, we operate on the information we're given at the time we're given it. They are completely different stories, because they reflect completely different sources of information.
It doesn't seem that matters to you, anyway. I'm not into fighting, so I guess our correspondence is at an end.
I'm not at all averse to admitting when I could be wrong. Not very "American" of me, I know. We're supposed to ride Wrong like a battle tank.
Considering how common the gypsy cab gamut is, I'm surprised no one here considered it. I guess I'm not the only one who is maybe not as worldly as I might think I am, eh?
Interesting that you're repeating this all over. I guess there's a story, therein.
I can tell you that urban (and suburban) areas in the US can be quite ... interesting. Where I live (NY suburbs), it's not difficult to be in gang areas, about fifteen minutes in any direction. They usually keep their predations to themselves, though. The city neighborhoods that are run by the mob, on the other hand, are some of the safest in the nation (unless you're a crook). I have a friend that lives in Howard Beach, and he says that he sometimes forgets to lock his front door, and doesn't worry about it. Burglars end up in ICU, after "falling down the stairs."
Anyway, as I mentioned in another unread comment, the driver that picked them up, was probably not the driver associated with the account. Basic common sense. The person that explained it to me, mentioned the ways that the gypsy cab people have probably adapted to the new paradigm. Crooks are a lot smarter and more creative, than folks give them credit for.
The gun is unlikely to be used, unless the driver feels the need. They don't want trouble, they just want money, but even legit cabbies often go armed. They are ripe targets, and cab robbers are quite dangerous.
there’s a certain genre of story that has the flavor of ‘urban crime apocrypha’, examples like ubiquitous roofie-ing and PCP laced marijuana.
others can judge the frequency of an Uber driver in the US robbing you at gunpoint (with an account tied to their SSN/DL) or whether that is common enough that you can assume a gun will be pulled without seeing it.
New information, new story. If I'm wrong, I promptly admit it. I'm weird, that way, apparently. I guess what I'm supposed to do, is refuse to admit fault, to the end. Sorry to spoil the fun. I didn't know the rules.
Funny how none of the worldly cynics, here, figured that out (I didn't, and I thought I was worldly and cynical). When I mentioned it to my cabbie friend, he popped it out instantly. It's a well-known issue, around here. The local airports and train stations have posters about it. I admit that I've seen the posters, but they didn't register, when I first heard the story. It seems the same folks have figured out how to ply their trade with modern ride-hailing apps.
The absurdity here is that any cabbie would be happy to continue driving you around as long as you're able to pay for it. It's the entire business model after all.
Ubers aren't cabs. They are paid for the ride itself, not for the time of the ride. There is no meter to run.
Honestly, in a city of any significant size, I prefer taxis. Taxis have accountability. And they know that it's about moving fares, so in a decently populated area, you do better by getting more fares rather than more out of a fare.
The only difference with the Waymo experience would be that there would be nobody your friend could threaten to assault for putting in the wrong address.
Is that relevant? It's a driverless car. Simply don't get out. Maybe it drives you back to dispatch or to the police station. Maybe the police show up to the current location. Regardless its got to be safer than wandering around a neighborhood you definitely don't belong in.
I grew up in substantially more dangerous environs than urban America.
It's entirely possible to live quite safely, in urban US areas, but the opposite is also true, and those folks are the ones that like people that live in the bubbles.
The confusion around getting the address wrong is an interesting tell. If you think you’re not likely to make that mistake, anyway. It’s also a bit late to realize at that point since you’re already in the bad area.
But it reminds me of tech support scams which usually have an element of convincing the victim that they made a mistake.
Unless they cancel the ride, and you ignore the notification.
I was talking to someone recently, and they were telling me about how they got a (Lyft, I think) ride from the airport (JFK), and the driver picked them up, and said that the ride had been canceled (as they got into the car), but that for $20, he'd take them where they were going (I assume the ride was less than $20).
Apparently, this is fairly common. There's been a couple of articles about how the Uber and Lyft drivers around JFK and LaGuardia have learned to game the system. They can also conspire to drive up the pricing.
A friend was recently in Milwaukee (first time ever. He was there for a conference).
He, his wife, and another friend, wanted to go out to eat.
They were given a wrong address. Could have been the source, or it could have been they screwed up writing it down. It was definitely a wrong address, though, that they gave to Uber.
The driver picked them up, and took them to the address, which was deep in Da Hood. Not a good area for three middle-class white folks to be wandering around.
The driver insisted they get out, even though it was clearly a wrong address, and a downright dangerous neighborhood (my friend has some experience with rough neighborhoods. If he said it was bad, it was bad).
My friend offered to pay whatever it took, to get to the correct address (they had figured out their mistake, by then), but the driver refused to do that. It was probably algorithmically prohibited.
My friend had never used Uber before (and never will, again), so wasn’t aware that you are supposed to be able to appeal to Uber.
I have a feeling that my friend offered to rearrange the driver’s dental work (Did I mention that he was familiar with tough neighborhoods?), and got the driver to drop them off in a better area, where they caught a cab.
Sounds like a bad customer experience. I doubt Uber ever heard the story. My friend never bothered contacting them, and I will bet that the driver didn’t.