'We were abused, asked to get out of the car': Google IT worker shares Uber experience in Bengaluru

A software engineer at Google shared his ‘bad experience’ riding with Uber during his visit to Bengaluru. He posted on Twitter stating that he was asked to get out of the cab by the Uber driver because he was 'not comfortable' riding with him.

Raj Vikramaditya, with handle ‘Striver’ posted on X, that he took an Uber in Bengaluru recently. It was a 1.5-hour ride where the driver was busy talking over his phone on loudspeaker for over 30 minutes. He wrote, “I and my friend, got some headache after a while, and asked him politely to use headphones, or talk later.” This is when the driver got furious and started abusing them. He later asked the two passengers to get out of the car, saying “I am not comfortable to ride with you people”.

The techie then took it to X to share his experience, along with the picture of the number plate of the cab. To this, Uber India replied, “Hey, if there is a specific trip that you would like us to look into. Kindly share the date and time of the trip along with your registered contact details via Direct message. Our team will look into it.”

Later, Vikramaditya revealed that Uber reached out to him to resolve the matter. He wrote, “Thanks, Uber support for reaching out, and promising action. I am not sure how long will it take for you to take action, but glad that you did take some time out to call and listen to customer problems, instead of sending bot messages”.

He further requested Uber to introduce two new features for the users: “raising issue from the app for no-ac while in-ride” and “raising issue for ‘using phone’”. According to him, with these features, Uber can simply ask riders to share pictures or a small clip to prove the matter. He added, “AI can verify and trigger a warning, on multiple warnings, you can take some action.”

Thanks @UberIN_Support for reaching out, and promising action.

I am not sure how long will it take for you to take action, but glad that you did take some time out to call and listen to customer problems, instead of sending bot messages.

How about introducing two new… https://t.co/UYO5K8BTnW

— Striver (@striver_79) March 17, 2024

Several users on the platform also shared similar experiences with cab drivers. One wrote, “I had a similar experience during my internship. Me and @Khushbooverma were going to a creator meetup in an auto. We mistakenly told an incorrect turn and went 400m in the wrong direction. When we told the driver that we had taken the wrong turn, he literally made us to get off the auto in the middle of nowhere. The total distance of the ride was more than 10km and we told him that we will pay extra but he just didn’t care.” Another wrote, “Uber does nothing on these kind of complaints. I was threatened by the driver. I complained to Uber. I asked them what actions did you take against the driver. They said it is confidential, we can't share the details of the action. ZERO transparency.”

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