WHAT THE HAIL?
Lyft driver made me miss my train
Dear John: I used a ride-hailing service, Lyft, for what should have been a 12-minute trip from myDCoffice to Union Station. I was traveling via Amtrak to New York City.
The inexperienced driver got lost and I missed my train.
WhenI told the driver I would not pay $40 for the outrageous hour-long drive around the Beltway due to the bad GPS that caused me to miss my train, the foreign man became angry and threatened me.
I called the police and filed a report. I also filed a complaint with Lyft, and it said, “Sorry.”
Please tell me how you would handle this. J.P.
Dear J.P.: This is how you should handle it — by publicizing your dissatisfaction with Lyft. Cabbies in DC now love you. Lyft did refund your fee for the “tour.” But it refused to reimburse you for the $488 Amtrak ticket you wasted, something you asked for and I suggested that the company do. You took a much later, faster and more expensive train and did make your New York appointment, which was a memorial service at the Whitney.
While this doesn’t put any money back in your pocket, Lyft is probably going to get more than $488 worth of bad publicity out of this.
But your first letter to me really doesn’t capture your full Lyft experience. So here’s some more of what you wrote to me in a follow-up letter:
After the driver cursed you, you added, “I called the DC police and the US Capitol Police also arrived.”
Then came the hospital. “I was very weak and the police insisted on calling the ambulance to take me to the George Washington University Hospital ER,” you said.
By afternoon, you were well enough to catch the 2 p.m. Acela train to New York. This time you took a regular cab.
Why were you determined to make it to New York? Because, you explained, the Whitney was giving out the Lillian Gish Arts Prize and silent-screen actress “Lillian, a longtime resident of Sutton Place, was a dear family friend.”
“It was a long and difficult day,” you added.
Amen to that.
Dear John: I hope you can help expose this company so it can’t harass and upset other innocent people. G.I.
Dear G.I.: Thanks for making me write out all the information. But since this company hung up on me when I called, I’ll make the effort.
What you sent me was a hokey letter you received from a company call Credit Services, One World Trade Center, Suite 84G, New York.
As the name implies, this company is offering to help you lower your debt payments. But when you call the number, it won’t offer any explanation. And it also said, “We don’t harass people. We just sent out notices.” Click. It says you have $15,000 in debt, which Credit Services is offering to cut in half, at $208 a month. But that’s not really what this company is offering.
The fine print in this letter says “monthly payments are for illustration purposes only and an estimate of the monthly program payment and balance amount is also an illustration solely to demonstrate a typical debt situation.”
Then there’s a bunch of legal nonsense that essentially further insulates the company from po- tential fraud charges.
Bottom line: Anyone who received this note should ignore it. I can’t find any company named Credit Services at One World Trade Center. And the phone numbers simply gets you an operator who knows nothing.
In case you want to have some fun, give Credit Services a call at (877) 503-3734 and keep it on the phone as long as possible.