Waymo Drives Off with South Bay Man's Luggage

Cruise was legendary, awesome bunch of people. I remember finding out how you guys had an angel syndicate and speaking to a few guys, hope you all are onto bigger and better things

>keep things quiet, dismissing concerns, and making half assed restitution for problems

That is exactly the Tesla strategy, and it seems to work well for them. Though Waymo doesn't have a daily PR disaster to distract like Musk.

Waymo has been "scaling up".

In the earliest days the lost and found was 7 days a week with highly permissive hours for a manned desk at the depot.

Then one day it became weekdays-only, but with a still large window.

Then one day the window for pick up got broken up into a few smaller windows throughout the day.

Now with the larger Bay Area expansion they did switch to automated lockers, but if you're unfortunate enough in SF specifically, your belongings now end up in a locker an hour away from from the city...

It is also literally insanely hostile for Waymo to respond like this.

The parent company, Alphabet, is valued over four trillion dollars.

The proper response would have been: "oh, terribly sorry for the inconvenience, we'll immediately turn it around, wait there".

If that was somehow actually possible, the next response should have been: "Oh, sorry that is impossible because of [actual reason X], we are terribly sorry for the inconvenience, where are you going to be staying, we'll immediately pack and ship it all to you FedEx".

Instead, they do this petty crap.

I'm no lawyer, but as soon as someone takes off with my stuff, that sounds like theft. Sure, I willingly put it in the trunk, but it was on a contract that they would deliver me and my luggage to the destination. Refusing to allow me to retrieve it, then requiring me to come get it is just outrageous.

At the very least, instead of offering the rider two rides to come fetch his stuff that they drove off with, would be to deliver it to his home at a time convenient to him.

This tells me the company is run by a bunch of greedy losers. Not anyone with whom I might want to associate or do business.

Really disappointing

Any time I've loaded something into the trunk of a Waymo, it pre-emptively pops the trunk when I'm getting out _for_ me and reminds me to get my things from the trunk, so this is... surprising as a failure mode. Wondering if there was some issue with the latch/opening system, because it's definitely programmed to work the right way. (Or he tossed his stuff into the trunk from the main cabin, but... it's a pretty low hatch ceiling there.)

For what it’s worth, I always leave the door I exited out of open while removing luggage from the trunk. It’s just safer. Edit: from any uber or lyft

tbh, I do that with Uber/Lyft, too

What happens if one were to keep leaving doors open? I wonder if they would ban you or something.

That’s funny, I’ve actually used the same algorithm but with taxis in general, for having the same exact issue as the person in this article… but with real driver. (All of this assuming it’s safe to keep a door open!)

Why couldn’t they just stick the suitcase in a Waymo and send it to him?

That's like a free bus ride to Cleveland... if I wanted to go, I'd happily get myself there.

+1.

Brought up in a low-trust env and this became habitual.

If I steal your luggage, do you expect to be paid to get it or that I return to you?

Waymo should have white-gloved this and sent Larry Page himself to deliver the luggage. This is horrible PR. Airlines will send you their luggage if misplaced. One day Waymo will drive-off with your toddler and ask you to file for adoption if you want them back.

It'd be nicer if they sent someone with his luggage TO HIM rather than making HIM take his time to go on a tour to the depot, though.

Why can’t they just put back into a car in the back seat or whatever and send it off to him? Seems strange to make it so difficult when they surely have a vehicle sitting right there in their depot that could do the job as soon as the customer is back home.

I'm genuinely curious how you think it's acceptable for a company to make a mistake and the burden the customer with resolving it.

It's amazing for us to consider "massively wasting someone's time" as "complementary".

I value my time more than you appear to value your own.

How do we help you (and anyone else who thinks this is reasonable) to understand that it's absolutely not. Sure, it could be worse, but it also could be much better.

No, it doesn't. It used to be when the airline lost your bag they would get it to you no matter what. They own their mistake, and make it right to the best of their ability. In the most egregious case I can recall, delivering skis and poles 4hr+ from the airport into a remote mountain village ca. 2003. This is how you build trust in your brand--when you fuck up, you take ownership and make it right. You don't just shrug it off and throw a gift card on the floor like "take it or leave it idgaf".