What to Do When You Can’t End a Lyft Ride

This is the most upset and frustrated that I have ever been while driving for Lyft. Check out the screenshot in the video of the ride in question. You can see the pickup and drop off times as well as the locations that I drove to and I wasn’t able to end this ride for nearly two hours.

The driver app initially started to have issues when we were in route to the passenger’s destination. It started freezing, the GPS wasn’t working, and this has happened before. And typically what I would do was just close out the driver app and restart it and that would fix the issue or sometimes I’d have to restart my phone and that would work. Well, it did not work this time.

Check out the video below to see what I did to end the ride. Transcript of the video is below.

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My Lyft Ride Wouldn’t End!

So, when we arrived at the passenger’s destination, I tried ending the ride and the driver app would not allow me to. It just kept spitting me back to the same screen.

I let the passenger know. I said, “The driver app is not allowing me to end the ride,” but I assured them, I said, “I’ll make sure to contact Lyft and let them know that you should not be overcharged for time.”

I then sat by the passenger’s destination for 25 minutes trying to end the ride. It just kept spitting me back. I tried all the necessary things again too. I tried closing out the app, restarting my phone. I tried deleting the app and reinstalling it. I even tried canceling the ride. None of these things worked. It would not allow me to end the ride.

I stayed in communication with the passenger via text. Just letting them know, “I’m still trying to end the ride.” They ended up replying to one of my texts saying that the ride actually ended on their end, so that gave me some comfort letting me know that they were not going to be overcharged for the ride. It seemed like everything was working on their end.

More Steps I Took to Fix This Issue

I then tried logging into my driver dashboard to contact Lyft and I wasn’t even able to do that. At this point, the alarm bells probably should have started ringing in my head that this might be a system wide issue and not just exclusive to me, but next I did go to Twitter and I sent them a support inquiry to see if I could get a response there.

I then drove about a block away. I sat nearby and kept trying to end the ride. I sat there for literally an hour trying to end the ride. I wasn’t able to, I was so upset. I was getting really frustrated. And the thing was the ride was open so I felt like if I keep driving, that’s mileage that’s going to be tacked onto that trip. If I drove away, I’m still going to be tacking mileage onto that trip.

Granted, I could’ve just said, “Who cares? It is what it is,” and maybe logged into Uber, but I drive exclusively for Lyft because of the bonuses, because of the weekly ride challenge bonus. So, I want to complete trips for them. I don’t want to give rides for Uber, so not being able to drive for Lyft was extremely frustrating.

But luckily this happened at the end of my driving day. I was planning on still giving a couple more rides, but that was out of the cards, so it was frustrating, but it wasn’t that big of a deal. If this would have happened in the middle of the day, I would have been extremely frustrated even more. But I basically, I just, after that hour I gave up and I said, “All right, screw it. I’m going home.”

I Realized This Was a System-Wide Issue

I drove home with the trip still open. And as I was driving home I would occasionally try to end the ride or close out the app and it still wasn’t working. Finally, when I got home the first thing I did was check Twitter to see if they responded to my support inquiry and that’s where I started to realize that they were probably being bombarded because this was a system wide issue.

One of my main frustrations was that I thought the issue was specific to me and my driver app. What I should have done, and will do in the future, is check Twitter or local Facebook groups right away and see if anyone else is having the issue. But I didn’t realize this until I got all the way home. But yeah, it was a system wide issue. Here’s a screenshot of the email that Lyft sent out about the issue.

It Took an Hour and 45 Minutes to End the Ride!

Eventually about an hour and 45 minutes later I was actually able to finally end the ride. I contacted Lyft again to make sure that the passenger was not overcharged. I did get a response from them saying that the passenger was charged the correct amount and that they would not be overcharged. And here’s a screenshot. When I looked at the earnings breakdown, I was able to confirm that this is what the passenger paid and this is what I got paid. I got paid well above what the passenger paid.

So, I received a lot for that ride. I received an overage of nearly $15, but I had contacted Lyft via Twitter and I had also contacted them via the support website just to ensure that the passenger wasn’t overcharged. This was before I even decided to check the ride receipt to see the earnings breakdown, which is what I should have done in the first place.

But since I contacted them a couple of times, the first response was basically saying, your passenger wasn’t overcharged, don’t worry about it. They didn’t even talk about me being me earning more. The second time via the support website, they basically said, “Oh, we’ll adjust this.”

So, the first initial contact, I think they were willing to just eat that and and give it to me based on the frustration and the issues that I experienced. But then because I contacted them again, they decided, “Well, we can correct it now.”

I Earned a Little Extra For My Troubles

In the future before contacting Lyft, I will check that earnings breakdown to see what the passenger was charged, what I earned. I basically feel like I did earn that overage … the frustration that I experienced, it was nearly two hours. I wasn’t able to end my ride. I deserved some compensation for that. I wasn’t able to give trips. So, I think Lyft was willing to do that. Because I had contacted. them a couple times, that’s why they adjusted the fare.

What to do When You’re Facing a Bizarre Issue: Check Twitter

But again, in the future I will immediately check Twitter, local Facebook groups to see if it’s a system wide issue. But this was just an extremely frustrating situation. I bet you can imagine some of the words that I was saying about Lyft while this was happening. I mean, I sat nearby for nearly an hour. I drove home. I was not able to end the ride for nearly two hours. Just an extremely frustrating situation and I drive for Lyft exclusively because of the the weekly bonuses, but I also have Uber as a backup.

For those of you that do drive that don’t go for those bonuses, it’s good to have Uber as a backup in case and vice versa. Good to have Lyft as a backup in case either or ever experiences, issues like this you can log out of one and log in to the other.

Has this ever happened to you? Have you ever been on the road when the app has crashed or there was a system wide issue? What did you do? Were you cursing out the app like I was? Leave a comment below and let us know. Thanks again for watching!

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