Lyft 4+

I’d had so many negative experiences with Lyft lately, but I actually gather together every penny I owned and bought a vehicle so that I wouldn’t have to deal with them anymore. I schedule a ride, they say they’re on their way at the correct time, then five minutes before they’re supposed to be there they change drivers on me. Same thing with the next driver, and the next. I’ve been made late for work on more than one occasion, once over an hour late. I’ve also been left stranded for 2 1/2 hours in the cold after several drivers canceled, two of which were within one minute of my location. The only way I was able to get a ride is by agreeing to order an $80+ “Lux” ride. And believe me, that car was not that luxurious. I know some drivers have had difficulties with riders, but I have never had a complaint and leaving a woman alone in the dark in front of closed businesses was absolutely abhorrent. After that, I gathered together every penny I could scrabble, took out a loan, and bought my own vehicle so that I would never have to deal with Lyft again except in dire emergencies. And believe me, if I’m going to ever deal with Lyft again, it will be a dire emergency.

I have enabled the feature “women connect” on my Lyft app. However, from my last 12 Lyft requests, 10 have been male drivers. It doesn’t really feel like a feature to be honest. I feel like there should be some sort of feedback saying that it is actively searching for a woman. Maybe even giving female drivers incentive to pick-up women that have the “Women connect” enabled…if that is really something you actually care about. Even if that is something $$ you need to pass along to the customer, we may be willing to pay extra if it would make us feel more safe. Or even if there was something where it said, 5 additional minutes to wait for a female driver. You need to DO BETTER Lyft! You act like you are for Women with adding features like this. But when there is no actual follow through or way your customers can see the direct attempt to engage with a female driver is happening, it doesn’t feel real. Especially when the results happening are averaging at 16%. Not Great. There is no pre-notification that I am about to get matched with a male. If my first choice is a woman, I think there should be some sort of system that will alert me that my only ride options are male and give me the option to continue to accept or not. Or tell me how long I need to wait for a female driver. If this is a TRUE feature, then this needs a LOT more work!

I want to love Lyft I really do. They had a better business model than Uber especially when it came to how they treated their employees. But both companies took a huge chunk out of their contractors pay over the part year, I feel like there’s definitely room for a fairer 3rd player. As a ride-share user, tonight was probably the last straw. After being told my ride was “confirmed” I stared at a “waiting for details” screen for over 10 minutes TWICE. When I gave up and ordered an Uber I finally got my details but the Lyft was still 14 minutes away. I cancelled and was charged 4.50. That may not seem like much but what about the time and stress I wasted trying to get a Lyft in the first place? I was out with friends and couldn’t have conversations or anything for a good 30 minutes, on top of them waiting for me, because I was minding my phone wondering when I was gonna have a Lyft. This app needs a big overhaul to give users an accurate ETA. I went from “you will arrive at your destination at 904pm” to “you will arrive at your destination at 925pm” and it STILL didn’t have driver details! That’s why I ordered an Uber instead. I get it, Lyft you don’t have the driver saturation Uber has. But you can’t overpromise ETAs on your app when people have places to be. As an early devotee to Lyft vs Uber I’m just really disappointed and disgusted that they would charge me for this. Tonight will probably be the last time I ever try to use Lyft.