I was in Latvia a few weeks ago. Riga’s one of the Europeans cities without a good transit link from the airport into city. Snooping around online, I found that the recommended way to get a ride was the use of an app called Bolt, a European clone of Uber. I realize now that I didn’t actually check that Uber wasn’t available in Latvia, but I’m not against experimenting with a new app here and there.
I used it twice to get to and from the city center, and it worked perfectly. Neither of my drivers spoke English and I didn’t speak a word of Latvian, but that’s what technology’s for. The rides went off without a hitch and I got exactly where I was supposed to be both times.
I arrived in Lyon recently and figured, hey, this is Europe, why not try the European app again, and used Bolt.
Car pulls into airport, drives to the waiting spot, stops up ahead of me, I walk over to it, driver pulls away, and leaves the airport. Mystified, I photograph the guy’s license plate as he drives off figuring I might need it for dispute evidence.
The driver doesn’t cancel the ride as he rides off into the distance, leaving me to do it, presumably so it falls to me to pay the app’s €7 cancellation fee.
I cancel and try again. I get a ride parked not far off, but with a message: “This is an automated acceptance. This car is set to charge for another 45 minutes.” Sure enough, it’s unmoving and unresponsive, and eventually the ride times out (thankfully, avoiding another €7 charge).
No message this time, but another car that appears to be charging and/or long term parked (it’s a Tesla, so I suspect charging again). I leave the app, waiting for the pick up to time out.
I give up on Bolt, and switch to Uber. I match a driver right away. It’s almost suspicious how quickly I matched him. But this is good! Progress. He drives over and I walk up to meet him. I get in the car and we start moving. Finally, this fiasco is over.
But then a guy runs up to the driver’s window. Hey, he shouts, you’re our ride! We booked you on Bolt. We just talked about on the phone a few minutes ago, remember?
Knowing that his license plate and photo matches what’s on their screen, the driver doesn’t bother denying it, and instead just points to his phone’s screen and says, I pick up Brandur. See?
Even as the car’s “winner” (I’m not sure if this was because I got to the car first or the Uber fare was more favorable for the driver), I have principles, and of course don’t love this situation either, but my only alternative would be to get out and cancel the ride, for which I’d surely get hit with another fee. Unfortunately my best option is to stay quiet about it, let the Bolt user get another ride, and give the driver a low rating later. Naturally, the driver didn’t cancel the other guy’s Bolt ride (at least as far as I observed from the back seat), which would’ve left the user to eat the €7 fee.
As we drove away from the airport, I suddenly realized: wait! this must be what happened to me during my first ride.
I go back into the Bolt app and open a support conversation. This option is purposely hidden deep inside submenus of submenus of submenus, so it took me five minutes to find it. I explain what happened and include the photographic evidence. From the first response it’s obvious they have me talking to an AI. I drop all formality, and type only the minimum viable number of characters to get the next response. The AI promises me a refund for my €7 cancellation fee, then proceeds to provide no refund.
Eventually I’m escalated to a human operator, who somehow manages to be worse than the AI. After explaining the situation again, I’m told that fine, in this extremely rare, never-before-seen, once-in-a-cosmic-era situation, they’ll refund the €7 fee. But don’t fuck up again!
Don’t worry Bolt, I won’t. My days of using you scam peddlers are over.
When something works well enough, it’s easy to take it for granted. As much flak as Uber and Lyft take, my experience with Bolt made me stop and think that even given 10+ years and hundreds of rides on both apps, my bad experiences have numbered like maybe, two? That sort of quality bar isn’t an easy thing to maintain.
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