Last weekend, I was back in Guadalajara as I had a friend from Europe who wanted to see the city, which actually ended up morphing into a bigger trip to Puerto Vallarta. Both are in Jalisco state.
You can fly between these two cities using one of the Mexican low-cost carriers, and there should be frequent bus service that I first considered. After consulting the prices that Uber quoted, we decided to use the ride-sharing service.
The hotel offered a driver through an agency for 4,500 pesos, but that was close to triple what Uber quoted, and Uber Black service should have been roughly 3,200 pesos.
I tried to order Uber Black on Sunday morning, but there were no cars available, and we chose the standard Uber. The first driver was aware that our destination was outside of the usual area and he canceled the trip after consulting with us.
The second driver showed up and was somewhat surprised about the trip’s length, but off we went.
The trip took at least an hour longer than initially quoted, and I paid many cash tolls along the way. I remembered that I had had some issues with Uber and paid cash tolls previously, and I decided to save most of the receipts (I believe that I lost one or two).
The original quote:
The final price:
I am not sure how the price ended up roughly doubling from the quote? We didn’t have extra stops along the way or changed the destination. Also, at least two tolls were on the receipt, and I had paid them all in cash.
I messaged Uber with the copies of the toll receipts, and eventually, they honored the original quote and refunded the difference.
Conclusion
The drive took longer than I had planned, and I will choose another transportation option in the future if I need to travel between these two cities. I felt terrible for the driver and gave him a 500 peso cash tip when we arrived at the destination.
Uber’s response implies that the price change would have been the driver’s fault and blame him for the case. Uber’s quote was just incorrect, and the tolls were added automatically to the final charge.
If Uber givers a quote and the passengers don’t change the route, the original quote should stand and not double like what happened here,
I have not had much luck with Uber’s customer service lately (I remember how good it used to be), but at least they fixed this issue.
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I have had similar experiences with Uber Eats that has incorrect menu prices on the app and there have been significant adjustments made on the final bill. I’ve seen 65 dollar orders just to 95-100
Never had any issues yet. But, I had UberEats deliver a couple of McDonald’s fish sandwiches with cheese, and McDonalds didn’t put any cheese on them, so Uber credited me for both sandwiches!
Sounds like uber mexico support is insanely vastly better than in US/Canada. If it was here, they’d just tell you to shove off.
(tho still very bad in this case since they fired the driver who did nothing wrong.. The first driver to get the request who declined it really lucked out, else he’d be the one fired)
But yea dude the vast majority of the increase was the fact as you mentioned, it took 1 hour longer than estimated, ultimately the driver should be compensated for that.
The receipt should reflect that more clearly though.. I think it’s the “distance surcharge” – which should of been writing as a time / traffic surcharge.
I dunno what you asked, if you just asked for the tolls to be refunded, thats fair though.
The way that reads, the driver didn’t get fired. It reads as if the driver will no longer get ride requests from John’s account, but still ok for other users.
Not sure about your grasp on the english language.
“we blocked further connections with this driver” That means he’s fired/banned from Uber.
I doubt they even have the ability to limit ride requests by user, that would be a rather foolish feature.
Not sure about your grasp either. In the US when they say they have blocked connections they definitely mean only with you, not with all riders. Perhaps in MX they may mean it differently. However, that’s not an issue with Gajinsan’s, John’s, or my own interpretation of the words they wrote.
That is how I would read it too. I had no issues with the driver, but with the Uber quote and the tolls.
I’ve had troubles like this with Uber but never with Uber support. I have Uber diamond, which is supposed to get me better support. Looks like it pays off to maintain status with Uber 😂
The Uber support varies greatly in-between countries. The support in Brazil refuses to respond in any other language than Portuguese.
On most UBER trips I have take around the world the UBER driver has been responsible for paying the tolls and later I am charged for them through UBER on my credit card.
I guess since it was a long unexpected trip the driver didn’t have that much cash on hand to pay the tolls? At least you kept the recpiets and got reimbursed in the end.
I think the systems pretty inconsistent from country to country. I wouldn’t be surprised if they screwed over the drivers in mexico on that, with some tolls being flagged to show up on receipt and some not, and ultimately the driver getting nothing regardless of what the passengers get charged.
Back before grab bought uber in thailand and the philippines, drivers certainly didn’t get comped for tolls and always asked me to pay them. Manila is particularly bad as they toll you to use the highway, and even to get into the airport, and since I was leaving I had no pesos. Im sure a lot of drivers get screwed there as tourists leaving spend all there local currency before they go to the airport.
But yea once they updated to grab, no real change there. Though grab allows purely cash based rides anyways so it’s not as surprising. (tho they incentive you to use a credit card with a poinst system)
Yeah. There is no global way how uber handles this. Some are added automatically, some are manually entered by the drive, while some are expected to pay by the rider in cash.
I have learned, based on my experiences, to keep the toll receipts. I have had similar toll issues few times previously.
In Reo my driver took his own route, complaining that Ubers maps are always the slow way. Our companion in a different Uber left 2 minutes after us, arrived 20 min earlier at airport. Also would not listen, even when I was pointing which way to go. Went to wrong terminal, didn’t help the time. Made the flight so no big issue. BUT, Uber charges my credit card extra saying that because it took a long time I have to pay extra. Had no time to waste complaining then, just started using the competitor if possible.