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Uber’s subprime leases put drivers on road, but leave some shackled

seattletimes.com

11–20 of 91 posts

Re: Uber’s subprime leases put drivers on road, but leave some shackled

#12

From the article..."As the video promoting the arrangement puts it: 'The best part: Payments are automatically deducted from your Uber earnings.' "

For high income earners, this is a benefit - novated leasing of cars is a popular way to reduce your tax bill.

For low income earners? I wouldn't call it a positive exactly...

Re: Uber’s subprime leases put drivers on road, but leave some shackled

#13
post #11

Hmm, sounds like a great idea, except that they should do this with cheaper, used cars. if you have bad credit, you shouldn't be buying a brand new car.

> if you have bad credit, you shouldn't be buying a brand new car.

Can you elaborate? I don't see how that follows.

Re: Uber’s subprime leases put drivers on road, but leave some shackled

#14
post #11

Hmm, sounds like a great idea, except that they should do this with cheaper, used cars. if you have bad credit, you shouldn't be buying a brand new car.

> if you have bad credit, you shouldn't be buying a brand new car. Can you elaborate? I don't see how that follows.

A brand new car might cost your 400-600/mo whereas a used car might cost your 2000usd total (5 months at 400/mo of savings). Even if you buy a piece of garbage, you could replace anything wrong with it and still come out ahead. A new car is really a stupid buy for a person with little income.

Re: Uber’s subprime leases put drivers on road, but leave some shackled

#16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> if you have bad credit, you shouldn't be buying a brand new car. Can you elaborate? I don't see how that follows.

A brand new car might cost your 400-600/mo whereas a used car might cost your 2000usd total (5 months at 400/mo of savings). Even if you buy a piece of garbage, you could replace anything wrong with it and still come out ahead. A new car is really a stupid buy for a person with little income.

But you cannot work as an Uber driver if you have "a piece of garbage", kind of defeating the whole point.

Re: Uber’s subprime leases put drivers on road, but leave some shackled

#17
post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A brand new car might cost your 400-600/mo whereas a used car might cost your 2000usd total (5 months at 400/mo of savings). Even if you buy a piece of garbage, you could replace anything wrong with it and still come out ahead. A new car is really a stupid buy for a person with little income.

But you cannot work as an Uber driver if you have "a piece of garbage", kind of defeating the whole point.

You can drive a 10 year old or older car for uber. In my area, prices are around 2000 dollars for 10 year old cars.

Re: Uber’s subprime leases put drivers on road, but leave some shackled

#18
Here is a new startup idea, UberAir: We don't do tedious things like owning planes and hedging fuel costs. On the contrary, we are all about connecting enthusiastic pilots with awesome passengers.

The pilots get a lease offer for the planes so they'll own one after 50 years. The estimated pilot salary after deducting lease payments will be $1245 per month.

We're also working on pilot-less planes. Once these are done, we'll take care of the remaining contractors by launching UberLavatory, which will lease public toilets to enthusiastic Toilet Managers.

Re: Uber’s subprime leases put drivers on road, but leave some shackled

#19
post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A brand new car might cost your 400-600/mo whereas a used car might cost your 2000usd total (5 months at 400/mo of savings). Even if you buy a piece of garbage, you could replace anything wrong with it and still come out ahead. A new car is really a stupid buy for a person with little income.

But you cannot work as an Uber driver if you have "a piece of garbage", kind of defeating the whole point.

You can find a lot of cars that are perfectly acceptable (no immediate work needed, no visible rust, does not need extensive interior cleaning) at $2k-$5k.

Re: Uber’s subprime leases put drivers on road, but leave some shackled

#20

From the article..."As the video promoting the arrangement puts it: 'The best part: Payments are automatically deducted from your Uber earnings.' "

That's going to have the same problems as the "company store" scam where you are paid in scrip. This makes moving to another employer much harder, because of the debt to the current employer (and/or their business partners).
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