My wife had the same issue with Lyft. She was taking a ride home last year when they got hit from behind by a car that tried to drive around them and ended up hitting them. She gave a statement to Lyft support to make clear that the Lyft driver was not at fault. However when describing the driver who hit the Lyft she called him "young" - so Lyft support blocked her account for making discriminatory statements in violation of their community guidelines. We had to escalate that to the CEO because there was no avenue of appeal without an active account. They played back the audio of her conversation and afterwards did agree to restore her account, but cautioned that if she violated community guidelines again in 90 days she would be banned permanently! You can't make stuff like that up.
Why do so many tech companies think they have a right o issue decisions to employees, contractors, or customers without communicating context? Lack of contextual information seems to account for a <i>large</i> proportion of tech grievances discussed on HN.<p>Running a business as a top-down dictatorial entity with zero accountability says something bad about the founders and owners. The standard excuse is that 'if we give out too much information, people will game the system'. But by evading accountability and often regulation, it's these companies who are gaming the marketplace/regulatory system in which they operate, while offering themselves as victims of unscrupulous individuals whenever one of their counterparties exhibits even a slight degree of autonomy. This kind of control freakery is recapitulating the worst aspects of 20th century Taylorism.<p>I was very much in favor of Uber as a disruptive entity when they first appeared, given the numerous flaws in the in then-dominant taxicab model. But (along with many other companies that adhere to the same platform mentality) have mutated into something significantly worse.
> An Uber spokesperson said: “We are disappointed that the court did not recognise the robust processes we have in place, including meaningful human review, when making a decision to deactivate a driver’s account due to suspected fraud.<p>That's a very bad way of saying they aren't sorry they got caught doing unethical automated decisions that would've left the driver with no recourse, had he not belonged to a Union.
An Uber spokesperson said: “We are disappointed that the court did not recognise the robust processes we have in place, including meaningful human review, when making a decision to deactivate a driver’s account due to suspected fraud.<p>“These rulings only relate to a few specific drivers from the UK that were deactivated in the period between 2018 and 2020 in relation to very specific circumstances.”<p>That’s corporate speak for: we’re assholes who use automated processes to rule about some of our human drivers in a way that may be unfair and leaves them with no recourse. It’s ok though, because it only ruins a few people’s livelihoods.<p>I’m glad this guy stuck it to them in the courts, I hope he got a good settlement. The article didn’t say.
There are a lot of problems of Uber in India for example, as a native, even though I know most of the routes where I need to travel a lot of drivers do the following which makes it incredibly annoying<p>1. They'll ask to cancel the ride if it's an online payment and then say pay me in cash and I'll take you. That ride is effectively void from Uber's end and the only recourse I have is to either rebook which takes very long (reason[0]), or take the ride, risking my safety.<p>2. They'll just reroute without asking, and not notify you. Wait too long at turns, red lights, just to increase the trip time. I've had 30min trips take 1hr and upwards. Which have increased my fare when I had to pay.<p>[0]: There's a common pattern when you book an Uber, they'll call you and ask you where you want to go, if it doesn't fall within their day plan they'll outright tell you to cancel and then not pick up the call. Cancelling from my end often results in a penalty since the ride has been booked, and that causes a lot of issues and a waste of time. This is very common when you want cabs to the airport since they're located well out of city limits and a lot of drivers just don't want to make the trip.<p>Edit: Thinking about this a bit more, God help any tourists who travel here, since Uber <i>is</i> their safest bet. Local *-rickshaws/taxis can charge you anywhere from 5-20x if they see you're not a local let alone a foreigner.
I have to say that I got scammed by Uber drivers many times, when the region had dynamic pricing (not a fixed price at the moment of booking the ride). They took detours, ignored directions when I told them how to reach the destination in the most direct way (trying to make the best out of it). Always reported it, and got back the money most of the time.<p>So I think they have to deal with A LOT of fraudulent riders.
> The court found that he and other drivers involved in the case, based in the UK and Portugal, had the right to more information about the way automated decisions were made about them.<p>> Just before the case came to court, Uber apologised and acknowledged it had made a mistake.<p>So Uber tried to stop the court from making a ruling which would bind it by apologizing to the driver. Then when the court still goes on to make a ruling, Uber complains, and seeks to limit application of the ruling:<p>> An Uber spokesperson said: “We are disappointed that the court did not recognise the robust processes we have in place, including meaningful human review, when making a decision to deactivate a driver’s account due to suspected fraud.<p>> “These rulings only relate to a few specific drivers from the UK that were deactivated in the period between 2018 and 2020 in relation to very specific circumstances.”<p>This is why settlements are not always the societally best outcome of lawsuits.<p>And I don't get how Uber is trying to limit it to UK drivers when the court decision also applied to Portugal drivers.
"With the help of Worker Info Exchange and his union, Iftimie pursued Uber – and another ride-sharing app for which he worked, Ola – all the way to the court of appeal in Amsterdam, where Uber’s European headquarters is based."<p>Yet again we see that unions are important, as the only reason anything stopped uber in this case was their union. Every argument companies make against unions is false, the only reason they don't want unions is because it means they can't defraud and abuse employees (I mean "contractors").