Oluwatobi Afolabi took an inDrive journey round Lagos in March 2025. The journey was tense. Her driver ignored instructions, grumbled all through, and dropped her off late. She gave him a two-star ranking and moved on. The threats started a couple of hours later.
The driving force had seen her evaluation, tracked her quantity, and shared it with different drivers, accusing her of working with authorities process forces. Quickly, a deluge of calls and messages poured in, a lot of them abusive and threatening. Afolabi contacted inDrive.
Their response? “Block the numbers,” and a imprecise affirmation that the driving force’s account had been restricted. She was not knowledgeable if the corporate opened an investigation nor given any assurances he’d been faraway from the app. There was no follow-up both, not even after she reached out to the corporate’s nation supervisor on LinkedIn.
For Afolabi, and loads of customers, this episode raised a regarding query: what do ride-hailing firms do with our complaints?
Throughout Nigerian cities, ride-hailing companies have grow to be embedded in every day life, a lot in order that the native market is anticipated to generate income of $303.1 million in 2025, with an annual development price of 11.9%. Because the business expands, so do questions concerning the methods in place when rides go fallacious. Customers of those ride-hailing platforms like Uber, Bolt, and inDrive, go in with an assumption that if something goes fallacious, there’s a system in place to offer help. The apps promise security measures by way of help channels and in-app security options, like journey monitoring and emergency buttons.
But, when one thing does go fallacious, customers typically describe the decision course of as patchy, opaque, or non-existent.
Ifeanyi Anah’s most up-to-date inDrive journey in Lagos led to chaos. The driving force, upset over a fare dispute, raised his hand at her pal throughout an argument. When she filed a criticism by way of the app, she described their response as “the same old robotic: we’ll look into it.” The chat ended quickly after. “In the event you go away the app for a couple of seconds they shut the dialog as a result of you haven’t answered on time,” she recalled.
In early 2025, in Ibadan, Esther* was verbally assaulted by an inDrive driver over the fare and ordered out of the automotive. She submitted a criticism inside 24 hours, anticipating to listen to again. She by no means did.
After finishing over 700 rides in a 12 months with Uber, Lagos-based driver Chijioke Ephraim says he was repeatedly blocked from taking journeys with out an evidence. He despatched a number of complaints which weren’t responded to. “Even when I name [them], nothing will occur.” He needed to go away the app altogether.
Behind a ride-hailing criticism button
Conversations with Bolt and inDrive reveal that every platform has its inner course of designed to evaluation and escalate such studies, however the course of begins in the identical manner.
Each firms state that their criticism system is constructed to reply rapidly and totally, relying on the severity of the difficulty. They declare the method is extra intensive for high-risk complaints, that are flagged to specialised security brokers. In lots of circumstances, the reported get together, normally the driving force, is briefly suspended from accepting journeys. On the similar time, the staff investigates, together with reaching out to each events for statements, reviewing journey knowledge, location historical past, and assessing prior studies.
“We attempt to interact each events after which resolve the difficulty,” a supply, acquainted with operational procedures, mentioned. The corporate admits, nonetheless, that there are situations the place severe circumstances have been mishandled internally, significantly when such circumstances are assigned to non-safety brokers. Bolt maintains that it evaluations course of gaps and affords follow-up calls, apologies, or insurance-backed reimbursements, significantly the place customers expertise losses.
inDrive claims that customers are stored up to date all through the investigation and that every case is handled with urgency. “We give the best precedence to complaints involving security,” Lineo Thakhisi, PR Supervisor for inDrive Africa, mentioned. Each firms preserve that customers can report incidents by way of in-app instruments, electronic mail, or by visiting their workplaces, and that specialised groups deal with probably the most severe circumstances.
Our supply recounts a selected security-related criticism that Bolt needed to take motion. In Lagos, drivers complained of a harmful neighbourhood. Bolt escalated it to the police. The corporate additionally ensured drivers have been notified in-app that rides ordered from that space must be ignored due to the insecurity.
Even with these methods in place, the outcomes of those processes are hardly ever seen to customers. And for them, this typically interprets to silence.
The place the system breaks
Customers’ experiences shared throughout ride-hailing platforms level to a sample, one among systemic gaps and failures. inDrive claims that 99.99% of its journeys in Africa are accomplished with none incident. However on the scale it now operates throughout main Nigerian cities and with over 200 million international downloads, that 0.01% can rapidly add as much as 1000’s of unresolved or mishandled complaints.
With an estimated 47 million customers throughout Africa, Bolt serves a big consumer base. But, for its Nigerian market, the corporate says it has a buyer help staff of 60-80 folks dealing with complaints—a quantity that raises questions concerning the firm’s decision capability, particularly when security is at stake. This can be why some customers imagine that ride-hailing firms typically choose and select the complaints to behave on or take significantly.
Chris Adeleke, who drives for Bolt, Uber, and inDrive claims that though there are alternatives to make studies, solely severe complaints are responded to. “If the criticism will not be severe, they overlook it,” he states.
Ifeoluwa says she reported a stolen laptop computer and clothes to Uber in 2023. The corporate advised her nothing might be carried out with no police report, citing that there was not sufficient proof that the driving force stole the objects. “They ignored me. They didn’t attain out in any respect. They didn’t even examine the difficulty,” she mentioned.
Person experiences mirror a broader concern that clients typically really feel their studies are ignored or not taken significantly, like they’re being unnoticed of the loop in their very own complaints. Even when help does reply, customers describe the replies as chilly or robotic, believing that their complaints have been being dealt with by automated methods moderately than actual folks. “It felt dismissive,” Esther mentioned concerning the response to her criticism and wished there was a extra “empathetic, human response.”
When the system fails, customers adapt
Out of distrust, customers (riders and drivers) have begun to create their very own security nets. For riders, this may imply sharing plate numbers with mates earlier than happening a visit. Drivers, too, are taking precaution. Adeleke now calls riders earlier than pickup to gauge their tone. To keep away from issues that escalate to creating studies, he says that when he will get a touch of aggression, he cancels the journey “as a result of I do know there’s going to be an issue on the best way.”
Some customers have walked away completely. Afolabi deleted her inDrive account after her doxxing episode with drivers on the app. “I haven’t used inDrive since then. Even when I’ve to trek, I’m by no means going to make use of it once more,” she mentioned. Former Uber driver Chijioke, who says he was blocked with out clarification, additionally gave up. “I’ve not gone again to Uber once more. I’ve the platform, however I don’t wish to do their enterprise.”
Many flip to social media as a final resort, like Afolabi, who took to X (previously Twitter) to share her story. Or Ifeoluwa, who tweeted about her stolen objects after listening to nothing from Uber, solely to be met with silence once more. “That was how the case ended. They [swept] it beneath the desk.”
These aren’t options. Moderately, they’re improvisations, self-protection in a system that they are saying typically leaves them hanging, even after promising security.
Journey-hailing firms say they supply reporting instruments, help groups, and security protocols to guard their customers. However for riders like Afolabi, and drivers like Chijioke, these methods really feel distant or non-existent. When the hole between criticism and consequence feels too huge, the result’s fragile belief—one which begins to erode quietly, after which suddenly.
The apps insist they’re listening. The customers aren’t so certain.
*Names have been modified
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