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Uber rival accuses car service of dirty tactics
- j_s 13y agoThis type of behavior is often swept under the rug in the startup world, eg. Airbnb hijacking Craigslist: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=261024 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=261024
- santialbo 13y agowrong link? (European Common Lisp Meeting 2008)
- aestra 13y agoYou linked to European Common Lisp Meeting 2008...
- SyneRyder 13y agoUntil the link above is fixed, try this article for an overview: How AirBnB Became a Billion Dollar Company http://davegooden.com/2011/05/how-airbnb-became-a-billion-dollar-company/ http://davegooden.com/2011/05/how-airbnb-became-a-billion-do... TLDR: Dave Gooden setup a honeypot on Craigslist to test whether AirBnB staff were creating fake Gmail accounts to spam Craigslist users & suggest they should post their vacation house listings on AirBnB instead.
- j_s 13y agoHa, copy + paste fail caused no doubt at least in part by my (self)righteous indignation! https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2610240 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2610240
- dinkumthinkum 13y agoShhhh ... AirBnB and Uber are "Disrupters."
- untog 13y agoI'm not even sure that 'accuses' should be in the title given that Uber have already admitted that they did it. Pretty shady, IMO.
- EvanL 13y agoI love it, great scrappiness from the local team. As CEO i'd have a good chuckle, and tell them to tone it down a bit. Generous of the article to refer to Gett as a "rival" and not a clone.
- untog 13y agoGenerous of the article to refer to Gett as a "rival" and not a clone. Because Uber is so crazily innovative that no-one else would ever think about doing it? Come on. It's a car service with a smartphone app. There's a reason there are at least a dozen companies doing it.
- highace 13y agoBecause they saw the success Uber has experienced and wanted some of the pie?
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- potatolicious 13y agoNon-taxi on-call cars have existed for many, many decades before Uber. Especially in NYC where this article is relevant, car services are a dime a dozen and have been a regular part of city life for decades. The difference is between picking up your phone to get one vs. using your smartphone. Uber was first to market, but it's silly to pretend that without them it wouldn't have happened. That's like calling the Pizza Hut app a clone of the Domino's app, because they both order pizzas and Domino's came out first. Ultimately Uber is a newfangled (and more convenient) front-end to a service that has pre-dates itself by a wide, wide margin. The extension from "call the car company to get a car" to "use an app to get a car" is a pretty obvious innovation, particularly in NYC.
- mikeash 13y agoI'd wager that people in ancient Athens would send a messenger to the local chariot service when they needed to get around on short notice. The idea that Uber is somehow doing something new is ludicrous.
- sp332 13y agoOrder forms provided to CNNMoney show that more than a dozen Uber employees were involved, including community managers, operations managers, Uber's general manager, and the company's social media strategist. So much for blaming "our New York team". Why does the bit at the end discuss California law? This happened in New York.
- pmorici 13y agoBecause for whatever reason CNN decided to call a CA based law firm to interview them and of course a CA lawyer is going to know first and foremost about CA law.
- shadowfox 13y agoCould it be because Uber is a CA company? I don't know how the jurisdictions are supposed to work though.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- defen 13y agoBetween this and how they handled the girl who was killed by an Uber driver on New Year's Eve in San Francisco...my opinion of them has taken a decided turn for the worse in the past few weeks. And for both, I can't help but think that company culture is set from the top.
- nailer 13y agoFor reference: http://blog.uber.com/2014/01/01/statement-on-new-years-eve-accident/ http://blog.uber.com/2014/01/01/statement-on-new-years-eve-a...
- gkop 13y agoNote their sloppy job of hiding the livefyre comments only for this post (hint: they forgot to remove the comment count).
- yapcguy 13y agoSophia Liu. 6 years old. Killed by Uber driver. At first Uber denied the driver worked for them. Then they admitted the driver was with them but he wasn't "working" because he didn't have a passenger. In constrast, some news reports claim that the driver believes he was working for Uber because he was searching for fares at the time of the accident.
- eridius 13y agoI hadn't heard of this before. But I'm a bit confused, how does an uber driver hit someone while searching for fares? Searching for fares in Uber means sitting in your car waiting for your phone to ding. The only reason to be moving around without a passenger is if you think that a different neighborhood is a better place to be to find passengers (as distance to the prospective passenger is important), but driving to another neighborhood certainly doesn't qualify as "searching" for anything.
- placeybordeaux 13y ago
- snarfy 13y agoFraud is a felony.
- dangrossman 13y ago"Fraud" isn't a singular thing. The Penal Law of New York State defines around 40 separate types of fraud, most of which are misdemeanors. http://ypdcrime.com/penal.law/index.htm http://ypdcrime.com/penal.law/index.htm
- nailer 13y agoUnqualified, unreferenced legal advice is a no-no.
- potatolicious 13y agoWow. This is low. The statement is absolute bullshit too: "In this instance, the New York City team was a bit too ambitious and we'll make sure they tone down their sales tactics." No, this is unacceptable. This sort of fraudulent behavior deserves consequences larger than "hey, stop that". I live in NYC. The Uber app has now been banished from my phone. It's too bad the Gett app is kind of an unpolished turd.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- 67726e 13y agoI wonder if what they did could be considered criminal. Back in highschool a friend of mine did the "order a dozen pizzas to someone's house" prank and he got caught doing it. Though nothing came of it, a police officer told him he could have been charged under a crime called "Defrauding an innkeeper" for ordering a service/product under false pretenses.
- joosters 13y agoTFA: "If Uber employees intentionally diverted Gett drivers from legitimate business by making phony calls, that is an unfair business practice, illegal under California law," he said. "It is also an intentional interference with Gett's business which makes them liable for money damages."
- 67726e 13y agoExcept the incident occurred in New York state and they consulted someone about California state law? I'd guess most states have similar laws so it is a bit of a moot point.
- Pxtl 13y agoWell, I assume they only had a California lawyer handy and he could only speak to California's laws for reference.
- pmorici 13y agoIt's interesting that all these ride services are so aggressive about recruiting drivers. I looked into driving for them to make a few extra bucks and the one thing they could do to get a leg up on their competition is clarify the insurance situation. They all essentially claim that a driver's personal auto insurance is good enough and combined with the companies umbrella policy provides sufficient coverage. But then if you go and read their fine print that really isn't the case and if you were to be involved in an accident while driving for them there is a good chance no insurance would cover damage to yourself as the driver or your car.
- jellicle 13y agoI would make a 99% bet that your personal auto insurance explicitly denies covering you if you are driving a vehicle for money.
- pmorici 13y agoI'd make a 100% bet. These services try to muddy the waters though from what would otherwise be clear cut. Lyft for example brands themselves as a "friends giving friends" rides type of arrangement and they call the money exchanged a "donation" so they tell drivers, "who is your insurance company to say you can't do that"! Uber acts like personal insurance will cover it as well if you are an UberX driver but then in the fine print it says it is the drivers responsibility to confirm driving for a "P2P" ride service is ok with their insurance company. Of course if you call any of the major insurance carriers and ask them they will tell you, "hell no that isn't covered". If you look at the taxi insurance market it is made up of a bunch of dinky little companies no one has ever heard of or in some cases taxi's are insured by quasi government insurers of last resort or by verifying you have the minimum insurance requirement on hand in cash. None of these options is cheap so it isn't surprising that ride sharing services would want to avoid them because they would have to end up paying the drivers a lot more and they would no longer be 30% cheaper than taxi's
- Avitas 13y agoAnyone driving for Uber should not use their personal vehicle until they receive a signed copy of Uber's ACORD certificate with: 1) Checked "Automotive Liability" section 2) One or more of the following checked boxes underneath the "Automotive Liability": - "Any Autos" - "Hired Autos" - "Non-Owned Autos" 3) Your name listed as a "named insured" in the "CERTIFICATE HOLDER" area at the bottom
- blackdogie 13y agoIn a world where you generally only get one chance with a new customer, I wonder how many people decided not to use Gett because there wasn't availability at the time that they wanted to try it. As much as I love über I think these tactics aren't going to win them fans. Competition in the market should be a good thing, right ?
- leephillips 13y agoJust this morning there was a story on NPR about how Uber has price-gouging built into their system: during a snowstorm you may pay something like 5x the normal fare.
- mjhoy 13y agoI don't know the specifics of that story, or whether they actually have built the factor of 5X into their system, but note that some "price-gouging" is simply built into the system of supply and demand. If drivers are more scarce during bad weather, it's natural (in some sense) that the price would rise. Here's another NPR story about price gouging: http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2012/10/29/163861383/why-economists-love-price-gouging-and-why-its-so-rare http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2012/10/29/163861383/why-econ...
- smoyer 13y agoIf you're going to call it "price-gouging", let's at least admit it's a natural part of business. Take a look at hotel rates when there's a near-by convention, air-line ticket prices over the Christmas holidays or even the prices quoted by corporate sales at businesses like Cisco, Oracle, etc. There's not a law that says you have to charge everyone the same rate - just that you can't base it on certain types of discrimination. Note: I'm okay with calling all those practices "price-gouging".
- leephillips 13y agoIt's not my term, it's defined by the statutes of many states, including NY: http://codes.lp.findlaw.com/nycode/GBS/26/396-r http://codes.lp.findlaw.com/nycode/GBS/26/396-r The idea is that jacking up prices to take advantage of adverse conditions or emergencies is not the same as normal supply-and-demand based pricing in response to seasonal variations, etc. I don't know if Uber's practice fits the definition in the statute or if they're being investigated for it.
- smoyer 13y agoUber has stated that their pricing is based on the number of people requesting rides (within some time slot if I remember correctly). So a snow storm might be deemed a natural disaster, but it might also lead to more people requesting rides (also triggering the price increases). Yes, if there's not an increased demand during that snow-storm but they're caught with 5X prices, I think they'll be in trouble under those "price-gouging" laws.
- RockyMcNuts 13y agoOne man's dirty tricks is another man's free market - http://pando.com/2012/10/24/travis-shrugged/ http://pando.com/2012/10/24/travis-shrugged/ Who needs pesky Taxi and Limousine Commission busybodies to ensure people aren't arbitrarily blacklisted from being able to call a cab?
- saosebastiao 13y agoBut who will watch the watchers?
- icebraining 13y agoNo one; higher fees due to state-enforced limited supply are more than enough to keep the poor from riding taxis. "Nearly half of [NYC taxi] passengers have a household income of $100,000 or more a year." (2014 Taxicab Fact Book)
- damon_c 13y agoI don't have an article to cite at this moment but one positive outcome of past cab fare hikes is that total subway ridership increased. Higher ridership spreads the cost and reduces the rate subway fare increases. Overall, keeping cabs expensive is probably a net benefit to the overall city transportation/livability ecosystem.
- jellicle 13y agoThat's why Uber came along, the service for the common man, dedicated to reducing the price of taxis. Right?
- icebraining 13y agoI'm not defending Uber.
- potatolicious 13y agoI'm not sure if that fact implies what you think it implies. There are many effects in NYC in particular that keep the poor from riding taxis: - A highly effective and heavily taxpayer-supported mass transit system (aka the subway) that gets people around marginally slower than taxis, and actually faster than taxis during peak hours. Rides are $2.50, less when purchased in bulk. - A restricted supply of taxis has meant supply concentrates in the southern portion of Manhattan where fares are frequent and relatively short (maximizing profitability as there is a $3.50 meter drop immediately when taking a new passenger). Taxi drivers strongly avoid areas where fares are less frequent, and rides are longer - and surprise, that's where poor people are. These have nothing to do with higher fees - enforced supply has resulted in lack of taxi availability to the poor, but not because of high fees. Cab drivers are incentivized to min-max their fares, regardless of how much their medallions cost. There is actually a program out right now: boro taxis, which are only allowed to operate in the outer boroughs - away from the wealthy parts of Manhattan. This program was specifically started to offset the supply crowding and allow people in more far-flung neighborhoods (read: poorer) accessibility to cabs. They charge the same rates as every other taxi in the city.
- hristov 13y agoThat is not only morally wrong but it is flat out stupid. Uber is the leading firm in a growing market with network effects. They should be worried about growing as fast as possible first and above all and not about competition. The network effects will take care of the competition. The worst thing a company in a leadership position like Uber can do is take actions that acknowledge their competition. Even if they are trying to screw over their competition they are doing them a big favor by acknowledging them. It seems that Uber may lose their first mover's advantage by their greed and small mindedness.
- carleverett 13y agoI had not heard of Gett before this story.
- maxbrown 13y agoRight? This is the best part of the story...that their actions were what made me aware of their competitor.
- amirmc 13y ago> "... their actions were what made me aware ..." Point of pedantry: You're aware because someone wrote an article and someone else posted it here. I wonder how many other locations have tried similar tactics but not been widely exposed.
- differentView 13y agoHe is aware because of all those things, including his brain processing the words he read, but the only thing controlled by Uber is their actions.
- mmanfrin 13y agoHe is also aware because he owns a computer, has access to the internet, is in a profession or hobby that led him to this site, is in a specific place where he thought to check this site. At a certain point, you go overboard with pedantry.
- newisland 13y agowhy Gett can't sue Uber in this case ?
- colinbartlett 13y agoI love the doublespeak in the statement: "Our local teams can be pretty determined when spreading the word about Uber and how our platform opens up new economic opportunities for drivers" "opens up new economic opportunities" is that what we are calling "sales" now?
- freehunter 13y agoTo me it says they open new economic opportunities by bringing black car service to the masses and fairly cheaply (I compared Uber to a cab for a trip I'm taking soon, UberX was much cheaper). AFAIK, black car services weren't very accessible by the public not that long ago. Services like Uber or Gett let the drivers make money in a new way, which sounds about spot on to me.
- eridius 13y ago"opens up new economic opportunities for drivers". It's not sales. It's part-time job openings. Their phrasing sounds about right.
- chadwickthebold 13y agoAt least he didn't call it growth hacking.
- JonFish85 13y agoI'm sure it's not a popular opinion, but when Uber itself is a business that seems to exist on the border of legality, this type of stuff isn't that much of a surprise to me. Uber et al. specifically skirt around regulations that cab companies have to abide by, which, at least in my opinion, sets the tone at the top that legality and ethics are somewhat secondary to the mission of the company. IMPORTANT: I've used Uber, and the experience has been great. All I'm saying is that I don't love the cavalier attitude towards city regulations on taxis, and that I think that attitude flows down the chain.
- theorique 13y agoThat's the way startups work - you have to move fast, break stuff, work on the edge of the rules, and disrupt the stagnant markets, man.
- ajju 13y agoI think it is important to draw a distinction between challenging local regulations like million dollar medallions that hurt both drivers and riders and laws that prevent companies from hurting their competitors to steal their supply, the way it happened here. There are many companies challenging the first kind of regulation that wouldn't indulge in the breaking the second kind of law. Disclaimer: I started one of them - InstantCab, which competes directly with Uber and Gett.
- aestra 13y ago>million dollar medallions As far as I understand, the only thing that medallions offer as an advantage in New York City (where they cost a million dollars) is the ability to pick up people who hail a cab off the street. Other car services exist for prearranged rides, and are called car services, not taxis.
- Gorbzel 13y agoLots of bantering about whether or not it's ethical / low. tl;dr: It probably is; Travis probably doesn't care. Honestly, since all that really matters to Uber is $$ and being forced to deal with the law (and even then only barely), Gett should just sue them. It's clearly illegal (putting aside differences between NY/CA law) and it proves the point in a way they'll be forced to notice.
- eridius 13y agoIs it actually illegal? That seems to be very much a question, not a matter of fact. It's obvious Uber was not intentionally trying to disrupt Gett's business. They were trying to harvest driver phone #s (so they could later try to hire away the drivers; while ethically dubious, this part does not seem illegal). Furthermore, they paid cancellation fees to Gett for doing this. It does not seem clear-cut to me at all that you could label this as fraud, which I believe is the only way to claim this is illegal.
- diminoten 13y agoDoes intent matter all that much when seeking damages like this? The damages happened, and Uber admitted to being the cause of the damages. If the law weren't some complex beast (and we know it really is, so this could be false), all Gett would have to do is prove damages, and prove that Uber did it, and that'd be that.
- eridius 13y agoCan Gett actually prove there were any damages at all? Not only was Uber paying cancellation fees, but unless Gett can prove that this caused at least one "real" Gett customer to not be able to book a ride, then it's hard to say that there actually were damages.
- diminoten 13y agoI agree, that's the real question here, not, "Did Uber mean to hurt Gett?"
- tlrobinson 13y agoA friend who works at a different Uber competitor is banned from using Uber. I think now I know why...
- k-mcgrady 13y agoReally scummy behaviour. Warrants a much stronger response than: ""Our local teams can be pretty determined when spreading the word about Uber and how our platform opens up new economic opportunities for drivers," Uber said in a statement. "In this instance, the New York City team was a bit too ambitious and we'll make sure they tone down their sales tactics.""
- abhigupta 13y agoIf Gett isn't taking legal action against Uber, then this just sounds like a good marketing ploy to get attention.
- kinsho3 13y agoWhat a dirty act. It's unfortunate that these type of tactics likely do succeed and furthermore go unpunished. But that's the cutthroat nature of business in today's world. So I guess I say this with a disgusted sense of admiration - kudos to them for figuring out a new way to beat the competition.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- techreporter 13y agoWow. The fact that this is being done in other cities, with two other competitors, and that they have names for this tactic shows that this is a company wide pattern at Uber rather than something the entire Uber New York team just thought up one day. It is hard for something this unethical, and almost certainly illegal, to happen at several major Uber offices against at least three different competitors, and have its own name -without it being the company culture.
- eridius 13y agoReally? This seems to be a pretty obvious tactic, I have no difficulty at all believing that the New York and Boston offices independently came up with it. And what does the number of competitors have to do with anything at all? If you're going to pull this tactic against one, you may as well pull it against all of them. New user (green name), named "techreporter", posting an intentionally inflamatory accusation ("directive from the top") about Uber. What's your game?
- techreporter 13y agoI am a reporter as the username suggests and quite open about it. Every comment you have posted defends Uber and not just on this issue but others as well. What's yours? Having worked for a few years doing what I do, I have learned that people don't make up amusing names for unethical practices and share them in humorous conversations with acquaintances unless it's the company culture. Having said that, you are right. Company culture doesn't ALWAYS come as a directive from the top, even though other comments by Uber's founder in the past point in that direction. So I have edited my comment.
- eridius 13y ago> Every comment you have posted defends Uber and not just on this issue but others as well Every comment on this thread. This thread about Uber. So yeah, every comment's gonna be about Uber. And as a long-term commenter and bystander with no skin in the game, I don't have to have a game. But, as you've pointed out, you're a tech reporter, so you presumably are angling for something, probably some story hook. In any case, I'm defending Uber because I think a lot of things are being said that are not fair or accurate. You'll note that I have not tried to defend the actual practice of harvesting phone numbers from Gett. I think that's pretty bad, as well as whatever the Boston office is doing with their cute names. But people in this thread are rather intent on talking about other things, such as the new years eve accident (wherein Uber behaved acceptably as far as I can tell). As for company culture, the cute names were from the Boston office. pain_perdu did not say these names are used across the entire company. It's certainly possible, but from that one anecdote all I can say is that some people (heck, maybe even just the one person that pain_perdu knows) uses these names. There's nothing to indicate there's a company-wide culture of this sort of thing. Although, to be honest, given what I've read about the CEO of Uber, I wouldn't be terribly surprised if the names are used elsewhere. But I don't see why we need to excoriate Uber over an assumption that hasn't been verified. I prefer to assume the best and not the worst.
- scelerat 13y agoThis is one of the reasons traditional cab services are heavily regulated: to avoid these sorts of battles. It's in the interest of a municipality to have stable, predictable, reliable public transportation. Price wars, selective service, and tactics like these disrupt that stability.
- johnrob 13y agoOne benefit of removing regulations is that we get to relearn why we needed them in the first place.
- prodigal_erik 13y agoUber mostly found traction in SF where they started because regulation did not deliver reliable transportation. Street hails mostly worked if you could find one and didn't need them to accept a credit card, but if you called a cab company for a ride, you could easily waste an hour waiting for a cab that never shows up at all.
- pshin45 13y agoGett probably should sue Uber, but what sucks is they (Gett) would have to divert precious money, time, and resources to fight a much bigger company with deeper products and better lawyers, which takes focus away from product and growth, which decreases their probability of success long-term. Very shitty, lose-lose situation for Gett. The fact that they got "free PR" out of this CNN article is probably small consolation.
- jacquesc 13y agoI almost remember when Uber was the good guy. Stories like this keep popping up everywhere. It's a competitive market, but there's better ways to grow than attacking competitors and banning developers (earlier story) who try to do interesting things to extend your service.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- mattmcknight 13y agoI think there is an interesting contrast between this recruiting approach and the Google/Apple/Intel/Intuit non-recruiting agreements people were complaining about yesterday. Yet here, the weight of opinion is on the other side, while I see them as roughly equivalent.
- jjh42 13y agoI don't thin the issue is Uber recruiting drivers. The issue is DOSing their competitor to do so.
- mattmcknight 13y agoYes, the lawyer mixed in the bonus offer into the complaint, but that would appear to be a good thing for drivers, if not for Gett. I guess the question is whether sending requests and cancellations to 100 different drivers over 3 days (about 33 different drivers per day, maybe 4-5 per hour in a workday) really constitutes a denial of service. It seems exaggerated, but it is working as Gett is getting attention. Definitely a bad idea though.
- bowlofpetunias 13y agoI'm sure it was a "local" decision, but from everything I read and hear, lack of ethics is part of Uber's DNA as much as lack of hierarchy is part of Steam's or Github's. Calling it "a bit too ambitious" is just further proof of Uber's structural lack of values.
- johnobrien1010 13y ago"Gould's railroads began to cut down Western Union connections and replace them with American Union's. (This was pure vandalism, and directly violated the 'no exclusivity' court decision Gould had celebrated.)" - p. 146, The Tycoons, Charles R. Morris, ISBN:1429935022
- JohnTHaller 13y agoJust thinking out loud, but couldn't this be interpreted as falling under that nebulous 'unauthorized access of a computer system' law?
- brianmcdonough 13y agoDear Uber, I guess I shouldn't have expected much from a company that was founded on the principle of giving their customers the experience of being a baller. I only wanted a consistent and yes boring, non-baller experience. I'll be looking to find a boring company that just shows up, doesn't try and and cheat me during peak period and has respect for other organizations. I once loved you, but now I'm leaving you. Sincerely, Brian McDonough
- jaredsohn 13y agoSome of what you wrote is unfair to Uber. >I only wanted a consistent and yes boring, non-baller experience. You can use the Uber app to get cabs or lower cost UberX. UberX is actually cheaper than most cabs while providing the convenience of ordering electronically, knowing roughly how long to wait, and paying electronically (with receipts.) >doesn't try and and cheat me during peak period There have been some interesting discussion about this on Travis Kalanick's Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/traviskal?fref=ts https://www.facebook.com/traviskal?fref=ts, December 24, 2013) which basically say that the alternative to surge pricing would be not being able to get a ride at all. Some people on that thread suggested that the Uber client could be improved to let people get notified when the rate goes back down and other UX improvements and Travis said the team would consider those changes.
- jonathanmarcus 13y agoSeems like the offline equivalent of a misguided 'Growth Hack' gone wrong.
- rdl 13y agoThis makes me really angry as a happy Uber customer. I wish there were a way to express my displeasure to Uber without having to give up a great car-on-demand service.