I’ve been a fan of Uber ever since they landed in Australia. The Australian taxi industry was ripe for competition, especially in Canberra where I lived, where you often needed to book multiple cabs just to get one to bother showing up. So when Uber arrived suddenly taxi services became better; much better.
At the end of last year my wife and I started a 3 year posting to New Delhi. We landed here in the middle of demonetisation; Prime Minister Modi had removed all ₹1000 bills from circulation and cut the supply of cash down by around 80%. No ATMs worked and no-one had any cash. I went a month before being able to pull cash from an ATM.
So for us, Uber here was a life saver. We could just use my AU credit card, which was linked to my Uber account, and the app just worked. Once I had jumped through a few regulatory hurdles and had obtained my full Diplomatic ID (I’m not a diplomat but I am a trailing spouse and so get the DipID too) I was eligible to open a local bank account here in Delhi, and so I did, and am now the proud owner of a local Visa Debit card. Yay I thought, no more international fees for everything I buy. I bought a coffee with it to celebrate, and to assure myself it worked, and then linked the card to my Uber account.
Linking my Indian Visa card to my Uber account was a non-trivial process. I had to enter the CVV multiple times, and register for the Verified By Visa programme. That process was a bit flakey but eventually it worked and I was able to attach my card to Uber, so then I booked a ride.
Normally when I make a purchase on this card I get a text message a few seconds later telling me that a purchase has been made and giving me the details of that purchase. It’s a little OTT but hey. So I was surprised not to have received such a text after the end of my ride. I checked the app and there was no indication that the payment had not gone through.
A few hours later I was in a rush to get across town, went to book an Uber, and a banner came up complaining that the payment for my last ride had not completed successfully and could I enter my CVV again. I did and then it took me to a screen which needed my Verified By Visa password. I duely dug that up (yay for the 1Password app,) entered it, and voila, the payment went through. This process took about five minutes, but now I was free to book my next ride.
So from then on the same pattern repeated. My ride would end, the payment would not be processed automatically, and the Uber app would give me no ability to go through the 2fa process until I booked my next ride. This is of course completely backasswards. Five minutes doesn’t seem like a lot of time but it is when you want to book a car and you have somewhere to be. That’s not five minutes of dead-time, it’s a five minutes you could otherwise be using. Given I’m getting four or five Ubers per day, at least, that’s up to three hours per week of my time being consumed.
Uber’s own help page on the issue claims that I might need to do the 2fa thing at the end of my ride for the payment to be processed; that’s still annoying but okay I can live with that; I’m not in a hurry once I’ve reached my destination. But that’s not how it actually works. The Uber app waits for you to book another ride before initiating the 2fa process for the previous ride.
If I log into Uber via the web I get screamed at for not paying for my last ride but the page does not give the same options as the app. There is no option to do the 2fa dance, just to pay with a different card.
So I sent the following support request.
I’ve just switched over from my Australian Credit card to my new Indian debit card so as to avoid paying international charges and exchange fees (which can add up to 30% to the cost of a ride). Now when I complete a ride my payment is not processed. Despite what your help page says there is no way to initiate the annoying 2fa process at the end of a ride, but only when I am ready to book a new ride. The result is it takes an extra five minutes of messing around with your app before I can book my ride. This is seriously irritating and really is putting me off using Uber while here in Delhi. Can we just do without the 2fa process? My AU card doesn’t have a 2fa process so I fail to see why my Indian card should. I’ve been advised that Olacabs does not force this process on riders. Dave
I got this response.
To which I sent this reply
Hi Shaun,
It’s not possible to resolve the payment via your website, only through the app, and only when booking another ride. Believe me I have tried.
The website just says there was an issue putting the payment through on my Indian card, and gives me no option to resolve that (imaginary) issue. It does give me the option to pay via a different card but that’s just stupid. I’m in India, I want to use my Indian card. My card was issued by REDACTED Bank here in Delhi, as arranged for me by the High Commission as part of my current diplomatic posting here. There is nothing wrong with the card, it just keeps getting rejected because your systems are bad. I have no trouble paying for other things (Including OlaCabs I have now discovered) with that card, and indeed, after I mess around with the 2fa process, dig up my verified by visa password (every single time, but only after I request another ride, but before I am allowed to book it — see my original message) the payment goes through just fine. The problem is with you, not the card.
Hence I am not convinced simply deleting the card and adding it again will do any good. And I’m pretty sure deleting the app and reinstalling it will also be a waste of my time.
You mentioned PayTM which I never mentioned so I am going to assume your response was simply a form letter and you took no individual action to address the issue.
Also note the link http://t.uber.com/settle-balance redirects to a 404 page — not inspiring really.
Dave
They responded with
But then, a few seconds later, Uber decided to just put the charge for my last ride through my Australian Visa Card, without any sort of authorisation from me.
I replied to that, cc’ing the support email:
I’m sorry this this was supposed to go on my Indian card not my AU card. There’s a reason I have an Indian Visa card you know. I specifically choose to use my Indian card for Uber rides here and you have no right just to take money from a different card.
Sorry but now you’ve just lost me as a customer for billing my AU card without my authorisation.
Dave
I also responded to the above support email
I can assure you of the following:
- There may be incorrect billing information, including zip code or expiration date
No. The billing information is correct, as evidenced by the fact that once I enter the 2fa (verified by visa) code the payment does go through.
- The account has insufficient funds
No. The account has sufficient funds
- The card is not set up to approve recurring transactions and/or international transactions (this may require a quick call to your card-issuing bank)
The card is an Indian card (as I have specified repeatedly) so should not be counted as an International Transaction.
I have sent the following email to The REDACTED Bank.
I have linked my Visa Debit card to Uber but each time I use it they claim they are unable to process payment and then I need to manually enter my Verified By Visa password every time. This is very annoying.
Uber support claim I need to get my card approved for recurring transactions but I can’t see a way to do that.
Are you able to do this?
I will let you know their response.
In the meantime I insist you reverse the last transaction made to my AU Credit Card as I did not authorise it and you’ve seriously upset me by putting that charge through without my permission.
I will not use Uber again until this issue is resolved.
Dave
Uber responded with
To which I replied
Hi Anup,
Clearly you didn’t bother to read the background to my support request. Your answer is off the topic.
Is this seriously the best you people at Uber can do?
As I said in my previous email, I will no longer be using Uber until you revert the last transaction you put through my Australian Credit Card without my authorisation. In the meantime I regret to say that I am switching to another taxi provider.
Dave
Uber came back with
To which I responded
Dear Akki,
I have the latest version of the Uber app. I know how iPhones work; please don’t continue to waste my time.
I will no longer be using Uber until you revert the last transaction you put through my Australian Credit Card without my authorisation.
Do not contact me again until that last transaction has been reversed.
You’ve lost a previously loyal customer.
Dave
To which Uber responded with
At this point I have decided just to give up and never use Uber in India again. There are plenty of alternatives here, the number one being OlaCabs, whose app is just as slick as Uber’s, and whose prices are about the same. OlaCabs doesn’t require me to mess around with a Verified By Visa password every single ride like Uber here does when using a local card.
The core of the problem here of course is not the annoying 2fa process or the backasswards way the app won’t let you resolve the payment until you have attempted to book another ride, it’s that the support people don’t seem to actually read the details of the support request, appear to have even less training than Uber’s drivers do here (many of them can’t even read the maps on their phones, and in one case a driver actually drove the wrong way around a roundabout into incoming traffic, and most of their cars here don’t have seatbelts.)
Uber put a payment through on my AU card without authorisation, and their support has shown itself to be utterly incompetent. They seem to have an army of people willing to write any old thing in response to a support request.
In their final support email they asked me to take a screen snap of the error. Given I am not willing to use Uber here again until they refund my AU card and deal with my support requests properly, I am unable to screen snap the issue. But the error is not really their app, the error is their terrible support, and this I can screen snap. I will send them a link to this article and see if that has any effect.
I’ve now registered with OlaCabs and look forward to giving that a go. People here say very good things about it.
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