# Lyft masking their ride switch with fake "Pax cancel ride" message



## Beandriver (Aug 27, 2015)

Lyft is masking ride switching with fake "PAX cancel ride message" with a text message that looks legit too... no LYFT!! You canceled the ride not the PAX..

When you get a message that "Pax cancel ride" dont believe it.. its LYFT that cancel the ride and gave it to another driver..

This is unethical, making it look like the PAX cancel when they did not


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## kcdrvr15 (Jan 10, 2017)

This is the main reason I don't take normally accept pings more than 7 min away...

Another reason why lyft and fuber will fail, they don't recognize that they have two customers, one the rider, two the driver.


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## Soy (Aug 22, 2017)

I'm curious. How do you know it Lyft?


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## ROTA (Jun 23, 2017)

Soy said:


> I'm curious. How do you know it Lyft?


Plent of costumers already said they didnt cancel


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## LEAFdriver (Dec 28, 2014)

Soy said:


> I'm curious. How do you know it was Lyft?





ROTA said:


> Plenty of customers already said they didn't cancel


Plus the fact they outright admitted to me once that they did indeed cancel it! 

And remember, when they send you a text saying your PAX cancelled....they also send your pax a text that _YOU_ cancelled!

This is a huge problem in areas where you have 'regular riders' and they are now under the impression that YOU, a driver they like and maybe even TIP....cancelled on them!  Not good for the next time you pick them up and you forget to explain to them what REALLY happened that time and they low star you.

I have occasionally just continued to the pick up address anyway....and I usually always get there before the driver that they switched me with.....then I email Lyft asking for a cancellation fee since they STOLE my accepted ride....they will usually pay!


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## kcdrvr15 (Jan 10, 2017)

These are excellent situations where the driver has a chance to sell his "Private Car Service". Every unhappy rideshare pax is a business opportunity. Anytime a rideshare pax complains about the service, I give them a business card and invite them to call me directly the next time they have issues getting a ride. Do to uber\lyft what they did to the taxis, steal their customers by providing better service at a fair price.


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## PickEmUp (Jul 19, 2017)

kcdrvr15 said:


> These are excellent situations where the driver has a chance to sell his "Private Car Service". Every unhappy rideshare pax is a business opportunity. Anytime a rideshare pax complains about the service, I give them a business card and invite them to call me directly the next time they have issues getting a ride. Do to uber\lyft what they did to the taxis, steal their customers by providing better service at a fair price.


Are you licensed in your state to operate independently as a TNC? Do you carry the required liability insurance? Have you met all the other state and city mandated criteria? If not, you are leaving yourself open to a lawsuit when something bad happens.


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## Don'tchasethesurge (Dec 27, 2016)

I hate when you accepted a prime time at 150% and in your way there lyft changes your passenger... yea I cannot tell the new passenger rating or if it’s prime time. It is such bs!


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## Cndragon (Dec 8, 2016)

Yeah...too risky. My last job, part of it was driving our guests on a tour of our properties. Got rear ended and both me and my guest were injured. I was in physical therapy almost 6mths, she was taken away in ambulance and in therapy for a year. It was a combo of the other drivers insurance, workers comp and my companies insurance that handled or medical bills.

No way no how would I have been able to pay all that if that happened while I had someone in my car and I want covered for it. 

Beyond that though, I guess the logistics would work better in a small town or something. My city is way too big to cater as a personal on call driver... I'd need to be paid accordingly.

Just talked to someone yesterday who said he has a deal with a guy to take him to the airport. He figures it's a good deal for the guy cause it's a guaranteed $20 every two weeks. The rate from where he lives would anyway be $12 for me as an X...except that guy drives an escalade. 

I told my friend he's lucky to find a driver who is terrible at math and time management.


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## Skinny1 (Sep 24, 2015)

They don’t tell the pax you canceled, they say they found a better driver, they show the new wait time,


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## Wrb06wrx (Sep 20, 2017)

This has happend to me before but usually on longer pick up pings


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## kcdrvr15 (Jan 10, 2017)

PickEmUp said:


> Are you licensed in your state to operate independently as a TNC? Do you carry the required liability insurance? Have you met all the other state and city mandated criteria? If not, you are leaving yourself open to a lawsuit when something bad happens.


Yes, I have comm livery insur and a bussiness lic. In Missouri, they have deregulated the livery bussiness, no taxi or tnc permit and exempt from further regs from county or city.


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## Mista T (Aug 16, 2017)

kcdrvr15 said:


> Yes, I have comm livery insur and a bussiness lic. In Missouri, they have deregulated the livery bussiness, no taxi or tnc permit and exempt from further regs from county or city.


Lucky you.
In my state it's illegal without licensing, permits and insurance. We can be arrested on the spot, car towed, $1,000 fine, and jail time for repeat offenses. Plus deactivated by U/L if they find out, for harming their brand.


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## Drivincrazy (Feb 14, 2016)

Best to comply with all laws and insurance requirements. Never accept cash rides as so many have posted.


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## Jesses (Oct 30, 2017)

Soy said:


> I'm curious. How do you know it Lyft?


In my area, I know almost all of the drivers and talk to them when we're out driving on busy nights. I talked to a driver who had a Lyft cancel on them that said the customer canceled. Lyft swapped that passenger to me when I finished a drop off at the location where the customer pickup was.

The customer told me they were assigned the other driver, then the app just updated and said, "we found you a closer driver!" The other driver saw a passenger cancellation. I saw a new passenger.

In some cases, like this, one, it actually worked out best for everyone. But the means is a little deceptive -- technically, yes, the passenger could cancel and re-request and get a closer driver. But Lyft is doing that for them.


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## Johnydoo (Jul 25, 2017)

Jesses said:


> In some cases, like this, one, it actually worked out best for everyone. But the means is a little deceptive -- technically, yes, the passenger could cancel and re-request and get a closer driver. But Lyft is doing that for them.


Best for everyone? How?


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## Jesses (Oct 30, 2017)

Johnydoo said:


> Best for everyone? How?


Instead of each of us driving to the other's location to pick up a PAX, it swapped them so we were each within a minute of our pax.

It was best for each driver because each driver avoided an 8 minute unpaid drive. It was best for each passenger because their driver was available 7-8 minutes faster.


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## LEAFdriver (Dec 28, 2014)

Jesses said:


> Instead of each of us driving to the other's location to pick up a PAX, it swapped them so we were each within a minute of our pax.
> 
> It was best for each driver because each driver avoided an 8 minute unpaid drive. It was best for each passenger because their driver was available 7-8 minutes faster.


With me......in _MY_ market.....time to pick up passenger isn't the ONLY criteria I consider.

For example, I have a regular rider that tips me $5 every time I bring him to work...which is about 2-3 times a week. I already know where he's going when I get his ping. I would be VERY upset if I accepted his ping....and then got switched to someone 'closer' whom I do not know from Adam and do not know where they are going and whether or not they tip.

I am pretty good at telling from the incoming ping approx how far the person might be going. It's not a 100% science...but it's been working for me so far. So in other words, just because it might be '_8 minutes closer_' doesn't mean it will be a better/more lucrative ride! I don't like 'algorithms' to decide that for me!


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## Jesses (Oct 30, 2017)

LEAFdriver said:


> With me......in _MY_ market.....time to pick up passenger isn't the ONLY criteria I consider.
> 
> For example, I have a regular rider that tips me $5 every time I bring him to work...which is about 2-3 times a week. I already know where he's going when I get his ping. I would be VERY upset if I accepted his ping....and then got switched to someone 'closer' whom I do not know from Adam and do not know where they are going and whether or not they tip.
> 
> I am pretty good at telling from the incoming ping approx how far the person might be going. It's not a 100% science...but it's been working for me so far. So in other words, just because it might be '_8 minutes closer_' doesn't mean it will be a better/more lucrative ride! I don't like 'algorithms' to decide that for me!


Sure, I understand that, which is why i prefaced my experience with 'in this case'.

Depending on how busy/big your market is, you're getting paired with riders by an algorithm already. If conditions change and the algorithm finds a better pairing and it swaps, you could go from a further away passenger to your $5 tipper just as easily.

I'm not defending the way Lyft approaches the issue. I don't like it. I think they need more transparency about how it works at the minimum. And even allow drivers to lock a PAX if it's someone they know or a ride they know they want.

What's even worse is that I've also seen examples several times where I come online and get a fare immediately, and it gave me that fare from another driver who doesn't even get an offer in return.

I don't generally care how many fares i get (I'm not doing Lyft to make money) so I will usually be offline if I'm talking to other drivers in our area or if i notice there are enough drivers already online to handle things. In this case, she got the fare and there were no available drivers, so I waited a minute and came online and Lyft gave mer her passenger and told her that the passenger canceled.

Lyft also gives priority to people in a region or city if they're registered in that region or city. For example, I can drive anywhere in Wisconsin legally, but if I pick up in Madison while i'm registered in Eau Claire, I get a lower priority than local Madison drivers.

There is a lot that goes into these algorithms and so it's easy to only see the bad in them, especially if the company setting them up is not being transparent. A wiser man than myself once told me, "never attribute to maliciousness which you can attribute to incompetence" when it comes to software behavior, and I find it's often true.


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## Tom Harding (Sep 26, 2016)

I see cancellations from Lyft all the time. They either are cancelled by the pax or I cancel them when the trip is too far away. 5 out of 8 trips were cancelled. 1 by me and 4 by the rides, according to Lyft. I got tired of the B.S. from Lyft and switched to Uber that day.


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## RideShareJUNKIE (Jun 23, 2017)

This is a known issue. Doesnt LYFT call this feature "BAILOUT"? 
I have personally confirmed this with a few pax months ago. 

Another indicator that it was in fact the LYFT system is that when I go to "help" under the fare review, and select "I wasnt paid a cancellation fee...", and just put a few words and hit send, it AUTOMATICALLY credits me the "local city cancellation fee" since im a valued LYFT driver, blah blah blah......

Its sad that nothing surprises me with them anymore.


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## Rickshaw (Jun 30, 2017)

On my way to a 1-minute pick up. Lyft switched pax to a 7- minute. I drove straight to the nearest Starbucks. Not unexpected, latter cancels as I was sipping my mocha.


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## Tom Harding (Sep 26, 2016)

Rickshaw said:


> On my way to a 1-minute pick up. Lyft switched pax to a 7- minute. I drove straight to the nearest Starbucks. Not unexpected, latter cancels as I was sipping my mocha.


That's why I use Lyft only when Uber is really slow. Too much b/s with them - opt in, PDB, etc. They seem to be not capable of just being straight forward. Too many conditions.


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## PickEmUp (Jul 19, 2017)

Rickshaw said:


> On my way to a 1-minute pick up. Lyft switched pax to a 7- minute. I drove straight to the nearest Starbucks. Not unexpected, latter cancels as I was sipping my mocha.


In a case like that, I immediately go online with Uber and either:

Cancel the new ride immediately
Or
Drive s l o w l y toward the pax and wait for them to cancel
Or 
Use the nuclear option and wait for a cancellation message (a few drivers here know what I mean)


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## LyftinCG (Jul 14, 2017)

Does anyone think this activity will slow down now that Lyft is going to pay some sort of cancel fee (details not provided) after 2 minutes?

https://thehub.lyft.com/blog/rating...&utm_source=ExactTarget&utm_campaign=83254752


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## Trout (Nov 16, 2016)

Today, I got a message that ,"your ride with Robert has been cancelled by Lyft" instead of the usual, "Robert has cancelled the Lyft request".


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## Johnydoo (Jul 25, 2017)

Trout said:


> Today, I got a message that ,"your ride with Robert has been cancelled by Lyft" instead of the usual, "Robert has cancelled the Lyft request".


Would you mind posting it here, so it is documented? Thx.


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## AllenChicago (Nov 19, 2015)

kcdrvr15 said:


> This is the main reason I don't take normally accept pings more than 7 min away...
> 
> Another reason why lyft and fuber will fail, they don't recognize that they have two customers, one the rider, two the driver.


Nine Minutes is my limit. Yesterday I got a request 17 minutes away. I ignored it. Immediately get Pinged again with a "You're The Only Driver In The Area!" message plastered at the top of the countdown window. Ignored it again, and quickly went into airplane mode for a couple of minutes.

When I looked at the Passenger App, there were 3 drivers closer to this Ride Request. You think because the requestor was rated 4.3 and was LINE is why other drivers ignored her? Lyft shouldn't LIE to us like that.


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## Hunter420 (May 1, 2016)

yep all day today! 150% surge... half way there then, boom cancel, then get a no surge out of the 500% surge zone! its to much!! at the airport 100% surge zone then cancel!!! then get a ride out of the airport! no surge, its ridiculous and destroys moral!!! why!!!! then they say just quit! they don't have the right to treat drivers inhumane, this is assaulting drivers, when traffic is crazy, you want us to drive for base fair!!!! treat the drivers better!!


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## LyftinCG (Jul 14, 2017)

Trout said:


> Today, I got a message that ,"your ride with Robert has been cancelled by Lyft" instead of the usual, "Robert has cancelled the Lyft request".


I just got the same message - earlier tonight I got the normal "Robert has cancel the Lyft request" ( we ve got a ton of drivers on tonight in my small town so I am sure it was Lyft switch. The only difference I can tell is the "new" message was a cancelled Scheduled ride.


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## Mista T (Aug 16, 2017)

When PDB was changed Oct 1st I stopped accepting rides over 8 mins away. 8 is a stretch, I really don't go beyond 6 very much now.

Ever since I stopped taking longer requests it seems like my random cancels have all but vanished. Amazing coincidence.


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## AllenChicago (Nov 19, 2015)

Mista T said:


> When PDB was changed Oct 1st I stopped accepting rides over 8 mins away. 8 is a stretch, I really don't go beyond 6 very much now.
> 
> Ever since I stopped taking longer requests it seems like my random cancels have all but vanished. Amazing coincidence.


It's not a coincidence. People are increasingly using LYFT and UBER simultaneously, when there are no drivers close by. If the UBER driver looks like he/she will arrive faster than Lyft, the Lyft ride-request is cancelled.

Naturally, there's not as much of this horse-race B.S. from passengers who have a Lyft Driver relatively close to their location.


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## Wesleyrian (Jun 14, 2017)

A couple of months ago I actually had a cancelled ride and it showed up as lyft operator cancelled or something. I can't remember exactly what it said but I remember thinking. Huh... Weird that they would tell me it was them.


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## PickEmUp (Jul 19, 2017)

AllenChicago said:


> It's not a coincidence. People are increasingly using LYFT and UBER simultaneously, when there are no drivers close by. If the UBER driver looks like he/she will arrive faster than Lyft, the Lyft ride-request is cancelled.
> 
> Naturally, there's not as much of this horse-race B.S. from passengers who have a Lyft Driver relatively close to their location.


Lyft should do something to discourage th8s behavior by pax. But they won't.


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## Jo3030 (Jan 2, 2016)

These Lyft cancels are going to stop me driving for them overall.
In the suburbs, all the rides are basically 6-9 mins away.
If I take a ride and can guarantee it will get switched out to someone else, I will just stop taking them overall.


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## 2Cents (Jul 18, 2016)

kcdrvr15 said:


> These are excellent situations where the driver has a chance to sell his "Private Car Service". Every unhappy rideshare pax is a business opportunity. Anytime a rideshare pax complains about the service, I give them a business card and invite them to call me directly the next time they have issues getting a ride. Do to uber\lyft what they did to the taxis, steal their customers by providing better service at a fair price.


That's a great way to get deactivated not to mention you're not covered financially should an accident arise and you're committing a 2nd degree misdemeanor (in some municipalities) by operating an unlicensed vehicle for hire vehicle. Not worth it for the hassles of these cheap pax-holes.


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## kcdrvr15 (Jan 10, 2017)

2Cents said:


> That's a great way to get deactivated not to mention you're not covered financially should an accident arise and you're committing a 2nd degree misdemeanor (in some municipalities) by operating an unlicensed vehicle for hire vehicle. Not worth it for the hassles of these cheap pax-holes.


Well, lyft knows I run a towncar taxi service, I have business lic, comm livery insurance, and In the state of Missouri, commercial vehicles carrying 5 pax or less, not including driver, are exempt from any further city or county permits...

I honor all rides I accept on lyft, as lyft bussiness and only market myself for the repeat customers.

So, no issues with the law, no issues with lyft, and customers/riders are given an option to call me directly the next time they need a ride.

Ive affiliated drivers that refer bussiness to me, and I refer to them when ever we get a call and cant cover it.


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## Mista T (Aug 16, 2017)

kcdrvr15 said:


> Well, lyft knows I run a towncar taxi service, I have business lic, comm livery insurance, and In the state of Missouri, commercial vehicles carrying 5 pax or less, not including driver, are exempt from any further city or county permits...
> 
> I honor all rides I accept on lyft, as lyft bussiness and only market myself for the repeat customers.
> 
> ...


You might want to mention that in your posts BEFORE suggesting that people engage in practices that would be illegal for them.


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## SalCoughdrop (Sep 7, 2017)

For me I usually get a text notification from Lyft saying "Lyft cancelled the ride".


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## ddelro219 (Aug 11, 2016)

whenever I get a lyft ping, I purposely wait a couple minutes or I continue where I'm heading before responding to the ping for this very reason. it happens too often on lyft.


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## Nandriver (Jun 14, 2017)

I just get a “pickup destination change”. When I pick up the pax, I ask if they changed their pick up destination and they always say no. Clearly that’s Lyft’s way of cancelling the 1st ride and sending me somewhere else.


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## AllenChicago (Nov 19, 2015)

I have a passenger that I pick up everyday at 4:20 p.m. She often has to cancel one or two rides before she can submit a request and get me. I'm in the same location just one half block away from her at the same time everyday.

Those two drivers that she cancels probably thinks that lyft is doing it to them.

Lyft needs to put together a system where passengers can be assigned to a specific driver when they submit their request, if that driver is nearby.


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## Nironnin17 (Nov 27, 2017)

I was just reading this thread, because yesterday a Lyft said a rider cancelled. I think he actually did, because it occurred 7 minutes after the request I accepted while en route, and Lyft credited me the 5 dollar fee. I'm learning a legit rider cancellation is not always the case, apparently. But maybe Lyft shows them a closer vehicle, as mentioned above, then the rider does choose to cancel it.


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