Ride-hailing platforms to work for improved consumer services

Guwahati: For improved grievance redressal, the Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food, and Public Distribution have mandated that all ride-hailing platforms become convergence partners in the National Consumer Helpline.

The Department of Customer Affairs has urged all ride-hailing businesses to become convergence partners in the National Consumer Helpline in order to improve consumer grievance redressal and ensure compliance with the Consumer Protection Act, 2019 and E-commerce Rules, 2020.

The directive was issued during a meeting with key online ride-hailing platforms headed by Secretary DoCA, Rohit Kumar Singh, to tackle critical concerns affecting consumers in this sector.

Furthermore, all online ride-hailing services were instructed to respond to passengers' concerns as soon as possible and to take corrective action to provide proper consumer rights protection. The meeting was attended by major ride-hailing platforms such as Ola, Uber, Rapido, Meru Cabs, and Jugnoo.

Ms. Nidhi Khare, Additional Secretary, Mr. Anupam Mishra, Joint Secretary, and Mr. Vineet Mathur, Joint Secretary, also attended the meeting.

Ms. Nidhi Khare, Additional Secretary, emphasized the fundamental challenges customers face while using these platforms to get services. During the discussion, the National Consumer Helpline (NCH) emphasised the major types of consumer issues. According to NCH statistics, service deficiencies accounted for 56% of total complaints from January 1, 2021, to January 1, 2022.

The following were the key issues raised during the meeting:

• Deficiency in service
• Lack of proper response from customer support
• Pre-ticked boxes, including add-on services such as insurance with the ride charges, without obtaining consent by explicit and affirmative action.
• Driver refuses to take payment by online mode and insists for cash only.
• A higher amount was charged despite going on the same route previously at a lesser charge
• Unprofessional driver behaviour
• Driver refusing to switch on AC when the consumer is promised AC ride on the app.
• Inaccessible customer support
• No customer care number is provided on the platform.
• No details of the grievance officer is mentioned on the platform to which consumers can address their grievance.
• Automated pre-written support message is given to consumers without redressing the grievance.

Unreasonable levy of cancellation charges

1. The user is not shown the amount of time within which canceling a ride is permitted.
2. Cancellation Charges are variable and inconsistent.
3. The amount of cancellation charge is not displayed prominently on the platform before booking the ride.
4. Drivers are not willing to take the ride and force users to cancel the ride, which entails undue cancellation charges to be borne by the consumer.

Fairness of the algorithms that calculate the charges for the user

If it is learned that in case someone is using the OTA services consistently for going from point A to point B, the charges for him may be higher than somebody who is using it between the same two locations for the first time.

Users are not shown the algorithm or method used by the company to charge different fares for the same route from two individuals.
Due to this, users are forced to take rides at arbitrary fares, which are much higher than what is charged ordinarily for the same route.

It may be mentioned that grievances registered on NCH are at a nascent stage as not all consumers register their grievances on NCH.

Throughout the conversations, the firms claimed to have a strong procedure for resolving client complaints. They did, however, ensure that any concerns mentioned during the meeting will be taken into account. They added that the cancellation charges are imposed to compensate the drivers for their efforts in executing the request.