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Uber Will Pay $20 Million For Exaggerating Drivers' Earnings (engadget.com)
Uber is paying $20 million to settle allegations that it duped people into driving for its ride-hailing service with false promises about how much they would earn and how much they would have to pay to finance a car. From a report: The FTC claimed that Uber was advertising an annual median income of over $90,000 per year for uberX drivers in New York and more than $74,000 for uberX drivers in San Francisco. But, as the commission found out, less than 10 percent of all drivers in those cities actually make that much. The complaint also alleges that Uber was inflating the hourly earnings on job boards like Craigslist. New drivers who financed a new car through Uber's Vehicle Solutions Program found out the company's claims were too good to be true as well. Although Uber told new drivers they would be able to lease a new car for around $119 per week, the actual lease rates never dipped below $200 from late 2013 to April 2015. And, despite its promise of delivering "the best financing options available," it turns out that Uber's rates were actually worse than consumers with similar credit scores could have gotten elsewhere. Adding insult to overpriced injury, Uber tacked on mileage limits to lease agreements that were advertised with unlimited mileage.
How is this not criminal? Why hasn't someone been arrested. Will UBER admit wrong doing?
What I'm now more curious about is the true impact of a $20 million dollar penalty against corporate lying. If it is a mere slap on the wrist financially, then the FTC is doing nothing but encouraging this kind of arrogant fucking behavior by organizations. They are literally perpetuating the concept that it's OK to bullshit and lie about products. If that's the case, you might as well abolish all regulatory agencies.
The impact is becoming far too great to continue to ignore the fact that accountability does not exist within corporations anymore. Neither does ethics. Capitalistic greed has trumped all.
The correct solution would be to apply the fine and terminate any monies owing on existing vehicle financing, as well as possibly refunding monies already paid. After all, those monies and the contract are basically based on fraud and false advertising.
Why should we not be surprised? This is the same company which claims it's a "ride sharing" company, not a taxi company, yet as far as I know, not a single one of their drivers is picking up people who want to go the same direction as the driver.
Instead, the people contact some random Uber driver to pick them up at a specific location then be driven to the location of their choice, all for a fee.
That certainly is an interesting definition of "ride sharing" especially in one of the more recent incidents where an Uber driver drove someone from Virginia to New York and back. I highly doubt the driver was already going that route.
That Uber should now be found guilty of duping people into believing they could make X dollars a year by driving for them (isn't that the way a cab driver works, they drive for a company?), or that Uber was deliberately fudging numbers on the costs involved to lease a vehicle from them shouldn't surprise anyone, especially when this company, despite all the money they're bilking from people, still can't turn a profit.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
If they where W2 then there may of been even more like DOL, civil cases, maybe even failure to pay wage = jail.
Work more, get poorer.
This is the first I have heard of the "Uber's Vehicle Solutions Program". I guess they were inspired by "GMAC Financing", the lucrative money-lending division of GM.
So far, they are "not a taxi company". Now I guess they are "not a bank". What's next, "not an arms dealer"?
Yes, laws were indeed made so that a corporation itself could be sued, rather than trying to prove which individual employee was responsible and trying to recover from that person. Specifically, this occurred during the reign of Justinian the Great, around 534 AD.
After the lawyers take their cut, each driver can expect enough to buy an air freshener to hang on their rear view mirror.
How ya like dat?
Buy you car and pay for it, and all maintenance, accept all risk, and give us 5%. There are a lot of rubes out there but I suspect also a lot of people who didn't exactly feel the amazing economy we are now all supposed to be benefiting from.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
The Roman Republic issued government contracts to build aquaducts, chariots to publicani (publicly held corporations) who bid on the projects. One publicana had a contract to handle the geese on the capital. Roman publicani could have numerous investors (stockholders), and be run by a few managers. Some employed thousands of workers and had limited liability.
Did the Roman corporations attract a lot of investors, like today' stock market does? Polybius wrote:
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There is scarcely a soul, one might say, who does not have some interest in these contracts and the profits which are derived from them.
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Polybius, Histories IV, circa 170 BC
Somebody lied to you, Silentcoder. A lie big enough that one must rewrite thousands of years of history to believe it.
This is fraud and the people that committed it should be arrested, tried, and convicted. Having them pay "fines" won't stop this sort of activity, but sending corporate management to jail will most certainly stop it. This is just like the banks who pay the fines and chalk it up as a cost of doing business.