Renting a car might be a convenient option for people who don’t use them often enough to justify owning one, but it comes with its own set of headaches. Especially if you're renting the car to work as a driver.
Imgur user Thanksforl works as a Lyft driver after his regular job, but he doesn’t use his own car and rents from Lyft instead. Once the car broke down, so logically, he was expecting Lyft to send him assistance, however, he was waiting for hours and eventually had to pay to tow his car himself because message support was giving him zero help.
More info: Imgur Part 1 | Imgur Part 2
Lyft driver’s rental car broke down and after waiting for assistance for 60 hours, he was done sitting in his car and had to call a tow truck himself
Image credits: Andrij Bulba
Thanksforl’s, also known as William’s, real job is head of maintenance at a steel facility, as he mentioned in one of his comments. But he is also a driver for Lyft, a company that provides mobility as a service, lets you rent cars, provides a bicycle-sharing system and delivers food. You can also use it as a taxi service.
The Imgur user works for Lyft and rents a car from them. One day it was raining heavily in Chicago where he was driving and the car suddenly started malfunctioning. The HEV (hybrid electric vehicle) system showed a warning message saying he needed to check the hybrid system and the engine didn’t turn on to charge the battery, which was almost dead.
The driver William was caught up in heavy rain and unfortunately, his car he rented from Lyft stopped working
Image credits: Thanksforl
Image credits: Thanksforl
As William was working as a driver at that moment, he couldn’t take any passengers, so he turned down 2 requests in a bonus zone. Not only that, because he canceled the rides, his account on the Lyft app could be suspended.
All the driver wanted was road assistance because he was stranded 50 miles away from his time and he wasn’t allowed to be parked where he was, but he didn’t have a choice as the engine wouldn’t turn on.
The first thing he did was contact support to get help, as he was 50 miles away from home and was parked in a place where he shouldn’t have been
Image credits: Thanksforl
Image credits: Thanksforl
After William explained his situation, the message support, which many people in the comments suspected was a bot and not a real person, told the driver to contact Lyft Roadside Assistance. However, it informed William that he may be charged for the tow.
That didn’t seem right, but the customer support didn’t explain anything and asked him to contact roadside assistance again. The driver wanted at least to make sure his account wasn't suspended because of the cancellations, but he found out that customer support couldn’t even do that.
The support wasn’t helpful at all and wasn’t able to do anything but to contact specialists who understand how electric vehicles work
Image credits: Thanksforl
Image credits: Thanksforl
The driver wasn’t happy about the situation and asked why he had to suffer the consequences of the car failing. Somehow, only after a half an hour of chatting, the customer support realized there was an issue with the car, even though the driver had stated it from the start.
The Original Poster (OP) showed a photo of the warning the dashboard was showing and the support promised that a specialized team would contact him to help him fix the issue and signed off, ignoring William’s request of getting a ride home for free from Lyft.
After waiting the whole day and not getting any help, William was getting annoyed and contacted support once again, only to get the same answer
Image credits: Thanksforl
Image credits: Thanksforl
It seems that the whole day passed by as the message customer support ignored was sent at 7AM and the following message was sent at 7PM. Evidently nothing happened and the OP just spent the whole day in his car being referred from one person to another.
The OP switched to caps lock to make it clear how annoyed he was, and it seems that he grabbed the attention of a real person, as the initial response was clearly automated because it was the exact same one as in the morning.
William was stuck in his car for more than 2 days and the best they could offer the driver was to call the insurance company
Image credits: Thanksforl
Image credits: Thanksforl
What was frustrating about this is that the OP is a Platinum member, which means that he is on the highest reward tier at Lyft. To reach this tier, the driver must have an 80% driving score and a 4.90 rating. Driving score “is the combination of a driver’s acceptance rate, cancel rate, and any flags on your account” and “driver rating is based on how passengers rate their rides with the driver.”
Being a Platinum member includes several benefits like discounts on repairs with Openbay and roadside assistance with Allstate. The driver then may also see details of a ride before they accept it. But it also means that the driver is a valuable employee as they are keeping up a good reputation which is associated with the company. That is why William was frustrated with the way he was treated by the support.
William already knew it wouldn’t take him anywhere, so he just gave up and was willing to pay for the tow truck himself
Image credits: Thanksforl
Image credits: Thanksforl
It’s quite ironic the way the support was answering and thanking the driver for his patience after he had been stuck on the road for 14 hours. This conversation ended the same way as the first one: the support realized they were not competent to resolve the issue and promised to make sure someone with appropriate knowledge would contact the driver.
Eventually, Lyft sent out AAA road assistance, but even though the technicians were nice, they couldn’t do anything to help William, so he continued trying to call someone to get him out of there.
He was towed to the facility and not only did he not get a replacement, but he also was charged over $1,000
Image credits: Thanksforl
Image credits: Thanksforl
William contacted message support again, so he shared the screenshots of the conversation. This was apparently 56 hours after his engine malfunctioned and he was done playing games. The driver finally decided to get his car towed at his own expense and just wanted Lyft to make sure there would be another vehicle available for him to take at the facility he picked up the car from.
The support sent what looks like a string of automated responses, which were of no help at the moment. After a little frustratingly meaningless chatting, the support suggested that William call the insurance company Allstate, implying that there was nothing more they could do.
It was part of the insurance policy as drivers are responsible for a deductible
Image credits: Thanksforl
Image credits: Thanksforl
Once again, the driver tried to get his car towed by Lyft because he understood that if the car was towed by the Chicago city, he would be charged by the company. At the same time, he asked to get a replacement vehicle.
It’s quite obvious that from this moment, he was actually talking with a human being because of their weird wording. Many people in the comments noticed that as well and speculated that the customer support is probably overseas and has no contact with any of the facilities or service centers or even Lyft itself. Especially because the support couldn’t contact the facility or even give William a phone number for him to do it himself.
Not only that, William was blamed for picking up a passenger in the rain as the cause of the malfunction
Image credits: Thanksforl
Image credits: Thanksforl
In the end, William paid for a tow truck and got to the Lyft facility. He didn’t get a replacement car and he didn’t have any other way to get back home 50 miles. They also refused to charge the battery and informed the driver he owed $1000. On top of that, because he owed the company, he couldn’t cash out his earnings as they went to cover the debt.
Without revealing the details, William somehow managed to get back home after 60 hours without help and posted a sweet video of his dog overjoyed when its best friend came home. He also showed the screenshot of his negative earnings as he was charged “for damage to the HEV system due to driving in extreme rain to pick up a Lyft passenger.”
In the final update, the driver revealed that this traumatic experience lasted for about 60 hours and he now owed the company money
Image credits: Thanksforl
Most people in the comments were just appalled at the treatment the driver got from the company. They were quite disturbed that William was getting automated responses and nobody would just send out help instead of making him call the next person.
They were also shocked at how long the driver waited for some assistance to show up. In a couple of replies, William explained that he didn’t want to abandon his car, fearing being charged for anything that would happen to it.
Eventually the man got home, despite the company not giving him a replacement car or offering a ride home
Image credits: Thanksforl
Image credits: Thanksforl
If you go to Lyft’s website, there are no clear instructions on what to do if a car breaks down, so he might not have needed to stay there for so long. Also, William shouldn’t have been surprised he was charged for repairs because whichever type of insurance is in his contract, there is a $1,000 deductible for which the driver is responsible.
Furthermore, Lyft doesn’t own any vehicles but receives a commission from each booking instead, so that might have been one of the factors why it was so hard to resolve the issue.
Despite this, it is not right that William was left to deal with this problem alone when he is an excellent driver and just wanted to have his non-functioning car towed to the facility and be able to continue his job from there.
People in the comments considered Lyft’s treatment of their employee ridiculous and were surprised the man waited for assistance for so long
Image credits: Thanksforl
Image credits: Thanksforl
Image credits: Thanksforl
Have you ever heard of anything similar happening to someone who works as a driver for Lyft? Have you ever tried contacting their customer support? What was your experience? Do you think William could have dealt with this situation differently? Let us know your thoughts in the comments!