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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.
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.
A misdemeanor is a criminal offence. Breach of contract is not a criminal offence.
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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Tortious interference.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
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.
'"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.
Except what will happen is Uber will come out and say that after an internal investigation, they found a few rogue employees had the program up on their own time, and Uber has now put a stop to it, etc.. It's how these things work. It's really no different than getting cut off while driving, tracking the plate number through the DMV for a physical address, and then setting up your stripper friend to show up while during their family dinner.
We've all done that.
It's really no different than getting cut off while driving, tracking the plate number through the DMV for a physical address, and then setting up your stripper friend to show up while during their family dinner.
If I'd known it would cause strippers to show up for free at my house for dinner, I'd have started cutting people off the moment I got my driver's license.
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
I do not believe that "bork" is a legal term with any validity.
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*)
Same reason I'm not allowed in the reptile house at London Zoo any more.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
I do not believe that "bork" is a legal term with any validity.
I guess you missed the legal origin of the term "To Bork" Bork as a Verb
If it happened to a Judge - it is a legal term.
(Not properly used here though)
I have mod points and I am not afraid to use them
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's almost like, if you don't regulate taxis, then they do all kinds of nasty stuff you wouldn't want them doing!
Well it appears they have entered into the contract with the explicit purpose to disrupt their business, it is arguably fraud or at least tortuous interference, it could be argued as either a criminal or civil offense.
Breach of contract is not a criminal offense. Entering into a contract with the intent to breach it from the onset is fraud, and a criminal offense. Obviously the threshold of proof for the latter is a lot higher.
Except, it's clear they have an intention of using the service.
They want to use their bought-and-paid-for ride as an opportunity to proselytize a captive audience.
1 - Book ride,
2 - During ride to follow script for conversion of driver from Lyft to Uber.
3 - If in a busy taxi market, wait a few minutes before booking a new ride to avoid getting the same driver.
4 - Else use Uber to get a ride to a new part of town.
5 - Repeat.
Burner phones are required if the driver in step 2 rats them out as "bad passengers."
This only works for government agencies, who are "investigated" by legislatures with all of the concomitant political theater — not private companies, who have to work with courts.
One more good illustration, why government should be responsible for as little as at all possible, BTW.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
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.
Signing a contract with the specific intention of violating it can be. It can also be a felony, depending on the amount of money involved. If Uber is involved in coordinating this, in theory, they could end up facing RICO charges as a criminal syndicate.
The kind of thinking that leads to this kind of dishonesty is why the taxi industry has been so tightly regulated for so long.
If they're willing to do this to each other, to cost each other money, imagine what they're willing to do to you, the fare, who have money for them to take.
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!
"b. Wait a period of time before you request so you do not have to cancel on the same driver if you get them again
Which clearly implies the uber contractor is expected to have canceled on the Lyft driver at least once.
Yeah. I really don't get the nutjobs around here who run around bitching about how Taxis need less and less regulation. It's like they have no idea what it was like before the regulations were put in place. It's not like some politicians got together and conspired over the course of several decades to regulate an industry for the sole purpose of being dicks. Those regulations were instituted because taxi drivers and taxi companies were doing incredibly unethical things that were causing damage to both people and to the economy.
-1 disagree is not a modifier for a reason. -1 troll, flaimbait, redundant, overrated are NOT acceptable substitutes.
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? 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. You are being naive if you think laws that generate money for government and protect old guard businesses are not because politicians and companies "conspired".
No, I'll take the basic fraud laws on the book and if we need to enhance them as technology changes fine. What we don't need are the rules that protect the crony capitalist system that favors the big old guard businesses over start-ups. This is an extremely small problem compared to the side effects of most regulation, and one that is apparently already solving itself as new media is exposing bad behavior on Uber's part.
well, what happens is that non-Uber taxi's go away, then you get Uber charging higher and higher prices, and pay their drivers less and less.
It's basically rebooting the taxi system.
Those who don't remember history are doomed to repeat it. Only now with computers.
Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
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.
...they could end up facing RICO charges as a criminal syndicate.
I really hope the prosecutors office opens a case, and jails an Uber CEO. The alternative taxi services are great, but if they don't fall in line, they'll be regulated as tightly as taxies..
The kind of thinking that leads to this kind of dishonesty is why the taxi industry has been so tightly regulated for so long.
If they're willing to do this to each other, to cost each other money, imagine what they're willing to do to you, the fare, who have money for them to take.
Exactly... It's beyond my comprehension why Uber is this stupid... This kind of move is exactly what will get them prohibited.
Besides there is plenty of room for growth through the simple act of providing a better service than taxis...
If I was Uber or Lyft management, I would not dare this... and I would strike very hard against any employee or driver who even remotely annoyed or interfered with taxis and other competing services. This is just stupidity beyond comprehension...
Well, if they are torturing people and engaged in tortuous interference, they should certainly be prosecuted. However, if they are merely interfering with business relations and involved in tortious interference then a criminal case may not be warranted.
(What, thy spell checker hath not the finesse?)
No Inflation Taxation without Representation
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
People don't realise how costly monopolies are. I work for a UK hospital, and have worked in the department that's responsible for purchasing all of the medicines the hospital uses. We have an online system that tells us for any given drug that generic A is the cheapest at £0.50 per box, generic B is £0.60, generic C is £1.00 per box and generic D is £5.00 per box. If every hospital buys generic A's levothyroxine, then generics B, C and D will just stop producing this medicine, because there's no market for it - and then if generic A wants to charge £20.00 per box, they can, because they have no competition to bring the prices down and the hospitals need to buy levothyroxine.
So instead, the hospitals are grouped into purchasing regions, and one region will buy generic A's levothyroxine, one will buy generic B, and one will buy generic C. (Generic D doesn't get a look-in because its prices are considered unreasonably high). The hospitals that were made to buy the more expensive levothyroxine will then be told to purchase the cheapest simvastatin, and the middling-cheapest flucloxacillin (while the people who bought the cheap levothyroxine will buy the more expensive flucloxacillin), so no region is out-of-pocket overall.
And yet, when I've mentioned this to people, they seem to think this is unnecessary, and all the hospitals should just buy the cheapest version of every medication. Here's what happens when a company is given a monopoly and decides not to play nicely with its customers:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/hea...