Ubers non-existent Helpline

On Saturday 23/03 my girlfriend Aleks flew to Zanzibar, with her family on an annual holiday. They took an Uber van from her mom's house in Fourways to O.R Tambo airport. The trip was taken at 1**** and they arrived at the airport at 16h30. Unfortunately, with the family being in the van, they were all a bit frantic to get off and my girlfriend accidentally left her cell phone in the Van. She only realized that she didn't have her phone only a few minutes after arriving at the airport and the van had since driven away. The Uber was ordered by her mom's partner Mike. So they quickly went on the help function of the Uber app. He followed the prompts and clicked lost item. However, after following all the prompts, Uber did not reach Mike or did the van driver call him back.

She was just about to board an international flight and would be offline for at least 4 hours. I decided to see if I could help. The Help section on the Uber app is an absolute nightmare. You can only get help on previous trips that the app holder has been on. There is no general helpline whatsoever and no way of being able to contact anyone at Uber through the app. Eventually, in my desperation, I eventually decided to Google the Uber helpline. Only to shockingly discover that the helpline that appears on Ubers website does not exist! The number has been disconnected. After about two hours of trying to find any help on the App and the desktop website only to realize that there is no way to contact a human being at Uber.

When Aleks eventually arrived in Zanzibar, Mike got a message from Uber saying that the driver had not found any phone. This was of course, several hours after the trip. Had there been a clearer, faster line to communicate with Uber, perhaps they could've retrieved the phone, but because they make it so difficult to get a hold of them. The phone is now long gone. Is there any recourse that she can get from Uber, I think it is shocking that a company of that size doesn't have any kind of emergency helpline