BlaBlaCar: Carpooling and Bus Reviews

by Thomas_Canny

I downloaded BlaBlaCar while in France, but my phone’s settings are in English. Even so, BlaBlaCar insisted on French.
I’m back in the US, and traveling in Mexico frequently, but I’m still stuck using French and Euros. I know enough French to get around, but I’d much prefer English or Spanish. That you refuse to allow a language or currency change in BlaBlaCar shows that you fail to reconcile the diversity of your clientele.
Do better.

UPDATE: after a reply from the developer, advising me to change my region to the UK (I live in the US), I’d like to ask: Do the developers understand that this is an app for travelers, and thus it might be a nice feature to be able to customize options such as language and currency? Who wants to change the settings of their entire phone just to customize one single application?

I’m presently in Mexico, and would love to use the this app app to book a car. But when I use BlaBlaCar , my only options are French and Euros. So, I go to the website, change to Mexico and Pesos, and set up alerts for new trips. Then, I get emails about new trip in English, with Pounds as the currency?

Nobody wants to have to do all these unnecessary currency conversions, and nobody wants to struggle through a language they barely speak, unless the goal is to learn that language.

this app as a service is great, but there are a LOT of improvements that have to be made before BlaBlaCar can deserve 5 stars.

by Sir Bulletdancer

My driver canceled no me a few hours before my trip. Bla Bla makes the rider wait 7days for the driver to agree that they canceled. Feels like the driver has taken my money and I can’t do anything about it for a week. Not fair to the rider and let’s the driver scam riders traveling through on vacation since they will be long gone or out of country.
Also I did try to book another driver. They had until 1:59pm to confirm a 4pm trip, but he never did accept the ride resulting in BlaBlaCar not allowing me to accept a ride from a third driver. Finally I just got a bus because it was my only option left. Could have missed connection.
If you are traveling or not a local I would NEVER USE or TRUST BlaBlaCar!!!

by Jm19203

Downloaded this a few days ago to book a simple trip within Mexico. Driver never responds to messages and potential bookings. System keeps stating trip is already completed when it’s hours and hours later - though still shows updates with new riders. I learned quickly ai contacted the company as well - no one responds to email, twitter messages - there’s no phone support. You’re lost in their black hole. I can’t count on this company. Waste of time! Delete app now.

by Z$0mbor

Can’t change the language from Spanish to English even tho I have it set to English in the iPhone settings.
Also tried to reach the customer support on the website about how I’ve had two drivers not come through and they still are keeping my money for some reason, but after I wrote my message and had everything filled out it kept giving me the error that I need to enter a phone number; even though I clearly entered my phone number and tried to make it longer in every way humanly imaginable

by Ralphieralph97

First time I used it to go to Malaga. It took me several hours to purchase the ride because of an error of processing my card that has more than enough money on it. Later I tried to go to Valencia and I was never able to purchase a ride. It kept coming up with error messages. I used 4 different cards and even used one of my friend’s cards and it was the same. I deleted BlaBlaCar and tried to get it back and log in and it told me to try another way of logging in even though my password was correct. The idea of BlaBlaCar is great and the one time I used it was fine but there are many bugs on the daily

by Nai-De

The basic idea behind BlaBlaCar /system is great. There are operational issues, in that drivers don’t seem to face consequences for letting guests be stranded by canceling late or no-shows; but that’s not a matter for app review.

What is however a matter for app review, is that randomly the entire correspondence I had with a driver that did a no-show, and then canceled the ride an hour after he was supposed to meet me, disappeared, removing all evidence of the interaction between him and me (well, I sent both in-app messages and SMS, so the latter I still have, but BlaBlaCars has no access to those).

Similarly, for a great ride I had, I left a five star review. Now the review is not to be found in the “ratings given” section, AND I can no longer give a review to the driver: the driver got deprived of a good review, and I can’t fix it.

These kind of glitches, where communications and reviews simply disappear, as if they had never happened, are unacceptable.

by JSanchez!

I downloaded BlaBlaCar because it showed up on Google maps as an alternative to local mass transit options but also because Lyft doesn’t exist here in Florence, IT.

Anyhow, the interface is nice and for the most part intuitive to the user. The issue I have are that (1) it presents options that don’t really exist and ends up wasting bandwidth and time and (2) tends to have more server connectivity issues than expected. For example, I click on one option and i get a red banner that says it can’t find it. Or I get a message notification but when i click on the message icon i get a similar message.

If those issues get fixed, I can see this being a good app.

by Corskeez

BlaBlaCar will not let you switch languages and will not show you local rides if the language/region of your phone does not match the country you are in. I read a review from 3 years ago here saying the same thing. When I use incognito I can see multiple cars but when I sign in they all disappear because the language and region don’t match. And there’s no way to fix it. (You canned response of go to settings and select reason doesn’t work and will not suffice) FIX YOUR APP!

by Capou1987

Ordered a bus through an application which asks you to pay ahead and then you get notification that driver has no point of contact and didn’t arrive at all. Lost money and extra stress to get to the airport, just to get to the plane on time. Ridiculous product design that allows you to pay first and then no information about the upcoming trip on BlaBlaCar at all. Probably, need a new product management team that will think through the logic of transportation apps, some undergrad intro to computer science level of mistakes. Even the support team give you a fake number that you can add to your scum base if you have desire to.

by Cjreviewsit

I see people have complained about this for years. And for years, this is why I haven’t used it. You open it up and it’s stuck in whatever language the country you are in uses. Developers, here’s a tip: when a lot of people are complaining about something, you should probably fix it. Unless you don’t like making money. Every other app has language settings when you first start it. This isn’t rocket science. Oh, and before you comment: my language and region is US/English.
FIX. YOUR. APP.

Edit:
I know you’re aware of it. You have been for YEARS. Look how old some of the negative reviews talking about it are. Every time I consider trying your app, I see it’s still there. Are you in business or aren’t you? Do you want to make money or not? STOP BEING CHEAP AND LAZY AND FIX IT.

by Cats✌️

I would love to use BlaBlaCar, but unfortunately it seems impossible to change the language setting. I downloaded it while in Belgium and it will only use French. My French is seriously lacking so I don't feel comfortable using BlaBlaCar . I followed the developer's suggestion to another reviewer and checked that my phone settings are correct, but it makes no difference. I've tried deleting and reinstalling BlaBlaCar while here in the US, but, nope, still in French. Why is this simple issue not corrected by now? Other apps let you choose language and currency.

by Christian Timeless

It doesn’t allow you to change the language. I’m an American living in Ukraine, so to search for cars I’m forced to use Ukrainian which is impossible to understand every button, description, or guide. If I want to use English, it takes me to the UK, but I don’t need rides there.

Imagine Ukrainians going to France. Oops, no Ukrainian unless you know French—just guess what each thing means. Even Uber or Bond Taxi allows English in Ukraine, and the drivers know about this, why not Bla Bla Car? Is it really that backwards thinking or is it just laziness to allow the options for multiple languages within a country?

Unless you know someone who speaks the language of the country you’re in, BlaBlaCar is basically useless. That’s too bad because that’s a lot of lost profit for drivers and your company.

by Maat Talas

I think you guys should make BlaBlaCar able to save the messages and the informations for the driver and for the trip information
Because today I didn’t have internet reception and I was waiting for the woman in the place we agreed to meet at , and I tried to make sure that I’m in the right place but I couldn’t because I couldn’t see the messages in BlaBlaCar and I think it’s a problem if I need to see some information that might help me at the time .
You guys should think about it I think its very important to be able to use BlaBlaCar in the off line mode just to see some information like messages or just a phone number Or the time and the place of the meeting
Thanks

by Tribecaaa

I just got BlaBlaCar to be able to travel around Spain and it has some issues. It takes your money once you send in the request not until it’s confirmed. So guess who never got their ride confirmed but got their money taken away so then I requested another and no confirmation either. At that point I was running low on money it’s ridiculous. It says you’ll get your money back 1-5 days, why would they take my money before my ride is confirmed?!!!! So now I have to message drivers first to ensure they’ll accept before I request.

by Kathy In Salem

We are from USA but the only way to get BlaBlaCar in English is to say we are from the UK That means our ID doesn’t match up as it is not UK ID. There appears to be no way to change language once BlaBlaCar is set up. There is no tech support in BlaBlaCar We’ve been charged but have not yet heard from driver and don’t know when/where we meet and there is nowhere in BlaBlaCar to ask for assistance. Good idea and we r crossing fingers that driver will answer our numerous texts and phone calls.

by Soulktn

I hope you guys can give us the option to run BlaBlaCar on the language we choose, for exemple im a student i live in Ukraine and i use the Ukrainian version so i can see the whole list of drivers and i can't change the language in-BlaBlaCar to English so i can better understand how to run through BlaBlaCar smoothly otherwise everything is cool, i like the new design

by Zgypa

The company sometimes applies major workflow changes, for instance how payments are done. It would be nice if there would be notifications to the user to explain why there is a change and what actually changes. There is in fact some confusion amongst users as to how things work because of this.

Also, the Messages section has never been very stable ever since I have used it, which is about a couple of years. Notifications come through, but if the user has BlaBlaCar open on the Messages section, One needs to exit the Messages section and come back in in order to refresh it and see new messages.

by Launo

I was looking up routes to find the quickest way from Milan to Venice and found blah blah car it seemed very professional and easy to use however I was unable to use this service because I needed an SMS sent to my phone. I am not sure if BlaBlaCar coordinates with United States phone numbers so I was unable to use it. It seems like a very convenient way to get around but was bummed the SMS was unable to coordinate with non local residents. Any clarification would be greatly appreciated.

by Dave McA

As other reviewers have pointed out, BlaBlaCar sets the language according to the country chosen, making it effectively useless for many of us. I understand from developer responses to other reviews that they are working on this problem.

There’s a feature for ID verification; my verifications failed repeatedly but no information as to why, or what to do was forthcoming.

Following my initial posting of this review, the developer kindly contacted me to ask for further details. To me this indicates a good developer so I improved my rating. Furthermore, they are releasing new versions frequently.

by Wabbradford

Great concept-- a long distance Uber in many respects. Expect to get to know the other passengers, because y'all will be spending multiple hours in a small car together.

However! There needs to be differentiation between location and language. I'm an American visiting Spain at the moment. If I say I'm in Spain, BlaBlaCar turns to Spanish and has no option to change it. I have to pretend I'm in England, and read all prices in British Pounds, to use this service in Spain. Should be an easy fix that may happen by the time you read this review. Overall a great app.

by AriGoldFilms.com

I am an American traveler sitting with my friends in Ukraine and when I sign in, there are no rides on any common routes; when they sign in, there are tons of rides on the same routes and dates. They work in IT and we are all shocked that this international traveler app... isn’t international.

BlaBlaCar gives false negatives and won’t show rides in other languages. Now I know why I couldn’t find rides for the past seven weeks! Total disaster. You can only get rides in your home countries. Otherwise .. good luck. Such a shame.

We tested on multiple phones. Same results.

by Viga Vanja

BlaBlaCar is good but still a lot space to improve. As many travelers we relocate temporarily in new cities/countries. One thing BlaBlaCar could improve is the option to change the language independently from the OS system location, also the currency should be have an option to see it in a different one. Offline retrieve of messages of data.