Help! Lyft Charged Me $150 for Vomiting in a Car, but I Didn’t Do It.
Dear Tripped Up,
In March, I returned to Dallas Fort Worth International Airport after a business trip and took a Lyft home for $70, including tip. The ride, in a BMW X3, was uneventful. But the next day, Lyft sent me an email with a $150 cleaning fee, referring to “attached photos.” There were no attached photos and no further explanation given. In an exasperating series of exchanges with customer service representatives over chat, one agent finally explained that the driver said I had vomited in the car. She also said she would email photos; she did not, citing a “technical glitch.” Another agent did eventually send them, showing vomit around the back seat of a car that, according to online images and an A.I. analysis of the photos, did not appear to be a BMW X3. I repeatedly asked for any metadata from the images that would prove (or disprove) that it was my ride, but Lyft never sent any. I’ve found numerous reports of ride-hailing-service riders facing similar unexplained charges and being stonewalled when asking for documentation. Can you help? Sri, Frisco, Texas
Dear Sri,
I reviewed the customer service chats and emails you forwarded to me, including three rather unpalatable photos, and can only conclude that this was a case of gross incompetence, emphasis on “gross.”
There was probably no way you could have proved to the rotating cast of customer service characters you chatted with on and off for 12 hours that you did not vomit in a BMW X3 driven by a person named Robert. But your points — that the photos don’t look like a BMW X3 and that the lack of a time stamp or geolocation from the photos meant the driver could have downloaded them anywhere — should have made someone reconsider or escalate the issue. That becomes even more true when we consider that ride-hailing-service passengers have been complaining for years about false vomit reports by drivers.
I got in touch with Lyft and it quickly refunded you $220, including the cost of the ride and the additional charge.
But getting the company to admit it had made a mistake was more of a challenge. The first statement I received, attributed to Michael Brous, Lyft’s head of safety and customer care, defended the company’s processes.
“Lyft takes damage disputes seriously,” he wrote. “Our support team investigates each incident individually and determines the outcome based on the evidence, such as photos and statements from both the driver and rider.”
But after I read through your chat and email exchanges with customer service agents, it became pretty clear that Lyft determined this outcome before they heard your side of the story. “We’ve now completed our final evaluation of the documentation provided,” wrote one agent. “Based on this final review, no adjustments will be made to this fee.”
Did I say one agent? Actually, I meant five different agents all used that exact wording. (A sixth just changed the “on” in the second sentence to “upon.”)
But boilerplate language from low-level agents is not a surprise. Their apparent lack of interest in metadata was. Any smartphone can (and typically does) record the time and location where photos are taken, and adding a metadata requirement couldn’t hurt.
In a second statement after I pressed Lyft harder on the metadata issue, Mr. Brous said, “Lyft reviews and investigates damage claims using a variety of signals to determine if photos are legitimate, which can include metadata. If an image does not have metadata included, we do not automatically assume it’s fraudulent and additional signals are reviewed.” (He also noted that Lyft was rolling out a new fraud review tool this summer.)
Even without the metadata requirement, the company seemingly ignored that the driver did not meet its published instructions for driver damage reports, which require “at least three clear, well-lit photos of the damage from different angles.” There are three photos, and the lighting is good enough — if ruining my appetite is a reasonable criterion. But all three photos are from almost exactly the same angle, just cropped differently. And they were taken in a way that shows very few features of the car aside from what appears to be a rear bucket seat and a few design details.
So you asked A.I. to analyze the photos and shared those results with Lyft. The chatbot determined the vehicle was most likely a Jeep Grand Cherokee and noted that key BMW design details were absent from the instruments and door panel. My human comparison of the photos with online images of BMW X3 back seats reached the same conclusion, although it’s impossible to be sure.
Monica Osborne, a spokeswoman for Lyft, finally called me to admit that the company had made an error. “Based on our initial assessment at the time, we did think it was a BMW,” she said. But after “a more thorough review, we definitely agree that the vehicle does not match the specifications of the BMW.”
She said the company has now provided you with an additional $100 credit, recognizing your “extremely negative experience end to end.” Lyft drivers are independent contractors, not employees, but Ms. Osborne said the company would have “deactivated” the driver if he had not previously been deactivated for another reason.
So that’s good news for anyone falsely accused of vomiting or otherwise making a mess. I also have some advice for Lyft riders who might actually find themselves feeling queasy during a ride: If you can’t safely stop to open the door, at least roll down a window. The charge for vomiting on the car’s exterior, according to Lyft rules, is only $75.
If you need advice about a best-laid travel plan that went awry, send an email to TrippedUp@nytimes.com.
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