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Uber Has a Playbook For Sabotaging Lyft, Says Report
Nerval's Lobster (2598977) writes The folks over at The Verge claim that "Uber is arming teams of independent contractors with burner phones and credit cards as part of its sophisticated effort to undermine Lyft and other competitors." Interviews and documents apparently show Uber reps ordering and canceling Lyft rides by the thousands, following a playbook with advice designed to prevent Lyft from flagging their accounts. 'Uber appears to be replicating its program across the country. One email obtained by The Verge links to an online form for requesting burner phones, credit cards, and driver kits — everything an Uber driver needs to get started, which recruiters often carry with them.' Is this an example of legal-but-hard-hitting business tactics, or is Uber overstepping its bounds? The so-called sharing economy seems just as cutthroat — if not more so — than any other industry out there.
If their contracts are reasonably well written, I bet they are guilty of at least a misdemeanor.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
The so-called sharing economy seems just as cutthroat
If more money than the partial cost of gas changes hands it is no longer sharing.
sounds not-so-legal. i would imagine lyft just needs to add something to their TOS, and all uber employees can by put death for this practice. well, maybe not death, but they can at least be sent to reeducation camps, right?
that Uber is really opening itself up to legal risk by doing this. This is essentially organized fraud. It's one thing to intend to purchase a lift and then cancel it at the last second, but by actually organizing mass cancellations when you really have no intention of purchasing a ride, you are really going down a path of massive fraud. I
or
"Meet the new boss, same as the old boss"
I think the the Talking Heads and The Who said it all.
My view: If you catch the crest of the wave of the various "sharing economy" services that are popping up, like AirBnB or Uber, you will likely have a good experience. But as they grow and other pressures come to the fore, thus poisoning the well, it's time to get out and move on.
...or am I missing something?
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Bring it to court. Boom, judgment.
The sharing economy is all about sharing the risk - less about sharing the profit.
which is a cause of action in Illinois and most of the other states I know of. Using fraud to injure an opponents business by forcing them to waste resources starting and stopping trips is stupidly bad.
Then again, its a bunch of gypsy cabs. WTF did you expect?
I always thought that rules are for cowards (if you belied the Uber etc. lobbyists). The good thing about bein a taxi is that the situation in this case would be pretty clear, i guess.
Now that's what I call competition.
'"What’s simply untrue is that not only does Uber know about this, they’re actively encouraging these actions day-to-day and, in doing so, are flat-out lying both to their customers, the media, and their investors," the contractor said.'
Okay, so it's implied that was is untrue is that Uberdoesn't know about this, but that's certainly not what was said...
(Which is not to dispute facts, mostly because I don't have facts to dispute. Though I would like them - I've enjoyed using Uber, but this would certainly encourage me to steer clear.)
As much as I hate to see it used, a Terms of Service (ToS) violation and the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) may still apply especially since they are using tactics to avoid detection (aka use of "burner phones" and credit card numbers)
It may also be a violation of the various credit card companies' ToS as well.
What is sharing about any of this? NONE of this is "ride sharing" or even remotely close to anything resembling ride-sharing and they surely are not sharing customers or territory. That can NEVER happen when money is involved, if money or other incentive is involved, then someone ALWAYS wants more and that means enticing, begging, borrowing, and stealing customers and area.
Uber and the whole lot are NOTHING more than a new spin on taxis. They are all soon going to come under heavy regulation.
Of course it's not legal you fucking idiot.
I find it refreshing that "dirty tricks" are still used in this day an age.
I don't welcome it, but it's good to know that this is still used, Now you ask why? Simple really, what they are doing (which I don't think is illegal, but I wish it was), is abusing the competitions, making them waste resources (time and gas). Right now the only person suffering is the driver. I would think that if this game was played on taxi companies, someone would be visiting with a bat.
It's fun and games until someone figures out how to counter, then the consumer will get screwed.
I kinda see this as a weird form of a DOSS attack, but seems viable.
if you see me, smile and say hello.
Hilarious. No, not the shady tactics - the fact that companies like Uber and Lyft whine about being regulated as taxi services, arguing that they are not taxi services, then getting into the same sort of idiotic, self-harming feuds that forced the government to start regulating taxi services.
History, on a loop!
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
Let a bunch of unregulated assholes act like unregulated assholes, and they're going to act like unregulated assholes.
Outstanding.
1. Gain an advantage over legal competitors by ignoring regulations in your industry.
2. Gain an advantage over fellow illegal competitors with dirty tricks.
3. PROFIT!!!!
az0
Wow, already adopting the Fluffer's vicious campaign tactics! Well I guess if you can't compete on value, you might as well cheat! The Fluffer is going to do for Uber what Obama's done for the country - too bad...
"I say we take off, nuke the site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure."
That is almost certainly illegal. If nothing else, it'd be tortuous interference, clearly designed to harm. Using burner phones is contributory evidence to fraud by showing mal intent.
I hate hipsters, assholes, and golddiggers. And I hate people that try to get ahead by stepping on other people's heads.
Watching the fight between Uber and Lyft, it feels like the appropriate way to do a little bit of social good is simply calling Yellow Cab.
I think not...(*poof*)
If cancellations are so detrimental to the business, then why not require that customers sign up using their credit card, and every cancellation they make on a reservation costs $5, $10, $20 - whatever amount is necessary to make it cost a fortune to undermine the company's business?
With David Plouffe onboard at Uber, a blizzard of blatant shameless dishonesty as part of a win-at-all-costs campaign is a certainty. Remember those "if you like your doctor..." and "if you like your health insurance..." Obama lies? (and YES, they WERE lies becuase the documents came out that show team Obama knew they were false claims at the time they made them). Plouffe was on THAT team. The guy is as filthy and dishonest as Karl Rove.
The so-called sharing economy seems just as cutthroat --- if not more so --- than any other industry out there.
The geek's definition of "sharing" has always been --- flexible.
Taxi services were cutthroat in the old days. Fleecing their customers and constantly at war with each other. That is why they came under regulation.
The summary here is about as deceptive as I could possibly imagine. What Uber is attempting to do isn't to initiate a lot of bogus trips and then cancel. They're attempting to recruit drivers from other companies and have them become drivers for Uber. The use of burner phones and credit cards are to prevent the easy detection of recruiters. Not to make fake trip requests.
Personally, I believe that such tactics are legal, but morally suspect (if the tactics were illegal, it would also be illegal for a company to attempt to recruit employees from other companies. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H... )
You would think that Lyft was the last people that Uber has to worry about with all the entrenched taxi monopolies and the regulators after their blood.
It would seem to be pretty easy to prove, and cost Uber money... The point under test is Tortious interference...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T...
It's almost like, if you don't regulate taxis, then they do all kinds of nasty stuff you wouldn't want them doing!
Yeah, it has been apparent for some time now that Uber is run by scumbags.
Since they have no intention of actual using the service, then it's fraud.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Evil knows no limits.
Those who profess Good in actions, rarely practice it, unless jailed repeatedly for high financial crimes and assets liquidated and given away to the poor.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
...
Although it is fun to ride on humans, If I need to get from A to B, I'll choose a car.
If two companies (such as Uber and one or more "contractors") conspire to prevent another company (Lyft) from doing business with yet another party (the passengers), this could potentially be a violation of antitrust laws.
The taxi business has always been cut-throat. Taxi, "car for hire," ridesharing — call it what you will — at the end of the day it's gypsy cab operators squabbling over fares.
Maw! Fire up the karma burner!
I don't use Uber, as they are a bunch of fucking scumbags.
Have no use for Lyft either, but hopefully some law firm crushes those assholes at Uber.
So what stops me from just picking up one of these "burner" phones and (presumably prepaid) credit cards to actually use for legitimate purposes?
Hell, even if they just send me a bottom-of-the-barrel tracphone, hey, free $30 flip-phone to keep in the car for emergencies (911 will work on any activated US cell phone, regardless of its in-service status)!
I know the cab and limo business pretty well (check my /. user name), and I give Uber and Lyft another two years before they start fading. Drivers will get tired of paying high commissions, having all their income reported to the IRS, and beating up their cars like crazy. I survived and did well in the limo biz largely because I could do most of my own repairs and knew low-cost shops that could handle the rest. If I wanted to go back to driving for money (no need - between SS and the "side" freelance work I do, I'm fine) I'd probably work work with Uber until I built up my own "book" of business, that is, personal customers. Then I'd say "sayonara" to Uber, just as I did to the cab company as soon as I had enough personal business to tell them to go screw themselves and a threatened RICO suit against the Baltimore cab companies and the MD Public Service Commission opened the business to anyone with an inspected car, good commercial insurance, and a clean criminal record.
My little group of owner/drivers competed successfully with Boston Coach, Carey, and other national companies. I have no doubt that I could compete successfully with Uber, too. Lyft? A low-rent gypsy cab service. I could beat them, too, but why bother? I did a little gypsy cab work many years ago, but didn't love it.
False Representation
Denial of Service
Fraudulant Use/Misuse of Computer Resources
Malicious Bypass of Security Protocols
Illegal? Yes.
Hanging offence? It should be.
Grist for the London cab companies for unfair competition? Ohhhhhh, I hope they've been informed. That could be so fun to watch.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
We're running into a new time of pothead business decisions, where young drug addicts who have flaunted the law now apply the same mindset they had toward drug use to business. They think they can bend and break the law as long as it results in personal gain, and they don't care who gets hurt.
It will be interesting to see how society responds to these selfish, greedy, pot-smoking businessmen who will literally break any law to make a buck.
Fraudulently entering into a contract. Conspiracy to commit fraud. Tortious interference of a contract (asking someone to enter then dissolve a contract). More?
If they get away from this and this is how low the bar is set, I can imagine the established taxi service with a central dispatch system will employ the tactic on the orignator, and have some backlash protection quickly able to blacklist blocks of cell numbers on throw away accounts and whitelisting many bars and other public access phones.
Blacklisted - Do not respond, long drive to arrive.. Trac Phone number or Magic Jack number, or already abused number.
Tenative, unknown new customer on questionable prefix. Respond if very local to a driver. No long drives and limit wating time.
Whitelist, Joe's Bar where Joe calls the cab for someone, gives customer's ID, or a taxi regular.
The truth shall set you free!
there is nothing immoral about offering a worker a better job. if uber does not want to lose their drivers to the competition they can pay better
Snowden and Manning are heroes.
there is nothing immoral about offering a worker a better job. if uber does not want to lose their drivers to the competition they can pay better
Except the story is about Uber trying to poach Lyft drivers, not Lyft trying to steal Uber drivers.
This is one of the reasons why taxi cab companies ended up being regulated. I hope these fuckers just shot themselves and their new industry in the foot and cause every single state in the union to force massive regulations down their throats.
FUCK YOU UBER, A BIG FUCK YOU
I guess you haven't tried my genital sharing business, hookr.
Copyright (c) 1990 - 2014 Dice. All rights reserved. Use of this comment is subject to certain Terms and Conditions.
This is American capitalism at its finest. Who is really morally invested in Uber or Lyft anyway? As long as they don't lie or burn riders, this tough competition will likely only help riders.
Fast Federal Court and I.T.C. updates
The Verge Is trying to seek credibility with it's fake 'Expose' mouthpiece on ComCast (financially one of their owners) - by taking on another company with leaked documents.
Something fishy is going down. I'd watch this space because I think Comcast and The Verges other backers are now using The Verge as a platform for corporate espionage and mis-information themselves.
Do NOT trust The Verge.
Uber and Lyft are both much cheaper than traditional "regulated" taxis, and this scheme only cost the other company and driver. So as a consumer, why do I care?
Well you should care, because if you get into an accident, you're paying on your own. That's what the family of this poor girl hit by an Uber driver found out.
And frankly I see no justification for Uber not to get insurance coverage for their drivers.
For comparison, look at New York's taxi medallion system. All it has done is raise the entry price to astronomical levels, which leaves the consumer paying outrageous prices and the drivers making very little.
I agree that the NYC regulatory system is rife with abuse, but the fault lies in the execution. All laws are prone to abuse if your have corrupt politicians in charge. You can't use the excuse that laws have the potential to be abused to not pass any laws or regulations.
I would argue instead that there should be some regulation, as least insofar as the public safety and health hazard aspects are concerned. Lets face it- all private enterprises are in the business to make money. One way of doing that is to reduce costs as low as possible, including paying for things like insurance, background checks on drivers etc. If there is no legal compulsion you can bet that they will cut these costs to the bone.
Some canceled ride requests (Lyft) or no ride requests (Uber).
(Careful, Uber!)
Why would this have to do anything with contracts? If I start calling some companys telephones continuously wit hthe purpose of just annoying and blocking them I'm performing some sort of punishable action (don't know the correct term, but I'm almost sure I won't just got off the hook because "hey I'm just calling phones")
Why can't the drivers be drivers for both? Do they have some kind of driver contract that forbids this?
"It will be interesting to see how society responds to these selfish, greedy, pot-smoking businessmen who will literally break any law to make a buck."
So, nothing new there. I guess the response will also be the same. If you are rich enough you can work it out, if not, it's prison time for you.
This is why you need medallions...
Uber reps ordering and canceling Lyft rides by the thousands, [...] Is this an example of legal-but-hard-hitting business tactics, or is Uber overstepping its bounds?
Are you fucking kidding me? This is so plainly in the "if it's not illegal, it ought to be" category that it's really difficult to think of a more clear example.
It's a direct attack on a competitors system, intended to deprive them of their ability to deliver their service. In IT security terms we'd call it a DOS.
If this rumoured playbook exists, someone ought to go to jail for it. To me it's bright as daylight and even asking the question seems stupid.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
Placing and canceling orders with the objective of disrupting a competitor's business? Yeah, that's wrong. Lyft could easily adopt the countermeasure of charging for cancellations, and requiring a legit user to identify themselves to request a refund.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Why not just give them multiple SIM cards?
So much for the Libertarian fantasy that Uber and Lyft will fairly compete with one another. One of the parties has decided take the other out by using unethical and possibly even illegal means. But this this is just a natural inevitable outcome of unregulated capitalism. One party will eventually dominate the other by whatever means necessary. Eventually there will be no competitors left and few will ever dare to enter the market because the monopolist will simply use their massive cash reserves and market share to undercut the new competitor and put them out of business.
If you read the article, Uber says that they are actually trying to recruit the drivers, not to sabotage Lyft. In other words, they aren't intentionally cancelling to disrupt Lyft. They intend to purchase a ride and use the time for recruiting the driver. For some reason (not specified), they then cancel. Reading between the lines, it seems that a big part of that is to avoid seeing a driver more than once.
This isn't as clearly tortious interference. That would require that they be intending to disrupt Lyft's business. If they're just disrupting on an incidental basis, that's different. It's unclear if Lyft can sue them for the canceled rides or not.
Given your perspective then, I have to ask: is the mutual cannibalization of Uber with Lyft a sign that they're already beginning to peak and thus to fade? And will the regulated taxi services survive?
Here's to hot beer, cold women, and Glaswegian kisses for all.
Obama NEVER said "If you like your health insurance, you can keep your health insurance, as long as it's not a garbage policy", he said ""If you like your health insurance, you can keep your health insurance, PERIOD" and then he and all his scumbag supporters called anybody who warned that he was being dishonest a LIAR.
WHO decides what a "garbage" policy is???? YOU??? Obama??? You progressives invented the term "grabage policy" to use to try to distract from the tsunami of lies every nationally-elected Democrat used to push Obamacare after the public realized they'd been conned. Many of those policiesyou progs NOW call "garbage" were in fact FAR SUPERIOR to Obamacare; they were cheaper because the consumer could choose to only pay for the coverage he or she wanted, leaving more money for the other things they needed. People who never have certain risks could buy policies that did not cover for those risks, leaving more money in the family budget for food, housing, a college fund for the kids, a "rainy day fund" for the family, etc. Now the very same family can have the privilege of paying more per month for a policy that covers fewer doctors and hospitals and has higher deductibles. Responsible people who do not use drugs do not need to buy insurance that covers drug rehab. Single men do not need pregnancy and maternity coverage. Women do not need coverage for prostate cancer. Thanks to Obamacare, lots of people are being forced by government (which means: at gunpoint) to buy lots of coverage they do not need - so the money can be re-directed to other people. This is just the usual leftist wet-dream re-distributionist utopian bull that leaves everybody more-equally poor and less-free.
People who hate liberty that much and love socialism that much should have left the US and gone to and of the myriad utopias like France, Holland, England, etc. Those of us who love the freedom of the US have nowhere else to go (there is no less-socialist place) and so WE are not leaving.
Uber is artificially manipulating the marketplace, so exercise your freedom of choice by driving them into bankruptcy!
Uber is in fact accused of making fake trip requests, there's a link to the story in TFA: http://www.theverge.com/2014/8/12/5994077/uber-cancellation-accusations
Regular cabbies getting protective of their turf can be annoying. These guys are just outright scammers. I don't like them and won't use them. Ever. I vote with my pocketbook against Uber.