FREENOW - taxi and more 4+

Extremely Disappointed

Booked a ride recently and the driver didn’t move for 20 mins, then called me and tried to ask me to cancel because of “traffic”, I checked Google maps and found no traffic between our respective locations, I pointed this out and the driver started driving away from me and told me I’ll have to wait another half an hour for him to arrive.
Eventually I cancelled the ride as the driver gave me no other choice, and FreeNow charged me a fee. I then contacted their customer service and they never got back in touch. I tried reaching out on Twitter, nothing. Tried Facebook, nothing. If you have any issue with Free Now - good luck, they offer no support and are impossible to contact. Will avoid this app from now on. They’re basically incentivising drivers to steal cancellation fees from people and then avoid any customer service to refund people

Developer Response ,

Hi Azraha, we're sorry to hear that you were charged for this cancellation. Please contact us at https://support.free-now.com/hc/en-gb/requests/new or send feedback through the app with more information so we can investigate.

Don’t use for pre-booking

A couple of days ago, I had booked a FreeNow black cab for a 5:00am pickup today to the London Eurostar international terminal, to catch an early train to Amsterdam. Literally at 5:00am today (21st September 2022), the app sent me a notification that no drivers were available! I was then scrambling around to find another (any!) cab at the last minute, across the FreeNow, Uber and Bolt platforms, to make it to the terminal in time. This was a stressful experience, as other drivers were either not available, too far away, or cancelled my booking (Bolt drivers get unlimited cancellations, FreeNow drivers get only three per week). I live in north London, zone 2, it’s only a ten-fifteen minute drive to the terminal from my home, but when no cabs are available it suddenly feels very far.

This business model of assigning drivers at the last minute only, does not work for international travellers who need the security of a confirmed booking, particularly for early morning or late night trips. FreeNow (and other platforms) need to figure out a way to honour pre-bookings, to international terminals in particular — it can’t be that hard! In the meantime, me and my family are going back to using the old minicab companies, who do a much better job at this usually. Drivers show up early, and if no drivers are available for an early morning pickup, you find out a day or two in advance, not at the last minute.

Misleading advertising, driver was late and no refund

I pre-booked a taxi for the airport for 5:30am, using a 50% off promotion that I got in my inbox a couple of days ago. At 5:30am this morning there was no sign of the driver. I had to call him and he told me he was on his way. 15 min later he finally showed up. The fair I paid had a total discount of £9, corresponding to 25% off rather than 50%. So, I contacted the customer care service through the app and I received an email back saying that if I wanted to be contacted by an operator I had to reply to the email, attaching a screenshot of my relay address as they are GDPR compliant!!?? You already have all my details and I gave you consent to contact me. This is an overkill from a customer experience pov and you should really sack someone in your compliance and marketing department.
The customer support replied after this unnecessary step, completed at 6 am on a Sunday morning. I also questioned their ‘waiting fee’ policy, which applied to the customer in case the taxi has to wait over 5 min, but it doesn’t work the other way around, especially if someone has pre-booked a taxi that is meant to go to the airport. After my last email, no reply.
Review your GDPR policies, your misleading promotional activities and your waiting fees in order to attract more customers, retain existing ones and compete with the likes of Bolt and Uber! They would have refunded my fair by now!