# What is maximum Lyft cancellation rate without being deactivated?



## Agent99 (Nov 4, 2015)

I just received the following email after canceling about 45% of my rides last night. Does anyone know what is the maximum cancellation percentage without being deactivated by Lyft?

- - -

"Your cancellation rate is too high.

Passengers rely on Lyft to provide a dependable service, and it's important that we're here for them. We noticed you've been cancelling rides more than the average driver in Seattle, which can create delays and leave people with a bad impression of our community.

Our engineers are working hard on improvements to the app to make sure you're getting matched with the most convenient pickups. Please be mindful that cancelling rides should be reserved only for emergencies, and *continued cancellations could result in the deactivation of your driver account*."


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## rickybobby (Jul 13, 2015)

Agent99 said:


> I just received the following email after canceling about 45% of my rides last night. Does anyone know what is the maximum cancellation percentage without being deactivated by Lyft?
> 
> - - -
> 
> ...


they spammed me with that message last week as well. no idea but keep skating the Lyft line (pun intended)


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## MrPix (Oct 4, 2015)

If you were offered 20 rides, that means you refused 9. That is a very high refusal rate, and that's 9 riders who had to wait extra to get a ride. They won't do anything over a single day (you might be having technical issues) but if you sustain that over a week or two, it's perfectly fair for them to kick you to the curb.


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## Agent99 (Nov 4, 2015)

I canceled I believe four out of nine requests. Of the four:

1) One ride request came to me just after I passed the applicable freeway exit. Having missed the exit added extra time to the ETA. I thought I was doing the passenger a favor by canceling it so she could re-order from another driver who was closer. I should've called the passenger and asked her to cancel it herself.

2) One person put the pin in the wrong place and I was unwilling to spend the extra five or 10 minutes to find her. Attempting to look at her correct location on Google maps while driving in dangerous road conditions was not what I wanted to do. I actually arrived where the pin indicated. I should have pressed the arrival button because after that I could have canceled the ride without it being held against me. (Some people here would have driven around the corner and waited until able to collect the cancellation fee) There were dark and rainy road conditions and nowhere to stop.


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## MrPix (Oct 4, 2015)

1) They see your ETA in real time, and when you pass that exit they see the ETA adjust. I can't tell you what to do, but I usually just turn around at the next exit unless it's >2 miles to the next exit. They see the ETA go up and if they're unhappy they can cancel at no cost to you.

2) Yeah, I get it. Hate when they do that, then expect to guide you in using morse and braille.

That's why I try hard to save my cancels:- so I can burn them on things like this. I always go into the weekend with a 100% accept rate, knowing I can cancel 10+ rides over the next two days and still be well over 90%.


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## ForteJ (Nov 20, 2015)

MrPix said:


> They see the ETA go up and if they're unhappy they can cancel at no cost to you.


Flipside, you bust your ass to make 3 lane changes, maybe a semi-legal U, and 5 stoplights to backtrack towards the pickup, and they cancel just as you get on their street. Sometimes a ~3min / 1.5 mile eta ping is way more trouble than it's worth for driver or pax, especially in rush hour traffic.

... cancel at no cost to you... no, the pax just wasted 5-10 min and a couple miles of my time and expense and sanity at no cost to the pax, and no benefit to me except aggravation. even if i get to the pickup and they cancel or the app crashes (happened 3x last week), i am not compensated for my driving to the broken pickup.

Sure, you might miss out on your perfect fare going your way or to the airport. But more likely you're going to have a bad time just trying to get to the fare if your gut says it's more trouble than it's worth.


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## MrPix (Oct 4, 2015)

I'm gonna say the freeways where you live must be very different from here. Here, you can't u-turn on a freeway and there are no lights. Where are you, Calcutta?


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## ForteJ (Nov 20, 2015)

MrPix said:


> I'm gonna say the freeways where you live must be very different from here. Here, you can't u-turn on a freeway and there are no lights. Where are you, Calcutta?


Denver.

I don't drive on the highways when i'm lyfting, unless i have a passenger going a long distance (maybe 5% of fares so far). I figured it's not worth it to lyft if i drive the highways since i'll probably get the pings after i've passed em at least 50% of the time.

Most of my rides are local, or short enough that non-highway is best. I also usually get lucky and get rides going the general direction I'm going.

When you're driving a lot of one way streets and bottlenecked 4 lane roads and backed-up turn lanes at rush hour, there often aren't good opportunities to turn around or turn across heavy. what might be a 1-3 minutes pickup 90% of day could easily be 10-15 minutes from 4-7pm in denver, highway or not.

You also can't U-turn on the interstate or most divided highways here, either, unless emergency (PT/surge fares don't count as emergency


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## MrPix (Oct 4, 2015)

If you're getting paid per mile at *say* $1.50/mile, would you prefer to do those miles at 30mph or at 70 mph? I *love* freeway rides, and have a hard time understanding people who prefer stop-start driving that burns more gas, causes more wear and tear and earns the same money over 2x-3x longer a period. The time component is 1/10th the distance component.

To each his own. You do what you like and prefer. It makes you happy. I'm not laughing at you, but my wife the economist/compensation consultant says you owe her a new keyboard. This one now has rum and coke in it.

(Joking aside, I know traffic patterns vary from city to city and that we don't really get to control the pick up and drop off locations of our rides. It's for each of us to choose our own routes using our best judgment.)


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## ForteJ (Nov 20, 2015)

I commute 15 miles home every day regardless if I lyft. on a good day I lyft 20-50 miles between work and home and make $20-40 that I otherwise wouldn't have made. I often get a ride or two going close enough to home, then either call it a night, or keep driving for a few hours if itsa busy thursday or friday. I also average 10-15% back in tips (25-50% of riders tip at least a dollar on any given night)

I'm averaging 0.85mi takehome without bonus. not enough for quitting my day job, but a nice boost for holiday cash plus i love driving and new scenery. with the signup bonus, more like 3.25 / mi the first 2 weeks / 50 rides. I think 1.50/mi should be a more reasonable base rate all considered.

I much prefer the longer and highway / steady trips, but if i took the highway home for my commute, i'd be sitting in gridlock, aggravated as heck, and missing out on random pax in neighborhoods on my way home. Also some of the non-highway routes may be slightly slower, but the traffic patterns are sometimes more predictable, with more alternatives if there are backups. it all depends on the city and our normal routes/hoods.


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## ForteJ (Nov 20, 2015)

Agent99 said:


> I just received the following email after canceling about 45% of my rides last night. Does anyone know what is the maximum cancellation percentage without being deactivated by Lyft?


sorry for hijacking your thread!

I dunno if there's a hard cutoff. If we are truly independent contractors, we should be free to accept, ignore, reject, or cancel as we choose. unfortunately Lyft seems really keen on pushing acceptance rate (and it does benefit the riders...). if it was only one or two days, and your rating and acceptance are usually good (4.8+ / 80-90%+), a few off days are probably not gonna get you booted. If you are online 6-10 hrs a day and you're rejecting over 50% (or even 20%) of pings, you're probably on a fast track to deactivation. /conjecture

FWIW, i've had a few 0% and 50% nights, ie. got one ping and ignored, or two pings and ignored one. I also suspect that internally, an ignore/timeout is not as bad as a driver cancel after accepting, but we just see overall acceptance.


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## Lyft_94110 (Nov 16, 2015)

What the hell are you doing cancelling 45% of your rides? Of course they're going to suspend you.


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## Agent99 (Nov 4, 2015)

It was all in one day out of nine ride requests. I am not talking about a pattern stretching over days or weeks. Assuming it does not become a pattern, I will not be deactivated over one day's performance.


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## CantThrowCantCatch (Sep 17, 2015)

Forgot to turn driver mode off and missed 4 pings in a row earlier. Haven't heard from them about it yet.


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## AllenChicago (Nov 19, 2015)

CantThrowCantCatch said:


> Forgot to turn driver mode off and missed 4 pings in a row earlier. Haven't heard from them about it yet.


Is missing the "pings" the same thing as cancelling a ride? I wear hearing aids and miss maybe 1 out of 6, for one reason or another. 
-Allen in Chicagoland


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## MrPix (Oct 4, 2015)

They look for a pattern of missed rides over a much larger number of rides. You're ok. You'd have to consistently do that for several days or even weeks before you got flagged to an actual live person.

I mostly miss pings when I pop to the restroom or let the dog out to potty. Or when the ping comes in just as a ping comes in on the other app and I can't quite get there quick enough while accepting the first ride. *laughs*


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