Similar story while in Delhi, refused to issue refunds for obvious fraud. Closed account and opened chargeback for every journey, since they wouldn't even help me figure out which were legitimate. I see no reason to put up with "economies of scale"-quality support bullshit when it comes to personal transportation, they lost a customer.

Lifetime value in this case was sharply negative

I'm curious how those disputes ended up - did you end up getting any of them taken off?

The onus was on Uber to demonstrate they were legitimate, it is doubtful they even bothered responding to the chargeback. The bank refunded every transaction without question

Generally it’s easy to win small transaction disputes. It’s the larger ones where your credit card company starts to no longer care about you.

This is when you get your state's attorney general involved (and small claims court, depending on the situation).

I’m also curious— What evidence did you have to provide?

If I recall, just a copy of every e-mail from Uber, about 5 minutes cutpasting into an online form

It seems people here don't understand how credit cards work :) The main reason to prefer them is because the chargeback process is straightforward and heavily biased in favour of the customer.

But chargeback is not legally binding, is it? So you just put yourself in a situation where you received a service and didn't pay for it. I am pretty sure Uber could do something about it if they cared.

You will probably open yourself for persecution if you start requesting fraudulent chargebacks. But I imagine credit cards operators will make sure they don't have you as a client before anybody even thinks about calling the police.

Legally they can take it up with the CC company, not you, and then if they win (they won’t) your CC will charge you.

They can suspend your account, take you to collections, and put a negative report on your credit score. At least in the US, other countries may be different.

They can always do whatever they want to your Uber account, because TOS’ are jokes. The rest they can only do to your CC company, they can’t ding your credit report or anything of the sort. I don’t know where you’re getting that idea.

For example: https://blog.credit.com/2015/06/think-you-won-your-credit-ca...

A quick google search reveals lots more, and none that I saw saying companies can’t come after you for a disputed charge. Most won’t, and most of those that do will only do it if they can clearly show they’re in the right, and you should be able to beat any collection attempt if they aren’t, but they can try.

That blog comes up 403.

Weird, works fine here. Google something like “credit card chargeback collections” for more like it.

A merchant is entirely within their right to send you to collections and pursue you personally. There is no legal language in any merchant or processor agreement that prohibits it.

Prime example: gym memberships

Gym memberships involve a contract and recurring payments, and the contract is usually not in your favor. A one time charge to an Uber driver is not similar.

You've agreed to a license agreement and terms of service when you use any app. You've read the agreement, right?

The lack of an agreement wouldn’t help you anyway. It would be theft of services, no different than taking a cab and running off after refusing to pay.

Sounds like a victory for them. Isn't that the way Airbnb works too if the renters trash your apartment? Airbnb would offer you maybe $50 for $2000 worth of damages/clean up, and keep dicking you around (maybe change it to $100) until you give up and accept.

30bucks lifetime value for one user plus all their trusted friends is not a sustainable business.

This doesn't sound right. I've always paid exactly what the app told me the ride would be when I ordered. It looks like Uber covers the delta if the price goes above the quote when you order. https://www.uber.com/ride/how-uber-works/upfront-pricing/

The upfront pricing was a relatively recent development -- it's possible the other commenters were talking about a time before that, when there was some variation in what your trip might end up costing.