Uber, that taxi-app service that a lot of people seem to hate for screwing with competitors and privacy and the disabled and hammers, was just given an "F" rating by the Better Business Bureau. "F" does not stand for "Fun."
F, in case you never encountered a school in your life, in which case, bravo, is the lowest possible rating on a scale of A+ to, well, F. It's a result of 108 complaints in the last three years, 98 of which came in the past 12 months. Uber failed to respond to 39 of the complaints.
The heart of the BBB's charge apparently lies in Uber's "surge pricing" model, where the company charges you enormous amounts of money for a ride exactly when you need it most, like when they charged more than seven times the normal rate during a blizzard, or five times the normal rate during a busy conference:
BBB's business review for Uber Technologies was created in September 2012. A recent review of this company's complaints was done in March 2014. Consumer complaints allege misunderstanding Uber Technologies' pricing, being misinformed about the overall cost of the services rendered, and not being made aware of "surge pricing," or temporary increases in the company's charges. Some consumers claim that they were told the final cost of the transportation service the company provided (through Uber Technologies' phone app, the driver, and the consumer's receipt), only to be subsequently charged a substantially larger amount.
And from a purely capitalist perspective, that's just the law of supply and demand that consumers need to accept. More people need a car, so higher prices are charged accordingly. But from a purely human perspective, charging people almost eight times the normal rate during a goddamn blizzard is fucking monstrous.
So there's that.
But even if you have a serious problem with Uber, its customer service representatives don't seem to actually care:
Consumer complaints further allege experiencing issues with the company's customer service, such as having difficulty reaching a customer service representative and consumers having their issues closed despite their concerns not being resolved.
Uber Technologies was unresponsive to the BBB's request for a response to the pattern of complaints.
And it's not just little, tiny complaints that the company doesn't care about. One person was charged over $700 for a nine mile ride (HOLY CRAP), and when they called to complain they got no response at first. When they eventually got through, the company agreed to refund $177, which sounds great, until you consider the fact that the customer is still on the hook for $532.50.
Take a ride from Uber at your own risk. It got an F.
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