# This just in... Such BS (news from Lyft)



## UberRey (Sep 1, 2014)

Acceptance Rate Now Includes Driver Cancelations
Keeping your acceptance rate at 90% or higher isn't just good etiquette - it's necessary to qualify for your weekly Power Driver Bonus. Starting this week, your acceptance rate will also factor in driver cancelations, which are damaging to the community.

What does this mean for you? Not much, since most drivers have no trouble avoiding cancelations. Just remember: 

Accept every ride request 
Cancel only in an emergency 
Know that passenger cancelations and no-shows won't count against you 
We're always working on improving ETA estimates to make sure you're not getting any long-distance rides. Thanks for your help making Lyft the most reliable ride on the road.


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## UberRey (Sep 1, 2014)

All of my cancellations relate to them sending me a rider that's effing 20 minutes away. I'm going to drive that far and risk a $5 fare. Eff that.


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## UberRey (Sep 1, 2014)

So... the work around is to accept the request and leave the app running until the customer cancels the request. Great. Got it.


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## Walkersm (Apr 15, 2014)

Wonder if some drivers might send a text: "I know I accepted you ride but I am not coming, just to let you know. Please cancel on your end to avoid a charge. "


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## Lyft4uDC (Jul 28, 2014)

lol at the no long distance crap. im usually driving 20 minutes+


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## PinkSquareChaser (Oct 14, 2014)

Pro Tip: When you get a request for far away, quickly go into 'airplane mode'. The request will time-out, a message will say poor connectivity, and does NOT get counted.


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## jmana (Sep 2, 2014)

Yeah this is BS, and apparently this began for this last week even though they just sent the email yesterday, because I went from a 100% acceptance rate to a 38%, haha! Not that it matters because even though I logged in more than 40 hours, I only got 5 rides so it's not like I'm losing much money. But yeah, I feel you on the long rides and I cancel them too. I used to take them, but it was always the same, I'd drive 20 minutes and the idiot passenger would get in and say "I'm just going around the corner", uh thanks for making me drive this far out of my way for a couple bucks that won't even cover my gas let alone my time. So yeah, I've been cancelling anything more than 10 minutes away. Now I'll have to use this airplane mode trick. Sucks to leave a pax hanging like that, but I'm tired of losing money with Lyft. I'm seriously considering dropping Lyft altogether, it's gotten pathetic in the Raleigh area. I make at least 4 times more with Uber. The only sucky thing about Uber is I can't do anything about the 20% commission.


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## UberRey (Sep 1, 2014)

PinkSquareChaser said:


> Pro Tip: When you get a request for far away, quickly go into 'airplane mode'. The request will time-out, a message will say poor connectivity, and does NOT get counted.


Genius! My cell coverage is about to get crappy!



jmana said:


> Yeah this is BS, and apparently this began for this last week even though they just sent the email yesterday, because I went from a 100% acceptance rate to a 38%, haha! Not that it matters because even though I logged in more than 40 hours, I only got 5 rides so it's not like I'm losing much money. But yeah, I feel you on the long rides and I cancel them too. I used to take them, but it was always the same, I'd drive 20 minutes and the idiot passenger would get in and say "I'm just going around the corner", uh thanks for making me drive this far out of my way for a couple bucks that won't even cover my gas let alone my time. So yeah, I've been cancelling anything more than 10 minutes away. Now I'll have to use this airplane mode trick. Sucks to leave a pax hanging like that, but I'm tired of losing money with Lyft. I'm seriously considering dropping Lyft altogether, it's gotten pathetic in the Raleigh area. I make at least 4 times more with Uber. The only sucky thing about Uber is I can't do anything about the 20% commission.


This. I could have written this post exactly. There are aspects of Lyft I like, but they officially swung their operation to the side of "not worth it". I guess we shall see if they actually use the new cancellation policy as a way of penalizing us, or if it's just a ploy to screw us out of the power driver bonus. I will never drive for them at night again. My day for them ends at 6pm


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## jmana (Sep 2, 2014)

It's definitely to screw us out of the power drive bonus. I knew when they said something like 35% of the commissions were being returned that they'd have another trick up their sleeve to get that number down. This cancellation thing doesn't surprise me at all.


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## OldTownSean (Aug 14, 2014)

Crappy. Canceling was working so good. I'll try the airplane trick though! Thanks for the tip. Also driving til they cancel sounds good too. How bout a text... sorry, got a flat. Please cancel and reorder ... I need to fix this. Sorry for the inconvenience


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## jmana (Sep 2, 2014)

Yeah I just realized the airplane method won't work for me, I have my other phone that I run Uber on wirelessly tethered to the phone that Lyft is on, so if I cut the connection to that phone I will lose Uber too. I like the flat tire text! Might have to do a copy and paste text that I can send on the fly.


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## jmana (Sep 2, 2014)

The one thing that really pisses me off about this new policy, is it doesn't say whether PASSENGER cancellations will count towards our acceptance rate. I think if they request a ride, and we accept and they cancel, it should be counted as an accepted ride, but so far it counts as nothing, and this change doesn't seem to address that. Again penalizing drivers while passengers can do whatever the hell they want.


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## LAuberX (Jun 3, 2014)

HOW IS ACCEPTANCE RATING CALCULATED?
It's actually really simple. Your acceptance rating is the number of unique ride requests you've accepted and completed divided by the total number of ride requests you've received, or:
Acceptance Rating % = Rides Accepted and Completed / (divided by)
Total Ride Requests (Not including passenger-cancelled requests and no-shows)

so pax cancelled don't count, nor do no-shows per Lyft help articles


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## Lyft4uDC (Jul 28, 2014)

so that's explains why I was at 67% and got no 5% bonus


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## Optimus Uber (Oct 7, 2014)

jmana said:


> Yeah this is BS, and apparently this began for this last week even though they just sent the email yesterday, because I went from a 100% acceptance rate to a 38%, haha! Not that it matters because even though I logged in more than 40 hours, I only got 5 rides so it's not like I'm losing much money. But yeah, I feel you on the long rides and I cancel them too. I used to take them, but it was always the same, I'd drive 20 minutes and the idiot passenger would get in and say "I'm just going around the corner", uh thanks for making me drive this far out of my way for a couple bucks that won't even cover my gas let alone my time. So yeah, I've been cancelling anything more than 10 minutes away. Now I'll have to use this airplane mode trick. Sucks to leave a pax hanging like that, but I'm tired of losing money with Lyft. I'm seriously considering dropping Lyft altogether, it's gotten pathetic in the Raleigh area. I make at least 4 times more with Uber. The only sucky thing about Uber is I can't do anything about the 20% commission.


my acceptance rate is 12%. Wonder when I going to be deactivated


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## Optimus Uber (Oct 7, 2014)

Lyft4uDC said:


> so that's explains why I was at 67% and got no 5% bonus


no soup for you!!


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## Optimus Uber (Oct 7, 2014)

jmana said:


> The one thing that really pisses me off about this new policy, is it doesn't say whether PASSENGER cancellations will count towards our acceptance rate. I think if they request a ride, and we accept and they cancel, it should be counted as an accepted ride, but so far it counts as nothing, and this change doesn't seem to address that. Again penalizing drivers while passengers can do whatever the hell they want.


you said penal, hehehehe '


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## OldTownSean (Aug 14, 2014)

Lyft4uDC said:


> so that's explains why I was at 67% and got no 5% bonus


Nice of them to let you know the rules after the game is over eh?


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## Big Machine (Jun 19, 2014)

So everyone is gaming the system to try and pay less commission then getting mad when it is made so you can not do that. It seems like drivers who accept and cancel making it extremely hard to get any type of ride with both Lyft and Uber are a major problem. It is this kind of crap that will make both companies fail


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## Former Yellow Driver (Sep 5, 2014)

Big Machine said:


> It is this kind of crap that will make both companies fail


Nope. They won't fail because of BS like this. However this kind of BS might cause them to treat their drivers better and increase the rates so that the drivers won't cancel shit*y trips.


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## OldTownSean (Aug 14, 2014)

Big Machine said:


> So everyone is gaming the system to try and pay less commission then getting mad when it is made so you can not do that. It seems like drivers who accept and cancel making it extremely hard to get any type of ride with both Lyft and Uber are a major problem. It is this kind of crap that will make both companies fail


No. No. No. It is the terrible rates that make it so drivers LOSE MONEY driving long distances to pick up people that cause the problem. You cannot seriously expect someone to drive to a pick up someone at a probable loss. The only tactics that will make a reasonable person do this are fear and intimidation. That is what lyft and uber are beginning to employ.

Pay a fair price. Get a fair service. Pay an unfair price and no matter how hard you tighten your grip, profit driven drivers will find a way to slip through your fingers.


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## grams777 (Jun 13, 2014)

On Lyft, go offline and back online to reset your ping radius. It starts low at about 2 minutes and increases about 2 minutes per minute that you go without a ping. You can avoid long distance pings this way. It doesn't work like this with Uber.


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## OldTownSean (Aug 14, 2014)

grams777 said:


> On Lyft, go offline and back online to reset your ping radius. It starts low at about 2 minutes and increases about 2 minutes per minute that you go without a ping. You can avoid long distance pings this way. It doesn't work like this with Uber.


Great tip! How do you know this please?


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## grams777 (Jun 13, 2014)

I don't remember the original source, but regardless you can test it yourself. Just open the client app and move your pin right after going in driver mode. As time progresses your car will appear in further distances. I timed it several times and it seems to follow a pretty straightforward formula. Go back offline then online and the distance resets.


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## Baron VonStudley (Jun 20, 2014)

Resetting your radius is definately a good idea but when there are only 2 drivers out at 3 am Sunday night you can't hide just gotta hope for PT And huh uh huh huh he said penal


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## MrsUberJax (Sep 2, 2014)

What we have in Jacksonville is Lyft Drivers keeping their app rolling all night long while they are at home.... those folks were getting full fares - full bonuses and their acceptance rating remained high because they would just cancel the rides.... to combat this... Lyft is making canceling a ride, just as bad as letting it time out.


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## haohmaru (Sep 18, 2014)

I don't have to worry about this in Jacksonville - last shift = 5 hours on and no ride requests. Go ME!


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## Sydney Uber (Apr 15, 2014)

UberRey said:


> So... the work around is to accept the request and leave the app running until the customer cancels the request. Great. Got it.


Good fix!


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## Sydney Uber (Apr 15, 2014)

OldTownSean said:


> Crappy. Canceling was working so good. I'll try the airplane trick though! Thanks for the tip. Also driving til they cancel sounds good too. How bout a text... sorry, got a flat. Please cancel and reorder ... I need to fix this. Sorry for the inconvenience


Or another message to get them to cancel:

"Maybe delayed a few minutes, gotta find somewhere to empty my Colostomy bag its busting. Unless I can dump at your place?"


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## driveLA (Aug 15, 2014)

Lyft is pretty much dead to me at this point 

After favoring it over Uber for a short time I don't even bother to turn it on unless it's a slow Uber night. 

Probably missing out on more profitable uber fares while im out on lyft rides if I do both apps on busy days.


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## Yuri Lygotme (Jul 27, 2014)

"Acceptance Rate Now Includes Driver Cancelations"

Well, here goes my loophole to get the 20% bonus.


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## Just Some Guy (Jun 10, 2014)

PinkSquareChaser said:


> Pro Tip: When you get a request for far away, quickly go into 'airplane mode'. The request will time-out, a message will say poor connectivity, and does NOT get counted.


Or carry a piece of aluminum foil, and wrap it around your phone.

Just hope you don't get pulled over by the cops, they'll think your a crack head and use it as an excuse to tear your car apart.


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