Lyft Warned Me About My Low Rating. Guess What I Did Wrong.

the saga of a disquieting company interaction

The email read in large, bold letters, Please follow our guidelines.

Below that, it stated in normal font, On a recent ride, we heard that you received a low star rating. This isn’t your first warning to improve how you ride. If we continue receiving similar feedback from drivers, your account will be temporarily suspended.

Because I am apt to blame myself, I immediately began to mentally scan through the rides I’ve taken with this rideshare and came up with nothing. I tend to select the “Comfort Ride” option because it allows me to select the option for a Quiet Ride—often when I’m riding with Lyft, it’s because I’m not feeling well enough to walk however far I need to go, or I’m having an episode of mental distress that means I find it hard to hold a conversation. I also usually carry a visual signal of disability—a cane—so that drivers know why I’m being slow to reach them if they don’t park exactly where I am. But I don’t make a mess in cars; I don’t say anything rude or strange to the drivers; I don’t slam the door. I have no idea what I could have done to result in this email, which claimed that I not only recently received a low star rating, but that I’d received several (“this isn’t your first warning to improve how you ride”).

Genuinely flummoxed, I went and looked at my profile. My score is 4.9; I even have a Five-Star Badge. When I looked up the Guidelines that the email had directed me to, I saw that Lyft has three main guidelines for riders:

• Always choose kindness

• Put safety first

• Do your part

I did not find this helpful. What concerned me was that in addition to the screenshot I posted above, the email informed me that if I continued to receive low star ratings, my account could be suspended or canceled. For a disabled woman in a city with difficult public transportation, a rideshare is something that I value greatly and use frequently.

So I went to the Lyft website, found their Help option, and emailed them asking for more details about what I’d done so that I could alter my behavior. This is how they replied:

Essentially, this email reads, “You received a low rating because the driver gave you a low rating. If you receive more low ratings, your account might be suspended or permanently deactivated.”

Meanwhile, I was getting all kinds of information from friends and acquaintances on Instagram, where I was posting about this bizarre occurrence. Out of all the possible reasons they gave, including racism, masking, and my not being friendly or chatty enough, one particular reason upset me most: a low star rating means that you won’t be matched again with the driver who gave it to you. Therefore, drivers sometimes give low star ratings to people who take short rides so that they won’t have to drive them again.

Often, especially in New York, I do have to take a short ride. I might be unwell, or feeling so weak that I can’t make it three blocks. (I always find it funny when New Yorkers describe something as “a short walk,” when to me it might as well be a 5k run.) Is that why I was being punished with low scores? I continued to try to find out, replying to the above email by repeating that I could not change my behavior unless I was told what to do differently. This is the reply I received.

This email, while also sounding like it was created using AI (“it’s our highest priority to make your rides bend more easily to your will”), did let me know that they removed my low rating. However, all of my other low ratings still exist in my account. The newest low rating also seemed to have been deleted simply because I was pestering them, not because the reasoning behind it wasn’t sound.

I’d created so much hubbub on my Instagram account that the social department at Lyft reached out to me (in perfect English) and explained that drivers could give low ratings without explanation. This is what happened to me; therefore, they could not give me any more information than what they had, which was a series of low scores.

So, if anyone from Lyft is reading this, I implore you to do better. Your company is one that many people, including me, rely on. I am disabled and don’t have a driver’s license. To know that I can have my account deleted for inexplicable reasons is not reassuring, and my communications with your Help desk were subpar (to say the least). At the very least, make it a requirement that your drivers write a note along with a low star rating. Even this wouldn’t necessarily help people like me—a driver could say that I was singing Mariah Carey loudly when I was sitting quietly the entire time—but at least they’d have to take a beat to write it out. I’ve also heard from Lyft drivers who have left low star ratings for perfectly good reasons—the rider was hitting on them in an uncomfortable way, or they left garbage in the car. I’m not saying that the star ratings are pointless. I am saying that they can and might be used in unintentionally racist, sexist, or ableist ways. And that’s troubling.

I’ve been journaling every day this year. It feels like a necessity rather than a hobby or habit. It’s been wonderful to see how well Writing Through the Storm is doing in the hands of journalers around the world. If you’ve yet to grab yourself a copy, it’s $12 for a resource that can help you journal through difficult times—and in a year when difficult times seem to be everywhere we turn, you might find it useful. Click here to get yourself a copy.

Also: scholarship applications for The Unexpected Shape Writing Academy are currently being reviewed.

FOR PAYING SUBSCRIBERS: Our next Fireside Chat will be on Saturday, June 29, 10AM Pacific. This one will be about Tarot and creativity. You’ll receive a separate email with the Zoom link. And if you’re not a paying subscriber yet, become one and join us!