Ola, Uber drivers take customers on torturous ride

Hyderabad: Dhruvansh, a 19-year-old student, booked a ride on Rapido at 10pm last Saturday night. When he called the given number, the driver didn’t ask about the pickup location, instead he insisted on sharing the drop point only to know if it is nearby or far enough to earn a handsome fare. The ride was cancelled by the driver as the destination was just a couple of kilometres away from the source of the trip.

That day, the young boy tried many times to book a ride on the app, but being a busy weekend all his rides were cancelled by the allotted drivers and he had to shell out more money to book an auto to go home from his tuition centre. This was not a rare thing that happened to him alone. Several commuters complain about such incidents particularly from the drivers who operate with multiple cab/ bike aggregators. Not only bike operators, cab and auto drivers from Ola, Uber and other aggregators are doing this, putting passengers to hardships.

As cab drivers registered their vehicles with multiple apps, even if a ride is confirmed on one of these platforms, the drivers look for better ones on other ride-hailing apps and choose the higher-paid trips. Meanwhile, the customers wonder why their rides are being cancelled without any information. The customer care team also couldn’t help them because the information of the driver disappears from the app as soon as he cancels the ride.

“The online taxi-service must be hassle-free for the customers, but it became a big problem for daily commuters like me. After my night-shift, taxi bookings often get cancelled on Ola and Uber as the drivers don't prefer short rides at that time. It seems moonlighting is not confined to the IT industry. I feel it started with the cab drivers since Ola and Uber started their operations,” say Chahneet Kaur, an IT employee from Kondapur.

Another regular commuter complained that around 10 drivers cancelled the ride when he tried to book one recently. “They called, asked about the location of destination and cancelled the ride as it was short distance trip. It is a torturous process that we regularly go through. Some smart drivers keep me waiting so that they can save cancellation fee if I cancel the ride in frustration,” he said.

On several occasions, the passengers don’t understand why their rides were being cancelled by the drivers repeatedly. Sometimes, the drivers reject the rides if the customer chooses online payment mode. They cite delay in payments from the aggregators as the main reason. Some drivers also ask the customers to cancel the ride on the app and pay the said amount to him directly after dropping as they don't want to lose commission to the platform.

There are also complaints that cab/auto drivers take advantage of the helplessness of the commuters in odd hours by charging hefty fares. It's high time the managements of these platforms come to the rescue of passengers and address these issues, said another cab user.

The e-mail queries sent to teams of Ola, Uber and Rapido on these issues, were unanswered so far.

The online taxi-services must be hassle-free for the customers, but it became a big problem for daily commuters like me. Ride bookings after the night-shift often get cancelled. It seems moonlighting is not confined to the IT industry. It started with the cab drivers since Ola and Uber started their operations

- says an IT employee