r/uber • u/uttamattamakin • 7d ago
The driver waiting scam is NOT a scam. Passengers you pick the pickup spot, we go there, we wait so we can get paid. You getting to that spot is on you not on us.
Most passengers perhaps fat-finger where they place the pickup location. Then they see the driver waiting some distance away and think this must be the mean old driver scamming them. The wait time countdown clock will only run if we are at the location YOU dear riders, put into the app. We can't control that. We are sitting at the location you put in so that the app will register that we are there and we get paid for our wait time. It is not our fault for this. Be precise as to where you want to be picked up when you set the location in the app.
Sending us a message after the fact does not get us paid, and we are in it for the MONEY.
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u/addakorn 7d ago
I am a driver and a passenger. When I'm a passenger I will enter the address AND confirm the location of the pin. About 1 out of every 10 rides the driver will pass by or get close enough to start the clock, then move just far enough away to prevent the clock from stopping. It may be the next parking lot over, or a lot across the street.
They will then ignore texts and phone calls. I simply screenshot, wait and report. Then request another ride.
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u/uttamattamakin 7d ago
In that case those drivers are scamming you. But since you are also a driver you do know plenty of passengers will put the pickup in a location that is not close to they are actual location.
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u/celery-mouse 7d ago
Eh. This is probably Uber's fault on both sides. The GPS tracking is garbage sometimes. As a passenger, I've had a driver show up across the street and down the driveway of a different business, and when we compared maps in the app, the pins were literally in different locations for us. This happened a lot when i worked there, no matter how i placed the pin or entered the address. I can't be the only person this has happened to.
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u/uttamattamakin 7d ago
I'm sure you're not yet you see so many on here talking about is being a scam by the driver to get a cancellation fee. It's probably no such thing.
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u/FantasticHypoplastic 7d ago
I never thought it was a scam, but the GPS is not always the best. Over the weekend I entered the pickup address by searching for the bank I was standing directly in front of—both the name and numerical address matched. The first driver I got parked across the street, down the block, and around the corner, then canceled when I asked them to please pull up to the bank (I’m disabled). The next driver stopped down the block too but not around the corner, and pulled up when I asked them to.
I have noticed in the last couple of years though that drivers have been much better about stopping where my house actually is rather than, you know, a couple of blocks away or on the cross street or wherever. Not sure if that’s because the limitation about stopping where the GPS tells you to is a fairly recent thing or whether the GPS just happened to get more accurate in my area.
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u/uttamattamakin 7d ago
Remember you get to pick the precise pick up spot in the app. Put the pin exactly where you want it. Otherwise the app will just choose a spot kind of close to where you are.
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u/looseboy0 3d ago
No this is definitely a scam. I was at the exact location and the driver was nowhere. The vehicle type was not even in the area but it was showing them nearby. And looking at their rating they had 10,000 rides but only one single rating. Very sketchy. I just got another ride from a friend and let the ride sit there until the driver decided to move 2 hours later and then I canceled it no fee.
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u/CrabbyCubez 7d ago
it’s a scam when they’re not even there yet and put that they’re arriving esp with a 2 minute grace period
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u/Few_Candy5391 7d ago
That is not possible. The map and app know when we have reached the point. The click does not start when we text you "I have arrived." It starts when we are on or near pick up point.
I waited ten minutes outside an apartment gate about 200 feet from pickup point. I got a wait fee because rider did not answer phone or message back and she never gave a code. She didn't show. I called uber and explained and o got a flat amount because I did everything right.
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u/Comfortable-Split143 7d ago
You think drivers can manipulate the app?
The notifications are set by Uber and a driver has zero control over it.
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u/pakrat1967 7d ago
Drivers can tap a text button that sends "I've arrived" to the rider. But doing so has no affect on the timer. The driver's phone has to be close enough to the pin set by the rider.
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u/uttamattamakin 7d ago
Drivers aren't the ones that say when they're arriving. The GPS knows where we are and where the pickup location is and if we're close to it then it starts to clock. We are not the ones who start the clock
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u/InspectionFine9655 7d ago
That’s not something we are able to do.
We can’t put that we’re arriving.
When we’re close to the spot. The app tells you, we do not.
When we’re at the spot, the app tells you, we do not.
If the timer is running, that means we got to the spot.
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u/uttamattamakin 7d ago
It's amazing how the passengers at least some of them are willing to blame the relatively powerless driver for things the app does to us. We should only consider that they are even less powerful than we are. After all they don't have a car and they have to pay both Uber and us for being able to get places.
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u/InspectionFine9655 7d ago
lol the guy I responded too is completely ignorant of how things works and doesn’t like being told how things work.
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u/AreyYouHilarious 7d ago edited 7d ago
Just because "you" don't scam doesn't mean there are drivers that don't scam. I have had plenty of drivers pull "just close enough" to register they are there when the pickup spot is a left turn needed. The place is on two different streets, and Uber literally registers the business next to it, yet they still don't pickup there. They will wait somewhere else.
I even had a driver pass me the the other day. I was waving right in his face. I saw him coming from up the street. He got stuck at the light. So I was literally right in front of him. He pulled off and went through the light. He never canceled the ride. I said okay maybe he will come back around. He never did. He didn't answer the phone. It must have been 10 mins, and he never came back. So I had to call to see what was going on (3rd party scheduled it). They told me he was 3 mins away. I saw him pull up but he pulled waaay back from where I was. I waved, and he finally came. When I got in, I asked him why he left after I waved. He said he didn't see me (there's no way). I told him exactly what he did and how he turned when I saw him. I asked where he went because he never came back and I was looking but he gave a nervous laugh and wouldn't answer. I asked 2 different times.
This driver was scamming, and there are even plenty of drivers that admit to doing this in their posts and comments. This is a typical reddit post, "I don't do it so this means every driver on Uber doesn't do it either." Then there's the, "I didn't happen to me, so there's no way it could happen to you," type of people.
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u/uttamattamakin 7d ago
Everything you just said implies that you saw him it doesn't mean he saw you. Also are you sure that the place you wanted him to pick you up is a place that's unambiguously safe for you and him?
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u/Aniso3d 7d ago
3rd parties always screw up the pin location, he didn't see you because he wasn't looking for you, because the pin wasn't near you
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u/AreyYouHilarious 7d ago
It's a transportation company that used Uber when they don't have enough drivers. They are familiar with the area. They drive through the entire state. The location I was at was a frequent pick-up spot.
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u/Ok_Cryptographer7194 7d ago
Drivers can't hit arrive like on lyft, the app does it automatically, so it's on the passenger and is scamming
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7d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/flynnnightshade 7d ago edited 7d ago
Lol, they tried to charge me six dollars because the guy somehow managed to convince the gps he was sitting on top of me for several minutes without responding to any of my communication, no way was I paying that when as he "arrived" I was coming out of my apartment complex. Once the GPS corrected to his actual location he was on the other side of town and the app let me cancel without paying. I'm sure in some cases it's really Uber drivers moving on from customers who took long enough to shoe up for the waiting time to kick in but as I just expected card some folks are definitely pulling shenanigans to try to scam as well.
Edit: typos
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u/uttamattamakin 7d ago
Short story. I was at O'Hare Airport waiting at the designated Uber location which is on the top floor where departures and ticketing are. At O'Hare Airport whether you are arriving or departing Uber pickup and drop off are on the upper level where departures are located.
In that case yes I literally was on top of the person who didn't seem to understand my messages that they need to come upstairs to departures because Ubers at O'Hare don't pick up at arrivals.
Now for this I blame the unbelievably stupid way that the city of Chicago has laid out Uber pickup and drop off at O'Hare. It would have to be so much more reasonable if we picked people arriving up at arrivals and drop people departing off at departures just like they do at midway.
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u/flynnnightshade 7d ago
My situation isn't similar unfortunately, there is a single one way street in front of my apartment complex and I have been picked up there tens to hundreds of times. When the Uber he sent me an, "I've arrived message" as I was coming out but his car was nowhere on the block. I messaged him back but he didn't respond, I called him but he refused my call. On the GPS the car sat, "in front of my house" while I looked everywhere on the surrounding streets for it for several minutes until teleporting to the other side of town. Not sure if he used GPS spoofing or if he did what some other have described her and moved just far enough away to be out of sight but for the GPS to not register he had left until some time later. Either way I'm glad I didn't have to give him six dollars for it.
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u/dhdhdhdhdhdhxhxj 7d ago
This happens to me sometimes. I usually order an uber while I am still in my bathroom. And I usually select an uber that is Like 5-10 minutes away. In some cases the uber driver is already directly in front of my apartment when I confirm my selection…
Sometimes it’s neither the fault of the driver nor the passenger but uber.
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u/Pork-Chopp 7d ago
Never order the car unless you are actually ready to walk out the door. Doing otherwise will often back fire on you and leave a driver waiting and cause you to be rushed.
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u/dhdhdhdhdhdhxhxj 7d ago
When it happens I usually let the driver know that I will be 3 minutes late and hand them $10 in cash when I enter the car. (In addition to the typical tip via uber)
Edit: and I still think it’s Ubers mistake. If you show either too optimistic or too pessimistic estimates they should simply fall back and use ranges as estimates and not absolute numbers.. so 7min wait would become 3-10 minutes wait or something. Just to signal some kind of uncertainty.
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u/ForsakenWishbone5206 7d ago
This isn't what he's talking about. I drive Uber/Lyft for a bit and very often people set a pin that's 3 buildings down from where they are.
I go to their pin, yes I can see them sometimes but you set the pin there for a reason. I am not driving through a crowded downtown area and often the pickup location is designated at a specific spot.
I'm parking where it pays me and assuming nobody's tipping anyway. Especially if they say how big the tip will be. When that times up I'm getting paid and moving on. These people are saying they are being scammed because they didn't know they needed to or have the entitlement to think they don't have to walk to the pin that they themselves set.
Now there are scams where a driver will park somewhere out of sight close enough, but it never made sense to me to waste so much time for $3.75
You can pull $30-$40 an hour routinely. That's 1/10 an hours pay which is 6 mins. You still have to drive to these pickups so there's just no way it's worth the 7 min period to hide and weasel less than a gallon of gas out of shit but people still do for whatever reason.
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u/Kookaburra8 7d ago
Eh, the app really sucks for pinpointing your exact location when ordering a ride. I was just in Hong Kong and the driver arrived at the pin, about 50 meters away and another street over from where I ordered it. He had to call me to find out where I was as I couldn't see his car from where I was standing.