Recently I was invited to a Uber for Business account and was rather surprised by how bad that onboarding flow was.

First off, my iPhone was not able to scan the QR code from this email. I don’t think I have ever seen a QR code with that complexity in the wild, but generally I’d describe iOS’ ability to read QR codes as “dark magic”. I have never encountered one that it couldn’t read, and it is lightning fast – always recognizing them before the image even auto-focuses. That’s why I was so surprised when this code didn’t work. I assumed it must be broken entirely, but tried again. Even after zooming in the browser and trying many times, no luck. (Oddly I wasn’t able to reproduce this later, scanning now works fine – not sure which exact part of technology was annoying here earlier.)

So I went through the process without the QR code. I changed the PIN code for the screenshot, but the actual code also contained a number zero 0. Not a capital O character, as I found out after entering the wrong one first. The font choice does not make it very obvious.

But before even being able to enter this PIN, I had to find where. Luckily they provide instructions in the email – unfortunately, they are not correct. I was on the latest version of the “same Uber app you know and love”, but no Add another business profile option. Once I found what was meant, the option to enter a PIN code also used different wording.

Entering the PIN was an adventure as well – apparently they have 8 digit and 9 digit PINs, so the dashes they force-display between the different segments of the PIN look incorrect up until you entered the final digit.

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I know it sounds very nitpicking, but this stuff is why scams work. Normal people do not have the capacity or ability to distinguish lack of care from fraud. I see it when talking to relatives and friends all the time, and I even notice how much more energy I have to waste myself to stay vigilant.