Andrew Peters couldn’t have imagined how much time he would be spending with his Uber driver when he was picked up from Dulles International Airport in Virginia Monday. Or that he would soon be hit with a $600 bill for the trip.
Fortunately, Uber has since agreed to refund Peters.
This unlikely saga began as Peters returned to Virginia from San Francisco, Calif. For some perspective on his $600 trip from Dulles to his home in Richmond, Va., we should note that most plane rides from San Francisco to Dulles on Kayak this Thursday were around $623. Some were cheaper.
However, Peters – and his Uber driver – didn’t realize they were driving into headline-making chaos on the I-95.
“I was coming in from San Francisco and didn’t really realize what was going on here,” Peters told WTOP, explaining that he hopped in an Uber bound for Richmond after landing at Dulles International Airport.
Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam explained that, before a winter storm hit the area, rainfall washed away chemical and salt that would typically would have prevented snow to accumulate on the roadway, said WTOP.
“First, we had rain, which meant that we couldn’t adequately pretreat the roads. Then we had slushy snow that fell a lot faster than our snow plows could move it,” Northam said. “And then, as night fell, the temperatures dropped below freezing. All those together created the perfect storm for what happened on I-95.”
Thousands of commuters were trapped on the roadway, which was blocked for more than a day, and there were multiple crashes. Sen. Tim Kaine, a Virginia Democrat, was one of those stuck in the jam in the Stafford County area. The road fully reopened Tuesday night.
“It was kind of scary,” Peters said of the ordeal. “We didn’t have any food or water.”
It can take around two and a half hours drive from Dulles to Richmond. Due to the blockage, it took nine hours for the Uber driver to get Peters home. As he exited the vehicle, Peters believed he was paying a $200 bill, with a tip.
Eventually, he realized that Uber added on another $400 in charges.
According to Uber, “heavy traffic may cause your trip to take longer than expected and to compensate your driver for the additional time, your fare may change.”
Peters said his Uber driver was amazing and that he was fine paying the base fee and the tip. However, he was frustrated with how hard it was to contact somebody about the extra fees. So, he disputed the charge.
“I’ll probably be banned from Uber but, you know, whatever,” Peters said earlier this week.
By the end of the day Wednesday, Uber had reached out to Peters to apologize.
“They were sorry to hear that I had…so many problems with the app, and with the override, and with the highway and that they would love to issue me a full refund,” he said. As of Wednesday, $200 had already been credited to his account.
Uber spokeswoman Michelle Blackwell said that Uber has refunded Peters $600 “after this terrible ordeal and are so glad that he and his Uber driver got home safely.”
Uber said the driver will get paid, including a tip.
While Peters feels better about the situation with the refund, he is still concerned about how hard it was to contact Uber.
“There’s like an interface on the app that you can get trip help or provide driver feedback. And when I was pressing those buttons, there was an option for ‘Why did my fare change?’ And, you know, it’s traffic or construction. And if you press the button on there, it says, ‘There’s nothing we can do for that.’ … You kind of have to pay it based on how long your trip was. So that was a little frustrating. And because, you know, it isn’t a person that’s just (the) app saying those types of things, so I wasn’t able to get anybody on the phone,” Peters said.
“We appreciate Mr. Peters’ patience with us. The process started after he initiated the refund request and he should be able to see the full refund now,” Blackwell said.
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