No ride, but charged for it...

Here's a little story on a frustrating story on an unwilling helpdesk that shows no compassion.

Say that you're in for a banana.

You walk to the grocery store ask the shopowner "Can I have a banana please?".

The shop owner takes one, shows it to you and says: "This one? It's about $1,-"

You think that's a reasonable price and say "Yes please, I will take that banana".

The shopowner "puts the banana away under the counter, ignores you and start helping a differnt customer".

You think "ow....okay.... weird, but you know what... I go to the grocery next to this one"

You walk into the next grocery shop and ask "Can I have a banana please?"

The shopowner takes one, shows it to you and says: "This one? It's about $1,-"

You think that's a reasonable price and say "Yes please, I will take that banana"

He hands over the banana, you pay and the deal is done. You're the proud owner of a nice banana

You walk outside and there is the first grocery shop owner waiting for you and says "I charged you $0,40 from your credit card for the banana".

You reply with "But I didn't get your banana, you wouldn't sell it to me".

His reply is "Yes, but you looked at it, now you pay for it".

Does this sound strange to you? This is basically what happened to us in Porto, Portugal. We arranged an Uber and the pickup was in front of the hotel. The driver messages me "street closed, I can't get to you" Within a second I reply "we come to you" The good thing on Uber is that you can see where your driver is. For us it's less 200 meters. We arrive at his location aaaaand our Uber is gone. In the app I see he's 2 streets away. At first we think he has to make a turn or something, but he drives away from us further and further. Funny enough: according to the app "we are in the car". Then the our ride ends in the app (I assume the driver stopped it).

Being in a hurry we arrange another Uber and everything goes as plan. PickUp according on time. Helping with the suitcases, drive is smooth and drop off as planned. 5star rating.

Then I see that we are charged for the ride that we didn't make. So we contact the helpdesk and guess what.... we don't get our money back. They can see we are pickuped from the same location, so they know we were not on the first ride. So you get the marketing tool treatment 'kill them with kindness':

'Sorry you're not happy. We looked at it, but can't do anything for you. You pay for the ride, that you didn't take'. No matter what you say or explain, the same sh*tty reaction and after a few messages they turn in silence and don't respond. It's not about the €4,57, it's about the principle and to me it feels as steeling.