BlaBlaCar Driver Complaint Over Unsafe and Distressing Ride
On September 11, I took a BlaBlaCar ride for the first time. I got into a blue BlaBlaCar vehicle to travel from Çeşme to İzmir. There were four people in the car in total, and it was extremely cramped. I felt like I could not breathe. As soon as I got in, I asked about the air conditioning, and the driver said it was working, but I could not feel any air coming from it. I told him that I could not breathe and felt like I was suffocating, and I asked him to open the windows, but he did not. I struggled significantly throughout the trip, and my anxiety was triggered, yet the driver did not make any effort to help me. At the end of the trip, he opened the windows when he wanted to smoke, which showed me that he could have opened them during the journey but chose not to. This situation was very upsetting for me.
The driver said things to me such as, “If you want, I can put you in a car with the windows open or take you back to where I picked you up.” His attitude affected me deeply, and I cried because I genuinely needed to make this trip and had promised my children that I would. At that point, I felt that I could no longer turn back, and the people I worked with would have asked why I had returned. Before the trip ended, I made the payment and sent the receipt by email. Despite this, the driver claimed, “I did not receive the payment,” and said that I had not paid. The information he sent me through WhatsApp showed the name Y**** D***, although I do not know whether that was his actual name. Despite the listing showing a price of 90, he requested a different amount from me.
The driver initially asked me for 350, then reduced it to 250, and eventually sent me his bank account information and asked me to transfer the money. I sent 200 to the account and wrote “A car that takes your breath away” in the payment description. He did not object at the time and accepted the 200. However, after I filed my complaint, he claimed, “That never happened. I did not receive any payment.” Even though I had sent the payment receipt as evidence, his response completely destroyed my trust.
After everything I experienced, I have very little confidence in BlaBlaCar. Today, I specifically chose to travel by bus because of this experience, as I no longer felt comfortable trusting anyone through the platform. I did not start any arguments or behave disrespectfully toward anyone during the ride. After I got out of the car, the driver and the others started speaking German among themselves, so I simply told everyone in English that people should treat each other with respect and then left. It was nighttime, and we were on a dark, wooded road. Even if I had genuinely wanted to get out earlier, I felt that I would not have been able to do so, which made my anxiety even worse.
I am not asking for anything from this driver. I simply want BlaBlaCar not to protect or overlook this person's behavior and to take appropriate action regarding his account. I never want to travel with this driver again. I also believe passengers should have much clearer information about what a driver is like before getting into a vehicle with them. I have previously experienced situations on this platform where some drivers gave different information about the price, later canceled the ride, or failed to keep their promises. Unfortunately, there can be people on this platform whose behavior makes passengers feel psychologically uncomfortable or unsafe. Because of everything I experienced, I feel both financially and emotionally unsafe and deeply inconvenienced.