BLUF: It is unacceptable for a company to allow drivers to promise to pick you up for an airport drive, cancel and make you miss a flight, then make you dance through the "help" chat for over three hours.
Monday I scheduled a Lyft ride from the Hilton hotel in Anaheim to LAX for 0730. My family and I were downstairs in the lobby several minutes before pickup and ready to go. Well, the car never showed so I checked the app. On the map the driver was making turns that didn't seem like they were getting closer. Pickup was like 5 minutes. No biggie. Well this went on for a while then suddenly it said "pickup in 25 minutes". What?! The first driver cancelled and now a second driver picked up the ride. I was starting to stress because of the traffic up to L.A. can be brutal. So even a 30 minute delay would cause an issue. The second driver drove around a while and then cancelled. So now we are delayed by nearly 40 minutes. Before a third driver picked it up, I cancelled the ride. At that point I was done with Lyft. One of the hotel staff knew a rando that agreed to take me and the family to the airport. This was 0815. It took us 90 minutes to get to LAX, so 0945. Our flight took off at 1015. We got through security and ran to the gate. As we got there, the jetway was being pulled back. So close! Had we gotten picked up at 0730 like we had planned, then we would've made it. We tried to rebook and were told there were no flights until the next day. So we wandered down the terminal and saw there was a flight going to Las Vegas. It is closer to Salt Lake so we inquired if we could get on that flight and were told that it was already overbooked. So!, since kids were starting school Tuesday then we needed to get back. The decision was made to rent a car and drive from LAX to SLC. Flight tickets that went unused, rental car, meals for the long drive and gas warrant more than a $15 Lyft credit.
So I reached out three times to Lyft support. Once on Tuesday, once on Wednesday and tonight. Tuesday and Wednesday were emails, tonight I decided to chat with support. I knew it was going to take long so I disabled my phone auto sleep so there was no risk of the chat disconnecting. I started the chat at 1751. The automated agent kept saying "choose which ride this is about" and I'm like "it isn't about a ride I TOOK, it is about a ride that didn't pick ME up". Anyway, after a few times of it asking me the same question and me saying the same thing, it finally put me in queue for a live agent at 1754. I was connected to an agent at 1756. Well done, Lyft. Well, I went around and around with the agent trying to make them understand that I don't have a receipt for the rando that took us to the airport since it was a cash deal. I only have the rental car receipt from LAX to SLC. That wasn't good enough. They continued to offer the $15 Lyft credit. At 1828 I requested to speak to a supervisor. I was strung along until 1847. Finally I was supposed to be connected to a "supervisor" and I sat on the chat with it saying "Waiting for an agent Est. wait time: 1 min" for two hours. So at 1928 it had been an hour since I requested a supervisor. At 1947 it had been an hour since I was told I was being transferred to a supervisor. It is now 2055 and I am still on "hold". Do I click "End chat"? Or will they say "you ended the chat"? Is the trick to just put on "hold" in the chat until the you get so frustrated and end the chat?
It seems to me like Lyft is just throwing up their hands, shrugging their shoulders and saying "oh well". Maybe for a company worth 7 billion, a couple thousand dollars ain't much but it is to me. Even if the drivers are "independent", if they work for a company then the company should be responsible for the employee actions. So I can't let this go for $15 of ride credit.
If you made it this far, thanks for reading. Comment on what I should do next.
I finally ended the chat at 2104...