Uber goes deaf

<div>Uber has remarkable software, generally very well written and I admire them for that. However like many companies these days they carefully block all communications between customer and company. For a consumer-facing company this is bizarre. I booked a trip yesterday, Uber lost communication with their driver and messaged me saying "Sorry, this booking is not going to work, please try again" which I did, this time successfully. I was charged R25 as a cancellation fee when I did not cancel my trip. Much worse was discovering that Uber resolutely blocks and denies all communication with their customers. Every attempt leads to an FAQ list, and goes no further. Bad, bad customer relations.</div>