Careem – rides, food & more Reviews

I am now updating my review because the service has gone from bad to worse. This is based on both the transport and now food delivery.

With regards to getting transport, I have noticed that the GPS on Careem is not always accurate in tracking the Captain. There have been several times when Careem showed he was 5 minutes away when in fact, he was at my pickup point. If Careem has been this unreliable to riders, one must wonder if some of the delays in getting a Captain to pick us up or take a different route is also due to the same problem. Having said this, the issues with Careem pales in comparison to the service or lack thereof although one questions if Careem issues might not also be part of the problem. There have been a number of times that the fare increased from what I had agreed upon when booking a ride. This is due to Captains taking an alternate route. Lately, it has been increasingly difficult to get a ride until the fare has surged. One must question if Captains aren’t intentionally waiting to pick customers up to collect a higher fare.

Now for delivery, I have been waiting for nearly 2 hours for food I have ordered. When I called, the rep told me the system is down and that I had to call back later. Why should I play phone tag? Either cancel my order or call me with an update or options. A malfunctioning system is not the customer’s responsibility.

I am a regular customer of this app, yet lately I have experienced aggressive and rude behaviors of the drivers. Some drivers refused to listen to the customers and just follow what they wish to do, which makes me feel so unsafe during the trip. I have reported these kinds of incidents, but still I have encountered bad behaviors of the drivers from my other trips. I don’t think this app is doing actions for these kinds of reports regarding their captains’ bad behaviors. One incident is a driver, named Belhassen A., dropped me in the middle of the road near a roundabout, and aggressively wants to push me out from the car, showing his anger issues. I was worried for my safety. Would that captain and this app take the responsibility if anything happens to me when i am left in the middle of the road with a lot of cars passing by? Are the passengers not allowed to ask requests to the captains during the trip? If this kind of behaviors of a captain happened to me, pretty sure it could be done to other passengers as well. I don’t think this app is doing much training professionally for their Captain’s behavior, because it didn’t only happened once but a couple of times. Other drivers are not strictly compliant with the Covid protocols as well, and some drivers gets mad if you will remind them to wear a mask.

I visit Dubai 2-3 times a year and I’m very pleased with this app. I have used both the taxis and cars. They are consistently on time and overall, the captains (drivers) are so polite and helpful. I had one situation when the driver seemed to take a route out of the way. We tried to explain but he insisted. I reported to Careem developer and on this particular trip, they checked the path and distance, then saw he took a longer route. I received a detailed explanation and the amount was adjusted.
I appreciate the time taken to research and review the problem. My advice…If something is not right or you have a question or concern, report it, before writing a negative review. The developer may remedy the situation.

Careem works and I’m grateful to use it many days of the week. But lately it doesn’t notify me when a car arrives; I only know if I’m checking or if the driver sends a message through Careem - I still get those notifications. Lately it also crashes a lot just by the screen going to sleep and then being opened again, or if I change apps and then come back to check on the car. And most frustratingly, Careem used to tell how many minutes away the driver is, but has for over a year now given an estimated arrival time instead, which means doing math while getting ready and trying to figure out when to begin the process of abaya, mask, hijab, shoes, purse, backpack, and walking out of the house. To make it more annoying, the notification that a driver is on the way covers the clock, so you have to swipe it up to see the time so you can start doing the math. These little UX things make a big difference in customer satisfaction.

For the last couple rides I have been having issues with wrongfully charges and I tried solving it through the contact options which the call us option doesn’t work and I think cause they would be having non stop calls of complaints and they can’t handle it, so I used the only other option is to email them, I was charged for ride cancellation even tho the rider didn’t show, and after contacting them I was refunded less than what I was charged, next ride withdrew my balance and took 1.3 in cash for a 1 kd ride saying that it will be refunded to my account which never happened and I reported that ride and nothing been done about it yet, and just now I booked another 1 kd ride and half way there I get a message that my wallet has - 0.7 and when I reached he asked for 1.1 and when I asked why he said he has no idea.
And showed me his application paying him just 0.9 from 1.1
This has to be one of my most frustrating service provider that causes this much continuous issues in a very short period of time

I was very happy with Careem being available in my city because it made finding a cab easier. So whenever I need a cab at night, I trusted this app because that meant I didn’t have to stand alone in the street waiting for a cab, and whenever I needed to be somewhere on time I used this app because it spared me the wait and wave and got me to my destination quick. Plus the drivers were always polite and on time so I was a happy customer, until..

The latest update on Careem suggests that a this app ride only gets you one seat in the cab, and allows the driver to pick other passengers on the way or to have other passengers along. I was told if I have company, I should just call the captain and ask how many people are with him (as soon as I did he started nagging how I’m only allowed one seat) so if it’s not compatible I cancel the ride and search for another captain, which to me is a waste of time.

This new update took all practicality from Careem .. so I won’t be using it anymore because it’s now the same as howling a cab in the street.

I’m a long time user of this app and Gold member. Recently, the number of vehicles has severely decreased and the price ranges have skyrocketed. I understand that traffic is getting bad but the price inflation is getting ridiculous considering how long they last. There never seems to be a time where “higher fares” are not applicable. And this has caused me to find other alternatives.

Careem itself keeps lagging and makes errors. The amount of times I’ve ordered a vehicle with a wrong arrival estimate is countless. It’s caused me delays in my appointments and wasted my valuable time. Vehicles are also commonly unavailable - even though my particular area is usually bustling with this app vehicles.

These changes I’ve mentioned have not been a personal problem, as many of my colleagues and friends have also been complaining of similar problems. Just today one of my friends was informing me of her ride home costing a whole 10jds (when it used to be 5) and this was at around 11-12 mid-day. A time where most should already be at work.

For an App that used to be so convenient and accessible, this past week has shown a major decline in service. I am very disappointed, considering how much I used to love the experience.

However, I would like to note that my problems lie with Careem itself and the ridiculous pricing - not the captains, who have always been nothing short of respectful and friendly.

For years this app has been my go to for a car hire. Gradually over the last year I’ve noticed a decline in the quality of service. Yesterday was my breaking point. I scheduled a car in advance to pick up my helper and bring my child home from school. The car arrived before the schedule time by almost 40 minutes. this app then proceeded to call me and tell me to go outside because my ride was waiting. To which I replied it was well before the requested time so I could not come out. When my helper did go out at the scheduled time the driver was gone. I received no notification or warning that they driver was canceling the ride. To remind you this was scheduled to pick up my child from school! With no other options I left my meeting and did the pick up myself. I filed a complaint with this app and have heard nothing back. No apology…no acknowledgement of receipt of my complaint…radio silence. Will 100 percent be looking for other options for my rides in the future.

It’s my first time trying out Careem and I Didn’t receive all the items ordered. The captain told me he was going to get the missing item for me and to give him 15 so I gave him the benefit of the doubt and waited, I call him over 40 mins later, he says he’s two minutes away. So I waited and waited, way over two minutes, trying to be patient. I call him again, he says he’s waiting for a reply from this app and that he doesn’t have the item!!!!
I ended up contacting costumer services which was the only good part about this order. They were very helpful and found a solution for me right away. To sum it up I have an item that’s missing and that I wasted over two hours contacting back and forth with the Captain, for him to tell me he hasn’t gotten a reply yet...... while waiting for an item that was never going to be retrieved in the first place (Customer services was good tho).

So I made an order from a restaurant and waited for an hour, but before I did that, I changed the number registered on Careem to the new functioning number, now after an hour had passed and Careem had said that the driver arrived, I went ahead and waited for 15 more minutes, as if they were not late already, and so I called them, and apparently they were calling my old phone number, the one I had changed, and blamed me for not double checking the number before proceeding to checkout, and blamed me for not picking up the phone number that does not work, if your app and your system is dysfunctional don’t blame it on me, you already have caused me trouble, and I’ve tolerated many things, but at this point is where you’ve gone way too far, fix your app, have your employees start using their brains to read what I had told them on the order and only then you’re allowed to blame me next time.

Hi this app, I am your regular customer and well satisfied with your extra ordinary service quality and safety measures as well. The only issue that you need to put focus is on the Captain during promotion time period. May be due to discount on rides, sometimes captains are not interested in taking those rides which are not profitable for them due to promotion and less fare so they accept the ride but also pretend that they are stuck in traffice and customer keep on waiting and atlast rider has to cancel the ride. I would highly recommend you to please look into this matter to save time both of Rider and the Captain. Hope you take notice of this thing. Thanks

Great service, great product 🙂👍
But there is a big issue with Careem .
Since last two updates I have problem with Careem . It always says that there no internet connection all the time. I am connected to LTE 4G and all apps and internet is working correctly. But with this app app says that I have no internet connection. So when I turned on WiFi this app app worked and it was connected again!!
Today i checked out if there a new update to fix this bug. I updated Careem . Still the same problem, saying that I am not connected and there is internet connection when I am connected to LTE 4G. But when I switch to WiFi all is fine.
Kindly fix this annoying problem. Thank you

I’ve probably never written a review for an app before, but Careem has gone too far past my expectations for me to stay quiet. Not only is Careem quick, but you also get the quickest captains too. I get discount codes all the time for this app, including points for using Careem so often. Not to mention their amazing customer service; as soon as you rate your driver, you receive an email concerning your rating. This may seem hard to believe, but I have a perfectly working car and a driver that is on duty 24/7, yet I still choose this app as much as I can. If Careem was available in USA, I’d use it there too.

Long story short, get Careem . It’s so worth it.

This new update does nothing but ruin user experience!!! What was wrong with it the way it was before?! Why would you clutter Careem by bringing user rewards as the front page and make booking so small and make this app wallet have its own dedicated tab but not booking. Half the time Careem doesn’t actually pull up my booking in progress and I have to go looking for it in between this maze of random things because the new UI is so atrocious! Furthermore, every since Uber took over they’ve been charging drivers so much nobody wants to drive with this app anymore and I can’t even make a booking at the time I need it because there are rarely any drivers available now. You know what they say, if it’s not broken don’t fix it. Your greed is going to kill Careem . I am really considering switching ride share apps because of this unsightly update.

I used to use Careem all the time but since getting the iPhone 11, I haven’t been able to use it. When I try to log in when I’m connected to WiFi, it immediately says it encountered a technical problem after I enter my phone number.

When I log in using data, it’ll accept my phone number, give me a pin, and after I enter the pin it would ask me for my password. Once I give my password, it’ll take me back to the start screen with a loading wheel on it indefinitely. I know I entered the password correctly because I was able to log in to my account on the computer.

When I try to use Facebook to log in, regardless of if I’m using WiFi or data, it doesn’t do anything. Careem would probably have 5 stars from me because I know the service is great and I relied on it a lot, but the way it is now, it’s unusable.

this app is very useful app for me and everyone use it , but all of us faced the same problem!! The service range is limited, my home is out range of the service, so I have to select the nearest point or nearest location to my home and then start the trip until he reach my home and then taking me !!! So that mean I have to pay more money to him , and this negative point for this great application !!
So please fix it

this app هو تطبيق مفيد جدا بالنسبة لي والجميع يستخدمه ، لكن كل واحد منا واجه نفس المشكلة !! نطاق الخدمة محدود ، بيتي خارج نطاق الخدمة ، لذلك يجب أن أختار أقرب نقطة أو أقرب موقع لمنزلي ثم أبدأ الرحلة حتى يصل إلى منزلي ثم يأخذني !!! هذا يعني أنني يجب أن أدفع له المزيد من المال ، وهذه النقطة السلبية لهذا التطبيق العظيم !!
لذا يرجى إصلاحه

Hello! I just want to say that I was given an excellent service by Capt. Nawaz. He was really professional, kind, friendly, and careful on his driving.

I truly appreciate this application because as a woman, it’s obvious that we have to be extra careful when going out at night. But Careem gave security as it has tracking services which I could send to my family and friends. It also contains the name of the driver and also the plate number of the taxi which improves overall safety of the service.

Thank you so much for this!

Careem gave me continuous (royal) pain in adding my credit card to it. I called customer support twice and got the same basic answer of ‘please delete Careem and download it again, and if this doesn’t work please restart your phone’ as if I’m downloading windows on my PC and restarting will help. ( I use iphone user)I spent an hour back and forth with their customer support they had No clue how to solve this issue. No other tech support was provided. I shared with them an exact error message on my screen but they said ‘it normally doesn’t happen! ‘Please pay cash instead Sir’

Anyways I had to be somewhere an hour back and thanks to Careem I was an hour late since I was fiddling with it. Overall Not at all happy with customer support and it’s time user experience was below par.

Thanks

The services this app provides are great, BUT there are many suggestions that I have for improving the user experience of Careem . First, there needs to be a way to cancel the order before the restaurant accepts it without calling this app. Second, there should be a tab to see current rides or orders. Third, we should be able to see a description of the car and plate number for this app box just as you can see it for rides. Finally, this app should have a setting where the user received a text with the description of the car when it arrives - as it used to before. These changes would greatly improve Careem experience.

First, I cannot pin my exact location ( I could pin it with other taxi and delivery apps) and the drivers stops at the building near me so I had to walk more to reach the car. Second, many cars had poor air conditioning, and rude drivers( one of them tried to fool me by not giving me the change). Third, WHY if I cancelled a ride, I get outstanding balance?? I paid once because it was my total decision, but this time it was the driver’s fault didn’t come to the location, I called him and told him where I am exactly but he for no clear reason didn’t come!! Since that time I didn’t use this app again because of this outstanding balance that wasn’t my fault, and I even was late to my college because of the driver.

Update: I found no benefit from your help center.

though i own a personal car , i like using this app in many situations like avoiding traffic or not being in a good mode to drive my car , i really liked it but you should have some additional services so you can keep up the success you guys did when you started this app in BASRAH , the vip’s ride should be available for important people who needs a private & luxury cars for transportation , and you should have special cars for the very special people or people who have sensitive positions and need a suitable ride for them , so u should add mercedes-like cars and SUV’s beside armored and other special rides and then i assure u , u would be the best transportation services in the whole iraq and not only basrah .. wish you good luck ❤️

Will it hurt to have a call centre or a helpline or a customer service that actually works. Charge money for it if you have to but the current scenario is simply ridiculous

this app founders are proud they have sold off to Uber but they have committed one of the 7 deadly sins, by giving in to greed and ruining a perfectly good app and service. I cant even log in to my own account. Not that I am concerned but I dont want you guys having my credit card info and no privacy policy as once already data was leaked from this app and everyone knows it.

Take a look into your “technical” issues and review the support your team gives. Now that you have entered the corporate world learn to spend some thought on how you treat customers. Dont worry every dog has its day, Nokia thought it would last and guess what, whens the last time you saw one........

I use this app service a lot but if I ever stop using it, it will be because of the many this app drivers who made me feel guilty for how long my rides are. Many of them say if I knew this ride will take this long, I would not have opened Careem , or I would not have picked up this ride !! Like it is my fault! There should be someway to tell the driver ahead of time how long a ride will take and the destination and whether or not they are willing to drive to certain cities and/or accept to go certain number of miles. I’m starting to feel bad for all the comments and attitude I’m getting from them.

The apps interface on iPhone 5s screen does not show full details of the vehicle and is like Toyota C.....
Please correct this issue by making these details expandable so that all details about the driver and the car can be seen. Also I would suggest a journey path be showed on the map like uber.
Lastly I would recommend to improve your fare estimate algorithm as the actual fare in my experience has always been higher than the range given. If you are giving a range then the fare should be within its limit unless there has been unusual conditions.
Thumbs up for the wallet feature which allows extra paid money to be used on the next trip and not have the hassle of getting change when paying cash.

I can even get on the site. They say check your internet. My internet is working just fine. They are having technical issues.
They used to respond to my emails but after 15 + emails back and forth they don’t respond anymore. I have lost 8 rides. There is no help and no one to speak to about reimbursement.

Except the part that you can not rate drivers lower than a 4, and anything between 1-3 gets automatically removed, also the part where the captains can sometimes steal your money by not adding the extra amounts to your wallet. Customer service is highly varied, with complaints being resolved in minutes to not being resolved or responded to at all, I use Careem 6 days a week, just sad that some captains just run off with the extra credit without adding it to your account, and you cannot reflect that to the captain because Careem won’t let you rate a captain lower than 4 stars, weird, but then again, there’s a reason I guess I have never seen a 3 or 2 star captains. Rated 2 stars here.

DO NOT USE THIS SERVICE! I have been trying to contact the customer care of this app for days - with no effect. This is not the first time I have had this kind of an experience. They are IRRESPONSIBLE, TARDY, and straight-out RUDE. I have had their drivers chase me into buildings when THEIR payment systems failed. I have had their “customer care” agents get into fights with me. Right now they are SPAMMING my email, and my private messages (every 5 minutes) for a problem on their end. The thing is that I have NO POINT OF CONTACT to fix this issue (even though the issue is not mine to fix).
Cheers to those poor drivers, I can only imagine what it is like working for this kind of a company.
They do not deserve even a single star.

I recently visited Karachi after 15 years I have used Ride sharing apps abroad but for Pakistan whenever I have visited I have rented a car as this method did not exist. This time I was told about this app. I found it very convenient the drivers were professional and courteous. I was using the business option which was a few rupees more but all the cars newer and had air-conditioning as I was there in July. I will definitely use this service again next time I visit.

Their business plan and algorithms may work great in small and less congested cities but this ride sharing scheme is a big failure in a city like Istanbul. The number of cars they have in Istanbul is far less than enough to cover the city and it takes them forever to get to your pick-up location, specially during rush hours. Their prices were some what competitive when they’ve first launched their app but not so anymore. I’m deleting Careem as soon as I finish writing this review. One final note; no ride sharing company will be competitive against city cabs as long as the gas prices are this expensive and with laws that are preventing private citizens to use their own cars with these ride sharing apps.

I have used this app for some time now and generally it has been ok as long as I don't have any issues that requires assistance. The few times I interacted with there customer service has been a very bad experience for me. Most recently they accidentally charged my credit card twice for the same transaction and when I complained they denied it. Then when I showed them my credit card statement as evidence they claimed that they refunded it back to my "bank account" not my credit card which they obviously didn't because they don't even have my bank account information. I have reported them to the authorities and will never use them again.

I used this app multiple times, there are many glitches such as when canceling the driver 6 minutes away they end up coming, secondly most importantly payments in cash show different numbers between the driver and me once I paid nothing because it showed to the driver 0 fee but later on the day when I reopen Careem it showed the fee was 5QR and today the driver showed me through his phone that the fee is 17QR I paid it later when I checked Careem to order a cap it showed me that the fee was 7QR. Uber brings less frustration

I have been stolen as I didn’t pick up the trip and already cancelled on spot since I click by mistake and driver (Moemen Gamalelden) called asking to cancel though I already did (confirmed that to him) and even gave reason why to cancel but seems driver has no integrity and ur system not secured !!!

This action from this app beside having a problem every day last last 3-days (wz no follow up or customer service action) reveal EXTREMELY BAD service to degree of STEAL people because u have my credit card details !!!

If money not refund within 24-hrs and serious action taken in order not to be repeated by driver, I will simply share contact حماية المستهلك and share on social media.

First time to use this app. Default selection for type of car is airport , which is the most expensive selection. I did not know this needed to be changed to the less expensive selection, like GO MINI. I had to pay 200 EGP when the trip should have cost about 45 EGP. I believe this app made the AIRPORT selection default to fool you into accepting the default instead of showing you other options. With UBER, you are given 3 selections in one view, with the price. this app has to navigate further in order to select the type of car and navigate even more to know the price. Terrible and sneaky design for a first time user. I selected Uber for my next rides.