Scammed rideshare is part of the Still The Best Trip Report.
Tired of taxi scams, I always take rideshares where available. (see “Taxi my friend?” The Worst Places to Hail a Cab). My favorite in Europe is Bolt (see Bolt: The Preferred Rideshare App in Estonia). I had a bad experience taking a Bolt from Cannes to Nice. For the interminable drive, the driver was on the phone. To add to the misery, the car did not have air conditioning for the duration of the 1:15 ride on a hot summer’s evening.
I reached out to customer service to see what could be done. Here was their response:
The category of ride you ordered does not include the air condition. It’s the reason why the driver did not put it. I am sorry, but as you’ve completed the trip to your destination, we can’t help you any further.
I have heard some great excuses from customer service, but this has to be the best. To be clear, there is no option to request a car with air conditioning or with no air conditioning. This isn’t Ryanair. If there were, I would be curious to know how much I would have to pay as the cost of this trip was 80 euros.
What do you think of this scam?
Isn’t there a train? It’s Europe
It appears you didn’t read the whole article.
Seems more like a mix of a driver/vehicle oddity, and something lost in translation in the corporate communication.
Did you ask the driver to turn it on and he demurred? Understood he was on the phone the whole time, but seems an interjection to ask wouldn’t have been out of the question. Or did you presume there was no AC because it was hot out and he didn’t turn it on? This isn’t clear from your “the car didn’t have air conditioning for the XX hour drive” statement. I’d venture a guess that there could have been functional AC in the car, but home boy didn’t want to use it because he’s accustomed to going without and it saves a bit of gas if you don’t run the AC.
Regarding the corporate follow-up, it seems more likely that the proper message should have been that “availability of air conditioning is not guaranteed under the terms of our agreement” rather than you failing to select a radio button for AC or another “class of service” etc. The CSR is probably questionably trained, and shooting from the hip a bit with the response. Maybe even a tad of intentional cheekiness.
Bachuwa Law should review the contractual terms and doggedly seek remuneration to the extent plausible!
I had emailed them initially because the driver had taken an inefficient route to avoid the highway. That’s the why the ride was 1:15 when it should’ve been faster. I can’t recall if there was an AC conversation but from what I remember he was on his phone the whole time. Initially, I didn’t care because I thought the ride wouldn’t take forever (see previous bus post).
I assuming after the 10th email asking for a refund for he a/c and poor routing that they came up with this clever response.