Alexandra Craigle is a cancer patient undergoing radiation treatment at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York. She ordered an Uber to take her home after getting blasted by the linear accelerator, which as I can attest from personal experience can be traumatic, and exhausting to every single cell in your body like no other experience you will ever have in life. I cried every time, and still experience PTSD from it.
Alexandra had to cancel her Uber order request one minute after initiating it, and says the shitbag driver she canceled became abusive by text and phone voicemail in the most horrifying way imaginable.
Below, Alexandra explains what happens in her own words. I used Uber regularly during treatment and never experienced driver abuse, but it happens, and this is the worst example I've heard of in some time. How nice of Uber to have offered her a $30 ride credit in return. How very nice.
UPDATE: A spokesperson for the ride service company replies to Boing Boing:
Uber has a zero tolerance policy for abusive or threatening language on our platform, and as we have done in this instance, we immediately deactivate any driver found in violation of that policy. While the vast majority of Uber driver partners provide five-star trips with each ride, when a driver fails to meet the level of service and courtesy Uber riders know and love, we take action immediately.
@xeni loved it for that for last 2 yrs. Last wk req ride from MSKCC and canceled 1 min later, got following txt & vm pic.twitter.com/aHHneMxE3R
— Alexandra Craigle (@alexcraigle) November 18, 2014
@alexcraigle what?!?!?! This happened?!?! I used uber for cancer treatment appointments also.
— Xeni Jardin (@xeni) November 18, 2014
Wow, @Uber_NYC is getting the meanest of mean emails. Left something up at 1st day of RADIATION, had to cancel ride within 1 min of req…
— Alexandra Craigle (@alexcraigle) November 10, 2014
.@Uber_NYC driver calls 3x, leave threatening vmail, tell me I'm lying about cancer treatment, that I deserve it for what "an animal I am"
— Alexandra Craigle (@alexcraigle) November 11, 2014
@andrewsalzberg @Uber_NYC already submitted a note and screenshots to your website. driver's info is in screenshots.
— Alexandra Craigle (@alexcraigle) November 11, 2014
@xeni when driver texts me saying I deserved my cancer after canceling a trip 1 minute after radiation… I drew the line.
— Alexandra Craigle (@alexcraigle) November 18, 2014
@florianseroussi @TheBreastLife @xeni @Uber For what its worth, they did contact me that night w $30 credit. Obviously have not used.
— Alexandra Craigle (@alexcraigle) November 18, 2014