Lyft 4+

I take a Lyft almost every day and all over the country. Lyft is far and away a more responsible choice than Uber. They treat the drivers better, take their safety concerns seriously, and reward them for providing a good customer experience. Women drivers I’ve talked to overwhelmingly prefer it.

That said, the algorithms used to find ‘nearby’ drivers are abysmal. I live in Montlake, a dense part of Seattle’s core. We have some of the worst traffic in the state, and bridges limit route options. Lyft prediction for how long it will take for a driver to arrive are off by 5-10X. The algorithm picks cars I can see are never going to be able to get to me on the map, and often waits 10 or more minutes before ‘switching’ to a driver that is closer, and still 10 mins away. That’s right, it is common to wait 20 minutes for a pickup when I can see 5+ drivers within 2 miles of my location on the map, because Lyft picked the wrong one to start. In my neighborhood picking a driver 2 mi away one direction is a 5 minute wait, while the same distance a different direction can be 45 mins. Please, please, please incorporate real time traffic data into your algorithm. At this point that is decade old technology included in almost every directions app.

When I got a Lyft and the driver’s car smelled absolutely disgusting, like vomit, I reached out to customer service to ask for a refund. It’s been almost a week and no one has gotten back to me. It’s also ridiculous that there is no public number or email to reach out to. You can only get help through the app and then you have to answer questions about your problem so you can be directed to an FAQ kind of answer. You’d have to click a vague option to get directed to a page where you can write to customer service. But then you’ll probably never hear back.

Today was the final straw. The map will show a few cars in my neighborhood and then when I request the ride, suddenly there’s only one car available and it’s all the way in a different borough. It says it’s 6 or 7 minutes away and then it keeps switching to “a different driver” who is also in a different borough every 2 minutes and then it’s another “7 minutes away.” It’s ridiculous that it would repeatedly connect me with drivers who are in different boroughs who aren’t actually willing to pick me up. This happens four times in a row and it needs to be fixed because I was going to be early for work and by the time I gave up on getting a Lyft and went with Uber instead, there was no way I could even get to work on time. With Uber, it said my ride was 4 minutes away and it actually came in 4 minutes instead of resetting over and over again with different drivers.

Lyft will literally destroy your whole paycheck. They will trip you in a death trap. When you first download the app, you’ll notice that the price is really cheap, but as you keep using it, they’re keep adding to it, and the next thing you know you’re paying twice the amount you used to pay to go to the same destination. And I’m speaking from experience. I was using lyft 2 years ago, that same thing happened to me and I stopped using it, then I created a totally different account, and they did the same thing in the same fashion. They’re keep using the excuse of “it depends on the time”, but trust me it’s totally BS. When i first created my account, I used to go to my girlfriend’s house at 2 in the morning and it used to be around 6$ and never gets to 7$. Now I’m going to the same place and it’s around 12-15$ (which is ridiculous). And it doesn’t matter what time you get the ride, it’s still expensive as hell. And their driver is never on time, it might say your ride is in 4 minutes and it will literally takes 10 minutes to get to your location. Uber is consistent with their pricing and never try to be greedy and overcharge you. And their driver is always on time. The only reason I let lyft take 75% of my paycheck is because my Uber account wasn’t working for some reason, but after 2 years it’s working again. So I’m deleting this app and would rather get a bad loan and by myself a car instead of ever using this again.