Bay Area mom describes days-long Uber customer service nightmare

Joan Ryan says all she wanted was to talk to a human being at Uber customer service.

After her son was left stranded in Fairfax in September following an account issue, Ryan says she tried to initiate contact with the company to resolve the problem. But it was only the start of her customer service nightmare.

The app was showing her payment methods declined, so Ryan added yet another credit card to the family Uber account. Again, declined.

"(I told my son), 'just stay there and I'll call Uber' only to find out there's no calling Uber — there's not a single phone number that you can call," Ryan said. "So I went on to support and sent a message. I waited, waited, waited — in the meantime, my son's still stuck."

less In this 2009 file photo, author Joan Ryan hugs her son Ryan in the courtyard of their Marin County home. Ryan's son, who suffered a traumatic brain injury at the age of 16, and now at 26, he's unable to drive and heavily dependent on Uber to get to work, was unable to use the service for several days because on an accounting error. In this 2009 file photo, author Joan Ryan hugs her son Ryan in the courtyard of their Marin County home. Ryan's son, who suffered a traumatic brain injury at the age of 16, and now at 26, he's unable to ... more Photo: Lance Iversen, The Chronicle Photo: Lance Iversen, The Chronicle Image 1 of / 48 Caption Close Bay Area mom describes days-long Uber customer service nightmare 1 / 48 Back to Gallery

The only method of contact for Uber was through its app, which led to a number of emails back and forth — but no ride. In the email exchanges with Uber, which were provided to SFGATE by Ryan, a customer service representative wrote that phone services were not available to solve her problem.

The problems were unusual considering how often the family uses Uber. Ryan's son suffered a traumatic brain injury at the age of 16, and now at 26, he's unable to drive and heavily dependent on Uber to get to work, run errands and visit friends. By Ryan's estimation, her son uses Uber anywhere from four to six times a day; the ride-sharing business was considered a "godsend" to Ryan and her family since they started using it over a year and a half ago.

Two hours after the ordeal first began, Ryan's husband was able to pick up their son, but the account issues continued.

"The email replies were generic, it wasn't prompt, there was no sense of, 'Oh my gosh, let's figure this out,'" Ryan said. "Every place has live chat and they don't even have that. You have to actually email them, wait for someone to read it and then email you back."

Problems persist

Being stranded for a couple of hours wasn't the big deal, as it later turned out. The app continued to be a problem and the family was unable to summon rides for nearly five days.

Ryan's son was unable to consistently get to work or return home. Alternatives like Lyft and taxis didn't work as well in Marin, Ryan found out. A lack of Lyft drivers and no dependability from other services solidified the idea that Ryan needed to contact someone at Uber to get their account working again.

So rather than continue with what seemed like a fruitless email exchange, Ryan — a former San Francisco Chronicle columnist — drove to Uber headquarters on San Francisco's Market Street to get answers.

"I didn't know what else to do," Ryan said. "Email wasn't working and I just needed to talk to a person. I just felt like this is probably not a huge fix."

But rather than finding any customer service representatives, she was told the downtown offices only house the company's IT team. After explaining her situation to three different people and being told to go to the company's Daly City office, Ryan was desperate to get any response from an employee.

She wrote in big letters across her notebook, "DO YOU WORK FOR UBER?" as employees filed out of the building.

No one stopped to help, she said.

'I just kinda lost it'

Five days after her son was stranded in Fairfax — and after five days of not being able to hail an Uber for her son — Ryan went to the Daly City office. She checked in at the front counter to receive help, and after sitting down with an employee, it turned out the Daly City center was only for drivers.

"At that point, after five days of this and not having a number to call down there to save me that trip — and after everybody assured me that this was exactly where I was supposed to be — I just kinda lost it," Ryan said. "I said, 'I want to talk to a supervisor' and (the employee) could tell I was really frustrated. When I have all this anger and frustration, I start to shake. She could see that my eyes were starting to fill up with tears because I just was so frustrated."

After confronting another employee, Ryan finally found a sympathetic ear. An Uber employee asked Ryan for her phone and found that he was able to request a ride through her account. Someone within Uber had been able to fix the issue that morning, but hadn't alerted Ryan that the account was active.

A later email from Uber explained the issue was due to the family mistakenly having multiple family accounts. Selecting the wrong family account sent a "declined card" message, despite the issue not being a banking one.

Uber's response

Uber sent out a statement regarding the situation:

"Customer service is very important to us. There are a variety of ways we reach our riders, including phone support, and we're always looking at new ways and innovations to improve customer service."

Uber, it turns out, does have a telephone number. Its customer service is available 24 hours a day, and there are ways to reach a person over the phone. Requests for help must happen within either the in-app support or via Uber's website. From there a representative will direct users to phone support if it's deemed necessary, or users can ask to be called. The second option, unfortunately, did not work in Ryan's case.

"If there was a way to contact Uber, nobody on email enlightened me to that," Ryan said of Uber's customer service. "They never said, 'Oh, for this issue contact this specific department or call this specific number. They said, no, we don't have phone availability."

Despite this situation, Uber remains confident in its troubleshooting skills and customer service. Uber has continually sought to improve the in-app experience and its help center, reporting in March that customer satisfaction has "gone up by over 10 percent."

"High quality customer service is something we strive for every day, and we're disappointed this standard wasn't met in this situation," Uber further wrote SFGATE. "Feedback from customers help us improve the Uber experience for everyone, and we're grateful this rider chooses to use Uber today."

Ryan and her family still continue to use Uber, mostly due to a lack of options. The family has not had any further issues with the account.

"I used to feel like Uber was such a godsend, and now I just feel like, 'god, I wish there was an alternative,'" Ryan said two months later. "I'm just so resentful of the absolute dismissiveness as a customer who has spent thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars on Uber with my son. And I just feel like if there was any alternative, I would never ever take an Uber if I could help it."