It's faster and easier to just get a refund through the app first, and then try a credit card dispute. %99 of the time they do it. I've never had something not refunded when it should of been.

> %99 of the time they do it.

This would need to stop - how many of the clients file a dispute? Maybe a large percentage of HN readers - but not so much from the general public. Uber wins money it never was entitled to. No service provided, no pay.

I see now why legislation might have been the better choice, after all.

I don't think that is correct. I'd wager that people outside of HN would spend more time to make sure their $5 is returned.

If you're suggesting that lower-income people would be more likely to dispute the charge due to it having a larger impact on their bottom line, I strongly suspect you're wrong.

People in that demographic tend to, in my experience, not put forward the effort to get things like that refunded. Even though the money is important to them, it's frequently conditioned that it will take hours of time and effort to recoup the $5, and that's hours and effort they simply don't have.

Whether or not it actually takes that amount of time is irrelevant. The problem is that people expect it will take too much of their time to deal with and simply let the money go.

This is yet another example of Uber treating their customers like shit. If it's easy enough for them to determine that the cancellation was legitimate and issue the refund, they should do so proactively. Waiting for customers to complain before returning money they collected for a service they did not provide is as user-hostile as anything else they do.

I will never give another dollar of my money to Uber.

As others have pointed it out - they don't even return the money. They credit your account which is even worse than taking it the first time.

I reckon a class action regarding this scummy behaviour will be filed soon.

filing through credit card would cost uber money. consider it a punishment (For the lack of a better word) by the consumer.

Whether it works out in favor of consumer is a question. I would probably not use uber in the first place.

Filing a charge back with a credit card company is painful compared to complaining about something in the $rideshare_company app in 2 minutes, and then getting refunded in less than a day. It's your life / time.

the downside is it's in terms of "Credit". With dispute, it's as good as cash.

The difference between the two might be less than many would think.

Also with dispute, you are sending business a message: if they charge you for their mistakes (in scheduling), you'll look for disputing (which costs them around 25$/dispute, i believe?).

In Vietnam, Uber required a credit card for the longest time. This is a silly position to take, given most Vietnamese do not have credit cards. You can now use Uber without a credit card, but Uber's position had a cost.

Grab Taxi has now taken much of the market and do not require a credit card. I will never use a hailing service requiring a credit card, and as such I can never be charged a cancellation fee.