Hello, Failure

Of all the enemies of literature, success is the most insidious

Thursday, October 18, 2018

Deactivated by Lyft for Filing a Safety Report

It shouldn't matter that it was my birthday, but does a little.

I had lunch with my friend in downtown Oakland, as I do once or twice a month. I take a Lyft there, and I take a Lyft back--like everybody. No big deal. I make a point to tip my drivers every ride because I know they're probably getting screwed.

I live in a house that's up a little hill, so the only way to get to the door by car is up a private driveway--essentially a small street, maybe 200 feet long, shared by 5 houses. When I'm being dropped off, I always direct my Lyft drivers to go up the drive and then at the top, there's room to make a u-turn and go back down it.

The driver who was dropping my off on Oct 11 after lunch with my friend was really nervous about the private drive, and at first refused to turn up it at all. I had to reassure her several times that it was fine. She was driving a Prius--like pretty much every Lyft--so there was plenty of room, and it was a warm sunny day. There's a sign at the foot of the street telling people it's a private drive and that seemed to be what she was nervous about but I told her again that it just meant the city doesn't own it and it was fine for her to go up it to drop me off.

Finally she started up the drive. It's an L-shaped path so there's a turn about half way up. She stopped just after the turn and asked if she would have to make a u-turn to go back down, and I told her she would. She began complaining about how difficult and complicated that would be, so I told her I would just get out there. She began yelling as I walked the rest of the way to my house, shouting how ridiculous it was that she was expected to to make a u-turn and calling me a f*cking b*tch. She was still shouting when I went inside my house.

I contacted Lyft about my experience immediately. It was so unusual as to be almost unbelievable. The next day I was contacted by Lauren from Lyft Support who apologized for my experience, refunded the price of my ride, and gave me a $15 credit. Fine--we're done, right? Nope.

The day after that, I was contacted by Taylor from Lyft Safety, who tells me that  Lyft is investigating a potential violation of community guidelines, and "because our community's safety is Lyft's highest priority, I've deactivated your account while we investigate."

Yes--they deactivated *me* for filing a report. It's been a full week now and I've heard nothing from them. So either their policy is to force people off the platform while they "investigate" or they're just straight up retaliating against me for filing a safety report. And both are so catastrophically stupid I can't actually figure out which is more likely. Either way, Hi Uber! Looks like I'm your f*cking b*tch now.

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