Lyft 4+

As a pregnant working mom, time is very important to me. I typically schedule my rides anywhere from 2hrs-24hrs before I need them. In the last week alone, I’ve had drivers cancel on me multiple times AFTER making me wait between 10-30 mins for the ride. And mind you, I SCHEDULED these rides way in advance. So not only am I getting picked up well past my latest estimated time of pick up, sometimes I can’t even find another ride AFTER being cancelled on. With my last scheduled ride, the woman waited 10 mins in one place after finishing her trip before mine, very obviously trying to force me to cancel. When I didn’t she drove within 2 mins of my location and then cancelled on me! I waited over 35 minutes just to be left stranded. There should be a way to report these drivers. I was left pregnant and alone outside after 10PM without another ride available to me. Normally I would just try to catch a bus, but it was so late that the buses weren’t even running. I ended up having to switch to Uber and “luckily” I was able to find one less than 20 min away but that meant I didn’t get home until an HOUR after I had scheduled a Lyft to pick me up. (I live only a 7 min drive from my pickup). This week alone has made me rethink using Lyft altogether because I have yet to run into these problems with Uber in the last 6 months.

I traveled for the first time to Austin, TX to visit friends, but due to a death in the family, I needed a Lyft after coordinating a hotel. The Lyft app indicated to go the Main Terminal, Red 4. The Austin Airport has signs indicating where to go for ride shares, so I followed those since there was no one at the Information Desk in the baggage area. The pick up area based on the airport signs led had signs indicating letters of the alphabet. I sent text message to the driver to advise me to where to wait since the folks I asked outside didn’t know where to go either. Eventually, an airport shuttle driver told me to go to the parking garage and to ‘follow the yellow cones’. I saw a sign indicating that I was in the red garage and snapped a photo of the sign because the elevator only went to level 3. Eventually I found a another worker in the parking garage who told me to go to the second level and near the letter J. There were cones there for ride shares. On the pillars, there were red numbers for Lyft on one side and blue on the other side for Uber ride shares. Nothing indicated ‘main terminal’. I disputed the $5 fee for a missed ride since the driver Vitali never responded to my text messages. The Lyft app said it would refund me, but it would take 5-7 days, so it remains to be seen if I’ll actually be refunded. I think the refund should have been instantaneous.

I have to use Lyft to get home from work at night and yesterday alone I was left stranded for 40 minutes while Lyft cycled through several different drivers. They would often cancel 10 minutes out, too, so I would think “hey they’re almost here, maybe this one isn’t going to let me down” only to be re-assigned to another driver 20+ minutes away. There’s no real way to get in contact with customer service either regarding the issue because I would have to report my current driver which isn’t fair to them since they haven’t cancelled on me (yet).

I used to prefer taking Lyfts because the alternative was an overpriced taxi which would usually leave me stranded for long periods knowing that they could since I was dependent on them to get where I need to go. Now Lyft is beginning to do the very same. I’m disabled and a woman so public transit isn’t always an option, especially at night, but if this keeps up it might be my only option. That or I might have to switch to Uber, which is more expensive but also far more reliable.

Frankly if I can’t cancel my Lyft after that mess without being charged a fee, I should at least get a credit on my account when the wait time exceeds the estimate given by Lyft, and/or when multiple Lyfts have cancelled leading to the wait time exceeding the estimated wait. Sadly based on the other reviews I’ve seen they won’t do that because they’d have to credit basically everyone’s accounts at this point.