Ola: Book Cab, Auto, Bike Taxi Reviews

by Taylorunger74

Don’t bother with Ola, just book an Uber. I ordered an this app only to see him drive past me and keep driving 15 minutes to the next suburb where he made a 5 minute stop and then drove back to come get me. I tried calling him and asking him to cancel as I did not want to pay the cancellation fee while he ran his little “errand”. He did not respond so I waited and arrived at my destination almost an hour past when I wanted to be there. Whenever I get charged at the end, it always more than the original fare (ends up being more than the Uber rate as well). I’ve had so many drivers cancel. It’s just a very unprofessional service that must not teach its drivers to do their own things on their own times and not while they are working.

Another driver was parked for 10 minutes before he started driving to my location and when I called him, he had his voicemail set up as “hello? Hello?.....hello? I cannot hear you right now”. How dodgey is that?

I’m reading past reviews and a lot are saying what bad service they have and how it’s not worth your time but they are still giving them a 5 star rating? Seems fishy to me but either way book an Uber.

by Sunil Talukdar

The worst cab service i have used. Uber is 10x better. They do not show a different amount when u start the trip and charge with additional amount which is almost twice of the actual displayed charge even at non rush hours with minimum traffic. This is not the first time but this time you guys crossed all
Limits when you charged me 300 more then the display estimate price at the beginning of the trip. The discount offers were just a scam i will say with no serious benefits for the customer. Your customer care says i was charged correctly but its silly that you guys charge so high amount even when traffic is minimum and no route change. And its obvious that you guys will not take any action or help as loosing one customer means nothing to you

by PankajB1955

For one ride I was charged twice via this app Money and cash as well. I booked ride for my parents. It was charged through this app money and driver also took cash payment from my parents.
Another bad experience with other ride. Cab was not ready for the ride. Driver took a break for gas which delayed our ride by 15 minutes. Driver refused to turn AC ON during ride. He was not ready to accommodate my family of 5 and a bag in big SUV.
Driver was not even wearing seat belt. A traffic police stopped our car. Driver took extra Rs 50 from us to get rid from traffic police. I don’t understand why should I pay for something which is caused due to driver not following traffic rules. Very bad experience overall.

by Juvsalii

I changed my location while i was in the cab the location was a nearby location than the destination.
First it showed me Rs139 when i booked a cab and then when i changed my location, the fair was updated and showed that it will be charged Rs 147,As the new destination was near the a same local area.
But when I finished my ride it costed more than expected it showed Rs 468 just for going in the same city in near by destination this is ridiculous and very unprofessional of this app.
I tried for looking customer care number but no customer care number is present in Ola also tried ways of contacting this app customer service in app but still no solution and answer I want my refund back!!!!

by AtascaderoTehachapi

This is my first App review! I am writing one because I am so frustrated with the this app app. I live in the US, I am visiting India. I decided to install Ola as a back up to Uber. I recently bought an iPhone X. Ola asked me for my phone number which I entered. There is no place to enter Login and password!! The next screen is OTP. I received and entered the OTP no problem. The next screen is full name and email. I get an error message stating the email is already in use. I may have used Ola when I was in India 5 years ago! But there is no login option. Each OTP message costs 35 cents on the international at&t plan. After multiple tries by multiple people - none of us can figure out how to make the login option appear! Looks like a bug in the software. this app app such a waste of time...

by WBK NY

I have had several terrible experiences with the technological insufficiency of Ola and associated employees of the company, but it reached a true impetus today when Ola did not end my trip well after I was dropped off. The driver, who I contacted, was also unable to end the trip and sadly unable to pick up further customers. Upon reaching out to customer service several times to no avail, I was being charged hundreds of dollars per hour and left helpless with no tangible solution.

Six hours into my desperation I was answered with a generic response blaming the driver of all people and no apology. Suffice it to say, I will never use Ola again and do not feel comfortable even knowing that they have had my financial information at any point.

by Dkmay2004

I made a day outstation trip to Pondicherry in which the driver was driving erratically, over speed limit and frequently going a bit too far to the wrong side of the road. We felt like we are going to hit the incoming traffic on a divided highway and were sitting scared. As expected, we hit an oncoming bus and only alive and writing this due to God’s Grace. The driver dumped us in the middle of nowhere and fled. We took the help of locals to find another ride. And to our surprise we found the driver waiting near our hotel demanding his cash due. Talking to this app, I was even surprised that they justified the speed and driving on the wrong side. They said there will be an investigation but so far no follow ups ! Thanking God again for the fact that we were saved. Based on the driving and response time of the driver we suspect he was not sober.

by DeeG_19

Recently I travelled to India and thought of trying this app instead of Uber as many suggested that you have more options in this app.

So booked the trip from MUMBAI to Shirdi for full size SUV. Got text with driver details and PIn.

Driver called me and somehow while calling he cancelled the trip. He pretended that some app issue caused it and then suggested that he can still take me directly and I can pay him the same fare which was quoted by this app.

Understood the trick of the cab driver to save on Ol commission. For safety reason I refused the offer.

Now what this app applies 150 INR as cancellation fee and when I try to contest it through support, app just displays the last ride and doesn’t give me any option to contest this fee ( compared to Uber which keeps it simple)

After that I tried again to book this app for a long trip from Banglore to Mysuru but this app app returned error because ask for previous 150 INR to be paid and didn’t give any option to contest or pay this amount.

So through my trip, I booked over 20 long trips using Uber which was seamless. This was all loss to this app because of poor app interface and some sort of collusion with drivers to pay them cancellation fee even if they cancel the trip.

So I am done with this app and removing it from my phone.

by Aagirl3a

If I could give zero stars I would. I never leave reviews like this but I have been trying to use this app off and on for the last 2 months. It is the glitchiest app I have ever tried to use. They finally fixed the issue where you could not contact the driver but now on multiple occasions I have booked a ride waited 10-15 minutes only to contact the driver and have them tell me my ride is not showing up on their phone. They instruct me to cancel my ride and start over only when I do the price goes up from around $20 to $50 or higher. Today was the last straw I am now over 15 minutes late to work, deleting this app and only using Uber.

by 92626costasan

I’ve been using Ola in India and drivers can take you the long way to bump up the cost of the fare. The fare Ola shows at the beginning of the ride is just an estimate and then Ola recalculates at the end. I just had one very bad experience where my driver 1) admitted to me that he hadn’t had his driver license for the one year required by this app so he was driving a car registered under a friend who did, 2) made me pay 50 rupees extra on the spot for the airport parking but when I got the emailed receipt, that should have been included in the total fare, and 3) the driver asked me (solo female) all kinds of uncomfortable questions about my personal life (like whether I had sex with my boyfriend and then made comments about how beautiful I was) and no matter how I tried to change the subject, kept returning the topic to sex. I felt so uncomfortable that I unbuckled my seatbelt in case I needed to jump out of the car.

by Notrobertfrost

Took 1.5 rides with this app in Australia — from Sydney airport, and back. But on the way back it logged me out if my account and wouldn’t let me log back in. I just kept getting a pop-up to contact support.

Well, once I still couldn’t log on upon landing in Melbourne, I did. I got a response asking for my IMEI number, gave it, and ... silence.

After a few days I emailed again to open a new ticket, including the IMEI up front this time, and ... silence.

Did the same and opened a third ticket ... silence. Finally started tweeting at them, super responsive until I actually gave them my info to look up my account/tickets, at which point they just tell you to please give their “concerned team” a bit more time and then just leave you on read.

Followed up on the emailed tickets again last night and finally got a response ... asking for my IMEI number. Yes, for real.

I’m leaving Australia tomorrow so at this point wish they would just delete all my data. Thank god I could at least unlink this app from my payment source on PayPal’s side or I wpuld have been really screwed.

Wish I read the reviews on Trustpilot too and not just here, before getting into this mess. They tell the honest story. It’s the kind of cluster that gives us Indians a bad name — it’s why, as an Indian American, if I had known this was an Indian co, I’d have known to avoid in the first place.

by Williape

Yes, it can be cheap, but it’s only valuable if drivers actually show up or don’t expect you to cancel late pickups resulting in cancel fees.

Appears tons are gaming the system where drivers accept your booking request then drive away or just don’t ever show up at your pickup point. They do this hoping you will cancel the request 5, 10 sometimes 20 minutes AFTER the original estimated arrival. It’s happened 3 of my last 3 booking attempts and similar for a roommate. When you do cancel, it will charge you a booking cancellation fee. Yes, you can contest, but it’s a hassle and other booking platforms have largely stamped out this abusive behavior.

by JhonyNewYork

I was visiting India from USA fo a medical emergency. Considering, it was Indian in original and local I started using this app, though their response time was faster than Ubar locally. But the had very bad response at the Airports or when latency of commuted/ displayed time as compared to actual Time of pickup. Sometimes I had to wait almost 45 minutes when time committed time was 17 minutes.
Secondly the conditions of the car are worse both outside and inside. Battered outside dirty and torn seats even when I always ordered premier Sedans.
Lastly on premier cars the drivers refused or reluctantly turned the AC, I had to explain to the most of the time it run on Battery and does not effect your fuel consumption unless you are speeding when the AC is on. Surprisingly I never had any such issues with UBER only problem was was the availability. But given it is better to wait that get than all the uncertainty of OLO. Thanks I hope you will make the improvements.

by Jayachu

The cab service is nice on a normal day. But on a weekend or a festival day it is very tough to get the service and price becomes very high. Also price varies depending on the traffic. Sometimes the estimated price and the bill amount are not the same, and is slightly higher than the estimated one. Some drivers surpass the toll. Some drivers cancel it by themselves and put the blame on the customers. The this app map route is sometimes not the shortest route, and gets delayed because of that. It is always better to check the price for all the cab services like auto, mini, etc since sometimes based on the demand for the cab service, the price is less for prime and more for micro.

by Mani Kolathara

I use travel between states, choosen olacab for local rides , my experience overall out 6 cases 4 cases were not good. 1. Driver asked for extra money to take me right destination as driver says gps shows dropping point but for me that’s not correct dropping point. Need more accuracy on GPS locating within the cites like Chennai..
2. Driver not interested to take me destination due to heavy traffic expected and driver wants me pay in advance don’t know why.. 3. Again GPS pickup location showing inaccurate to driver but I keep calling to driver to come to a location I wanted as i am not familiar with stations to go the location driver wanted.. 4. Driver asked me give 5 start without giving me satisfactory ride which is not right ask.

Overall it really needs grooming wrt drivers, this app gps location accuracy, customer delightment. Otherwise this is great service spreading fast within cities and hope it gets spread wider in India..

by Sunny.tpg

I have used this app multiple times over the past few weeks in metros like Mumbai, Bangalore Chennai, and Hyderabad. In most cases, the ride arrived within a minute or so. Areas for improvement (1) There were a few times when the ride was canceled by the driver and this app didn’t do anything to find another ride. Would have been nice if this app automatically tried to rebook the ride. (2) In some cases, the drivers insisted on cash payment and in one or two instances the driver demanded 100 Rs extra over the this app fare (3) OTP based booking can be annoying at times especially when one may not have an active cellular connection.

by Bhima K

I like the easy search in Ola . I think it can be improved to help users that are not proficient in English. I feel like having a drop off pin point would be helpful for users to book a ride. As of now, there is a green pin that can moved around to set the pick up location. Similarly a different pin (may be red) can be used to set the destination location. At the end it will easy for the users to understand I.e. green is where you start and red is the location you will reach.

by Engineer-Shubh Arora

I love the this app app. I’m an Indian American (NRI). I use Ola when I come to India every year. It’s cheap, convenient, and safe.

This year when I came to New Delhi India in 2019, I tried to book an this app to get to my hotel, but the driver said that they weren’t allowed to go to the airport and said that I will have to walk all the way to the “this app stand” which I had no clue where was. I didn’t want to step outside the airport because once I walk out then I won’t be able to go back in and would have to stand out in the heat.

Finally, I had to cancel the ride and book a local taxi which was quite unfortunate. Other than the Airport pickup I highly recommend the this app App because the drivers are nice, polite and they know their way around the cities.

by Olarider

I was extremely satisfied with this app in the past. In the recent times drivers are calling and asking destination and canceling the bookings. Appreciate if drivers are also informed of the destination and only after their consent the booking is shared with customer. Else it is upsetting schedules and cancellations are happening even after waiting. This inconvenience is happening even for scheduled trips. After duly waiting I am forced to check alternate options

by ANURAMJI

Many a times got canceled after assuring it will come in few minutes. If we cancel as it is very much delayed you change cancellation charges but when you do why you do not give credit to our money paid as cancellation charges. Besides no response recd for my complaint made few weeks back about rude behaviour of driver. This upsets everyone & now in two minds why I should use this app? Hope you will respond at least for this.

by Camael Of Serenity

This is the icing on the cake, they activated this app wallet and charged me 687 bucks after I had already paid the driver in cash and also since I do not trust or use online wallets, I’m jot even sure of how it got activated when I haven’t even shared any KYC document. Then they tell me I reported the incident very late so there’s nothing they can do and that I would have to either pay up twice or forfeit my account. I chose the latter.

It’s shameful to see such unscrupulous business trying to dupe customers and charge them twice for a service thats already been paid for. I have not seen such brazen acts of cheating before. My account is being held at ransom by this company and they still keep calling me to pay up when I don’t owe them a penny. Utterly shameful and disgusting conduct.

by Srikanthv

This morning I scheduled a pickup from hotel to airport at 4:00 am for my 6:30 flight.

The driver was assigned 10 mins before the scheduled pickup and the driver was insistent in calling me to find out where I was going and just 2 mins before the scheduled time he cancelled because he was going to the airport. The fare was 700

Ola was supposed to reassign and send someone in the scheduled time but to my surprise Ola cancelled the full trip and rebook

I had to rebook another cab luckily unlike in Bangalore waiting time usually is 30 min this time I got a cab within 10 min. The fare I got was 737 inclusive of everything

The driver started from my hotel with in 2 mins he said he had a flat tire and will take 5 mins to fix but then I realised he did not have the necessary jack to fix the puncture tire

At 4:20 in the morning there were no one and used archaic way of lining up stones and fixing the tire

When I reached the airport I was in for a surprise to find my fare was 200 more than what I booked and the driver drove pretty rashly to get to the airport

Overall nightmare hope this app take action