How do customers know the car that stops is their Uber ride?

Factual Questions
61

Sure, but a cabby’s entire job is driving people to arbitary destinations while having no destination of their own. The putative theory of operation behind Uber (or at least what I used to imagine it to be) was that drivers accepted ride requests only when it was convenient to where they (the driver) already wanted to go. I saw it as analogous to the ride-share bulletin boards from back when I was in college: if you were driving home for a weekend, you checked the board for people seeking rides to your hometown, and scored a few bucks for gas money.

To call Uber a “ridesharing service” when there is no prior alignment of convenience between the driver’s destination and the passenger’s destination seems horribly misrepresentative.

62

Whatever it might have been when it started out, Uber no longer is anything like a ride-sharing service, and hasn’t been for a long time, but functions more like a radio-dispatched cab system, with the rider acting as the dispatcher.

63

Ask the driver, “What is my name.” before you get in. If she doesn’t know, don’t get in. #whatsmyname #ForevertoTheeSamantha

64

I’m seeing a lot of sentiment in insisting that the driver identify themselves first or disclose who they’re looking for.

The only challenge for that is under the current system fraud becomes rampant.

I roll up to a woman standing in front of a bar:

I say “Hi I’m Chris, are you Denise?”

She says “Yes!” When she is not in fact Denise.

She gets in and states “I have changed my mind, and want to go to <alternative location>, can you change that?”

Drivers can make that change, but we prefer that the passenger does, both to verify accuracy as well as that we have the correct ride, the incorrect rider cannot update the trip.

If we are lucky, The correct rider figures out we somehow have the wrong person and cancels the ride within a couple minutes. We immediately stop and ask the “incorrect” passenger to exit. Since we started the rider, the intended, but not picked up passenger now gets to rate us…which probably will be a bad rating. Do that a few times a month and you could find yourself deactivated, because a “customer” misrepresented themselves.

There are a bunch of ideas involving QR codes and or NFC floating around for decisively matching drivers and passengers but none are implemented at this point.

65

Just to clarify I have no problem identifying myself, my name is on the passenger app as the driver they are looking for. However we need The rider to counter with their name so we know we have the right person.

If I roll up and say “hi I’m Chris, are you waiting for me?”
The rider says “yes I am Denise”

Ideal exchange for both parties.

The only place this tends to go pear-shaped is when people order rides for friends and may or may not be able to properly authenticate a ride.

66

That’s also a one shot kill for a confirmed complaint of using an unapproved vehicle. Instant deactivation…

67

Last night I had a prime example of a scenario where if I had nefarious intentions, I had a victim neatly gift wrapped with a bow.

I accepted a pickup at a residential address in the middle of an average neighborhood. 230am Sunday night/Mon morning.

I show up at the address, wait a few minutes.

I text message the rider that I am out front

3min later…

She text replies “nah”

I try to voice call her… doesn’t answer

Wait another couple minutes

She text messages “I’m looking for you,”

I reply with, “I am in front of <address>, there is a white pickup in the driveway, do you still need a ride”

2 min later she calls, I answer, all I hear is “fucking phone” and she hangs up.

I try to call back, no answer

So we are at like 20 minutes from when I initially received the call. I decided that I’m done with this little dance and cancel the ride.

I get about 200 yd down the street and I see a woman standing out on the curb poking intently at her phone. I pull up and ask her if she was looking for an Uber ride.

She replies that Yes she was and the last guy never showed up and then canceled on her and was I her new Uber ride she requested and tries to open the passenger side front door… She is obviously some combination of drunk, high, tripping balls on the pharmaceutical cocktail de jour, whatever.

I ask what her pick up location address is so I can verify if this was the person that I was supposed to pick up. She gave me the address 200 yd away I had been waiting in front of. I pointed out to her that she was standing in front of <address> she looks back at the house, say “fuck, whatever can you take me, I have cash <holds out a couple of crumpled bills I can see at least one is a $20 bill>”

I told her she should probably go to that address so that she can be picked up by the proper driver for her safety and mine. She replies something to the extent of “fine whatever” and starts staggering off in the wrong direction to go to her pickup location. All of this was barely intelligible because of her slurring and turning away mid sentence.

I drive off, half feeling like a dick, and half feeling like if she is that far detached from reality I don’t want her in my car.

I wasn’t 30 seconds away and was thinking this is exactly how people get assaulted, granted I have all my Uber stickers, you can buy those on eBay. If I had chosen to accept the cash ride, there is nothing saying I ever picked her up, although I am sure someone would have known that she was looking for a ride, which would send police checking with the ride share services in the event anything bad should happen to her.

…but here was someone, wanting to get into a car with a complete stranger who she thought was her Uber driver and was so intoxicated that she wasn’t even bothering to try and check…

So I could have killed her, and got gas money…