You never want to think about your Uber account getting deactivated.
The truth is that sometimes it happens — whether you’re an Uber driver or rider.
There are a variety of ways your Uber account can get deactivated, and in some cases, you may not even know why your account was deactivated.
This can be incredibly frustrating especially if you’re trying to get back on the road to make money or need to be picked up by an Uber driver.
In this article, we’re going to discuss how your Uber account can be disabled and how you can get your account reactivated.
By the time we’re done, you should be on your way to getting your account up and running again.
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How to Tell If Your Account Has Been Deactivated
Sometimes, it’s obvious that Uber has deactivated your account.
They may send you an email or text message telling you about it, or you may see one of the following messages pop up when you open the Uber driver app or attempt to log in to your online Uber driver account:
- “The partner account you drive under has been disabled”
- “Your driver account has not been activated”
- “Your account has been placed on hold”
- “You are waitlisted”
As you can see, none of the above messages specifically say that Uber has deactivated you.
And, of course, it’s possible you’re seeing these messages due to some other reason.
It could even be a technical error on Uber’s part.
The only way to be sure that you’ve been deactivated and that you’re not having some other sort of account or technical problem is to contact Uber support.
They can confirm that you’ve been deactivated, explain why, and even help you get reactivated if you’re eligible (which we’ll cover more in the following section).
Drivers: My Uber Account Is Disabled
So what exactly causes Uber to deactivate your account?
There are a lot of possible reasons out there.
Most of them have to do with customer service, violating Uber’s terms of service, or, in serious cases, breaking the law.
Luckily, many of them are also issues you can easily avoid or remedy.
Let’s take a look at each of the reasons:
Reasons for Account Deactivation
1. Low Ratings
In order for you to be a driver, Uber requires you to maintain a minimum rating.
For each ride you give, you’ll be rated by your passengers.
The higher your star rating, the better off you’ll be.
However, in every city, there’s a minimum average rating for drivers.
Low ratings can get you deactivated.
The minimum rating varies based on your city.
Uber doesn’t care about your specific rating so much as how your rating compares to the average rating across all drivers in the market where you operate.
If your average is approaching this minimum threshold, you’ll be sent a few notifications by Uber.
Once you fall below this threshold, your driver account will be deactivated.
Of all the things that can get you deactivated, this one is one of the easiest to avoid.
Just provide good customer service, offer passengers amenities, and generally be polite.
As long as you do these things, your driver rating should be fine.
2. High Cancellation Rate
A cancellation occurs when you accept a trip and then decide to cancel.
This is not encouraged by Uber and is tracked with your cancellation rate.
Things are bound to come up and you might absolutely need to cancel a trip, but from a rider’s perspective, this causes frustration and a poor user experience.
It’s OK to cancel trips every once in a while, but you should never make it a habit.
Similar to your driver rating, every city has a maximum cancellation rate that you need to stay below.
If your cancellation rate is approaching this threshold, Uber will send you several notifications.
However, once you surpass this maximum cancellation rate, you risk the chance of getting your driver account deactivated.
3. Low Acceptance Rates
A low acceptance rate is not nearly as bad as having a poor driver rating or high cancellation rate, but it’s definitely not encouraged.
When you pass up on trips and decline many trip requests, your acceptance rate will suffer.
If your rate falls below a certain threshold for your area, your account may be deactivated.
To avoid this, if you’re not in the mood to drive at the moment, just log off the app.
If you’re logged off, you can’t be penalized for passing up on ride requests.
4. Violation of Uber’s Code of Conduct
There are some things you can do that will get you immediately deactivated.
Hopefully, these are things most drivers never have to worry about since not only are they against Uber’s Terms of Service, many are also against the law.
You’ll receive immediate deactivation for any of the following offenses:
- Physical contact with riders
- Use of inappropriate and abusive language or gestures
- Unwanted contact with riders after a trip is over
- Breaking the law while using Uber
- Unsafe driving
- Discrimination based on a passenger’s protected class or their destination
- Fraudulent activity, including fraudulent fees, falsified trips, or submitting any false information as part of your Uber application (such as lying about your amount of driving experience)
Again, avoiding the above is pretty easy, so we won’t go into much more detail.
For a more detailed explanation of the above offenses and other things that can get you banned from driving for Uber, consult Uber’s Community Guidelines.
5. Passenger Complaints
Whenever a passenger rates an Uber ride, they also have a chance to leave comments about their experience.
Furthermore, they can report particularly negative passenger experiences to Uber customer service.
If passengers are repeatedly complaining about you for legitimate reasons, then Uber is going to deactivate your account.
Can you blame them?
They want to provide quality passenger experiences, and they shouldn’t tolerate drivers who don’t.
Of course, there could be cases where passenger complaints are illegitimate.
Maybe passengers are discriminating against you based on your race, gender, sexual orientation, or other protected class.
Maybe you just had a string of bad luck where factors outside your control (traffic conditions, bad weather, technical or vehicle problems) caused riders to have a bad experience and take it out on you.
In these cases, you can always report what happened to Uber customer support and attempt to appeal the deactivation (we’ll discuss this more in a moment).
6. Inactivity
To be an Uber driver, you need to, well, drive.
If you’re not using the app, then Uber has no reason to keep your account active — doing so only costs them money.
This doesn’t mean you have to drive 8 hours every day, or even drive every day of the week.
Many drivers just work on the weekends or in their spare time, something that Uber uses as part of their marketing to drivers.
However, you can’t drive once every couple months and expect Uber to keep your account active.
If you’re driving that little, it probably means you don’t enjoy it or don’t have time.
If that’s the case, then Uber deactivating your account is probably for the best.
7. Expired Documents
This is a common reason for deactivation that’s often just the result of an honest mistake.
Uber requires that all necessary documentation on file with them is kept up to date.
This includes your driver’s license, vehicle registration, insurance information, and vehicle information.
If any of this information becomes out of date in Uber’s system (even if you’ve renewed it in real life), Uber can deactivate you.
This is an easy problem to fix.
All you have to do is contact support, submit the new information, and have them update it in your account.
From there, you can get back on the road and driving in no time.
Of course, it’s best to regularly review this info in your account to make sure it stays up to date.
This way, you can avoid these problems entirely.
8. Failing a Periodic Background Check
When you first apply to become an Uber driver, you’ll be required to pass a background check.
This background check covers your criminal and vehicle records.
Uber is committed to keeping passengers, drivers, and the broader community safe.
This means that all Uber partners must be good drivers who abide by the law.
If your driving or criminal history changes in any way while you’re driving for Uber, the company can deactivate your account.
This could include getting convicted of a felony (especially those related to sex offenses, assault, or vehicular felonies).
It could also mean other disqualifying offenses such as a DUI or an excessive number of moving violations.
Don’t think that Uber won’t find out about these offenses just because you’ve already passed your background check.
The company recently announced that it will begin conducting “continuous” background checks that will monitor drivers for felonies or other disqualifying offenses on an ongoing basis.
This comes after the company has received criticism for not being thorough enough in its background check process.
9. Unacceptable or Fraudulent Activity
As an Uber driver, you’re expected to follow all of the rules and avoid certain unacceptable and fraudulent practices.
This includes never try to game the system for your own benefit.
So what makes up unacceptable and fraudulent activity?
This could be doing things like picking up illegal street hails, charging fees outside of Uber’s payment system, intentionally taking a longer route to increase your fare, encouraging riders to cancel their ride, or diminishing the Uber brand in any way.
As long as you avoid some of these shady practices, you should be fine.
Just make sure you have a thorough understanding of the Uber driver agreement and you’ll be good to go.
10. Inaccurate Personal or Vehicle Information
Since the safety and reliability of Uber’s service is its main focus, Uber expects that you maintain up-to-date personal and vehicle information.
This includes making sure you’re the only driver using your account and that you’re driving the registered Uber vehicle on your profile.
If Uber discovers that you provided false personal information, then your account can immediately be deactivated.
Likewise, if you are picking passengers up in a different vehicle, a damaged vehicle, or a car with the wrong license plate, you also risk getting deactivated.
How to Reactivate Your Driver Account
Uber reserves the right to cancel your partner account at any time and for any reason — no questions asked.
If your driver account has been temporarily or permanently deactivated for any reason, you have an opportunity to reach out to Uber and dispute your deactivation.
If you’re facing a very serious or dangerous incident, there’s very little chance that you’ll be able to ever drive for Uber again.
However, an incident is minor in nature, you can appeal the decision directly with Uber.
Every incident will be thoroughly investigated by Uber, and if there’s sufficient reason, your account can be permanently banned.
In some cases, Uber doesn’t even need evidence if you’ve received several unconfirmed complaints regarding a similar issue.
In order to appeal a deactivation, you can head to Uber’s deactivation page and fill out the attached form.
Make sure to provide further information regarding the incident and plead your case as best as possible, but you should know beforehand that Uber doesn’t guarantee your account will be reactivated.
Those who were temporarily banned from the Uber driver app due to high cancellation rates, low ratings, or low acceptance rates, may be required to take a quality improvement course before being reactivated.
If you have more questions or would like to talk to an Uber representative directly, you can contact Uber customer service.
You can also find more information regarding the driver deactivation policy within Uber’s community guidelines.
Riders: My Uber Account Is Disabled
Opening up your Uber app to hail a ride only to find out your account has been deactivated is quite a pain.
How are you going to get to where you have to go — do you have to quickly set up a Lyft account?
Don’t panic.
Here are some of the reasons why your Uber rider account can be deactivated and how you can avoid situations like these.
Reasons for Account Deactivation
1. Inappropriate or Unsafe Behavior
Uber not only wants to protect its riders, but it also ensures that its drivers are able to drive in safe conditions.
If you violate any of these rules and cross the line in any way, you can be kicked off the Uber platform.
Unsafe behavior can include physical contact with a driver, bringing drugs or alcohol into the vehicle, contacting drivers after the trip is over, using inappropriate or abusive language, discrimination, breaking any laws, or violating the firearms ban within Uber vehicles.
As long as you’re a law-abiding passenger who doesn’t partake in any inappropriate behavior, you shouldn’t need to worry about being deactivated.
2. Damaging Driver’s Property
If you damage a driver’s vehicle or any other property, you may be penalized by Uber.
Accidental spills and messes aren’t going to get you immediately kicked off of Uber, but more serious damage will.
This includes excessive vomit from alcohol consumption, serious damage to the driver’s vehicle or cell phone, smoking within the Uber vehicle, and any intentional vandalism.
If a driver reports any damage that you caused, you may either be charged a fee, banned from the Uber app, or both.
3. Unacceptable or Fraudulent Activity
Fraudulent activity in any form is unacceptable on the Uber platform.
Those who partake in this activity run the risk of having their account deactivated.
Examples of unacceptable activity include disputing fares, falsifying your personal information in any way, abusing promotional discounts, colluding with drivers for personal gain, or having duplicate accounts.
When you first sign up for Uber, you should look over the rider terms of use to make sure you’re not violating any rules.
If you break these guidelines, your account could be deactivated at any time.
How to Reactivate Your Rider Account
After you’ve realized your account has been deactivated, you’ll probably want to get your account up and running as soon as possible.
It’s important to know that Uber can cancel your account for nearly any reason, but you still have the opportunity to appeal its decision.
Similar to driver deactivations, if you’re dealing with a serious, violent, or dangerous incident, there’s a slim chance you’ll ever be able to use Uber again.
But if your circumstances are less serious, you can reach out to appeal Uber’s decision.
Appealing an account deactivation isn’t as straightforward as it is for drivers.
In the case of a driver deactivation, they have a specific form to refute the decision.
With riders, on the other hand, you’ll need to contact support directly to argue their decision.
Uber support contact information can be found below, however, you can also head to our guide on Uber customer service here.
- Phone number: (800) 593-7069
- Email support: [email protected]
- Help portal: help.uber.com
After they hear your side of the story, you’ll be notified shortly after if your account can go live again.
If you’re still banned, it may be time to move on to other transportation options, like Lyft.
Get Back on the Road
As long as you’re playing by the rules and using the Uber platform as it’s intended to be used, you shouldn’t have to ever worry about getting your account deactivated.
However, we do understand that things happen.
So if you’re ever in a pinch, make sure to reach out to Uber and plead your case.
If your issue isn’t too serious, you should be back on the road in no time.
