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Uber Driver Tip-Hustling Schemes

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Re: Uber Driver Tip-Hustling Schemes

#661

Post by developer2 »

yladiz wrote: post #413
developer2 wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Taxi drivers in my city are notorious for, at least in my experience, attempting to swipe your credit card with Stripe on their personal cell phones. Not just for the tip, but for the entire fare. They openly commit fraud against their company by trying to steal the fare for themselves without reporting it to their company. I've refused to pay for, and reported to their company, 4 separate drivers in the past 2 years…

So it's okay to refuse to pay for a service that's already been rendered to you because they don't follow the law to the T and charge your card in a different way. Get off your moral high horse, pay for the cab fare, report the driver after, and report it to your credit card company. Unless you're a cop, you really aren't in a position to enforce a law and you're also breaking the law if you walk out of a cab without…

>> you're also breaking the law if you walk out of a cab without paying

How funny, that as I leave such a taxi, not one of these drivers have risen their voice about my refusal to pay. One of them tried to retract by pulling out the official keypad, and by then I was already exiting the car as he shrugged his indignation. They are the ones in the legal wrong, and they know it.

Re: Uber Driver Tip-Hustling Schemes

#662

Post by developer2 »

kazagistar wrote: post #491
dnautics wrote: post #414

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some answers (specifically, addressing the situation with Lyft): > When you tip, is the driver individually informed? No, not directly. Yes, indirectly. You get a ride summary at the end of the day. Backtracking who tipped what takes effort. Even so, sometimes people tip when they open their app back up (or through the email) which can present a lag... I've gotten "x tip from day y" additions to my ride summary days…

It sounds like tiping is a regressive tax against lower class "suckers".

Your comment is underrated. When rich people are not tipping, and only poor people who are in a position to understand what living off of tips means does such, something is wrong. The process of tipping is practically equivalent to playing the lottery - a huge majority of people who buy lottery tickets are poor or part of the lowest segment of the middle class.

Frankly, I just don't understand tipping. I still tip better than most people (20-30%) because I can afford it and know that their employer is fucking them over big time. Were I a millionaire, I'd probably stop tipping altogether as a sign of protest. It's strange how we justify either side of the coin.

Re: Uber Driver Tip-Hustling Schemes

#663

Post by wpietri »

r00fus wrote: post #289
wpietri wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Huh. I use Flywheel, and it has tipping with a default tip. You can change it during or at the end of the ride if you want, but if you do nothing, it sticks with whatever you picked as the default. I'm surprised Lyft doesn't do that.

I'm always a little miffed at "default" tipping (e.g. Doordash). I feel that if I don't tip, my driver may be less than courteous. I have no idea if they know they're being tipped or not. I like Lyft's model where the driver doesn't know how much you tipped, but knows how much in tips he gets at the end of the day in aggregate... it reinforces positive service while removing any friction to tip or not.

With Flywheel, you set the default, and have the option to override at the end of each ride. That seems like a good arrangement to me, as it matches how I think of it, and keeps me from accidentally forgetting.

Re: Uber Driver Tip-Hustling Schemes

#664

Post by jdormit »

sethhochberg wrote: post #243
jdormit wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here in Salt Lake I have never been asked for a tip. In general though, I've found Uber experiences to vary significantly by region. In Salt Lake, I usually sit in the front seat, drivers are chatty, and the whole thing feels like "someone giving you a ride". In NYC, by contrast, I mostly sit in the back (a lot of the time the driver will block off the front passenger seat), drivers don't tend to talk, and the whole…

NYC requires Uber drivers to be licensed as "TLC" drivers (taxi and limousine commission) - so yeah, they are exclusively professional drivers who would usually normally be working for a car service.

Interesting! That somewhat defeats the purpose of Uber, doesn't it?

Re: Uber Driver Tip-Hustling Schemes

#665

Post by greggyb »

rhino369 wrote: post #520
grecy wrote: post #352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a non-American this is how I feel about tipping in general. It's so much easier to just pay people a decent wage, include it in the cost of things and then not have the pressure of tipping. That, and tipping is akin to having paid servants. i.e. " if you do a good job, and if I feel like it, I might give you some of my wad of cash. Or not, sucker.". (Of course, I do tip because the servers rely on it, I just don't…

>It's so much easier to just pay people a decent wage, include it in the cost of things and then not have the pressure of tipping. Yea but customers don't get to decide how much employees are paid. What would really happen is that people who normally get tips would just lose income. Their pay will probably go up, but not enough to cover it. Waitresses make much more than regular unskilled labors. Customers lose becau…

> What would really happen is that people who normally get tips would just lose income. Their pay will probably go up, but not enough to cover it. Waitresses make much more than regular unskilled labors.

This is very true. My sister and I waited tables in college and each averaged $20-$25/hour in just tips. Adding on the ~$5 wage, we each made enough to graduate with no debt (we both went to a state university). We did not work at very high end restaurants (we each worked at the same two at the same time).

If our employers decided to go no-tip, we would have very quickly quit and found new positions, because there's no way our employers would have paid waitstaff $20+/hr. No-tip would be a pay decrease for most of the waitstaff I've known.

Re: Uber Driver Tip-Hustling Schemes

#666

Post by greggyb »

taneq wrote: post #78
iopq wrote: post #53

I drive Uber from time to time. I've only gotten a tip once over ~50 rides. A lot of the time the traffic conditions mean that after costs (I assume $0.40 per mile costs for mileage, gas, maintenance, etc.) my hourly is closer to $8 an hour (because after I drive for a while sometimes I need to drive a long way back as well on my own dime), which is below minimum wage. That's not including having to pick up plastic b…

Maybe you can explain something that I've never understood. I see drivers saying "driving for Uber is terrible and a waste of money". I see them saying "after expenses I'm basically working for free." But they keep doing it . They keep driving for Uber even though they know that they're basically just working for free, in order to make money for Uber. If you take vehicle depreciation into account, you're probably not…

Taking depreciation into account is a red herring unless the car is only used for Uber driving.

There is significant utility in owning a car. So much so, in fact, that many people are willing to take on the entire cost of ownership without ever earning direct income as a result of their driving.

Re: Uber Driver Tip-Hustling Schemes

#667

Post by jrs235 »

wpietri wrote: post #280
developer2 wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Taxi drivers in my city are notorious for, at least in my experience, attempting to swipe your credit card with Stripe on their personal cell phones. Not just for the tip, but for the entire fare. They openly commit fraud against their company by trying to steal the fare for themselves without reporting it to their company. I've refused to pay for, and reported to their company, 4 separate drivers in the past 2 years…

Why do you think this is fraud? At least in SF, I'm pretty sure the standard deal is that the drivers pay for the cab regardless of what they get in fares. Cabs were a cash business for a hundred years, after all. I think the deal with credit card machines in the cabs is that the cab companies see it as a revenue source. I know cab drivers grumble about the cost of using them. It makes sense to me that Stripe is chea…

>They are likely to know it was me, and they know where I live.

Never give your actual address. Pick a house number a few down. Especially if getting picked up to go to the airport. Some rogue/criminal taxi/uber/lyft drivers will ask questions about your trip to determine if your home will be vacant and for how long to pass the info onto someone else who will come by to burglarize your house.

Re: Uber Driver Tip-Hustling Schemes

#668

Post by kelnos »

zapu wrote: post #606
kelnos wrote: post #596

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but that's still drastically different than in the US. With little exception, you're expected to pay an 18-20% tip just for the base level of service . Paying less than 15% -- even for mediocre or poor service -- is considered cheap and shameful. To compare apples to apples, in a sandwich/coffee place in the US you're still expected to tip the standard amount, even if your change from a cash payment falls short…

Thank you, I've just realized how... different (to not say "awful"...) it is in US after reading more comments here. To be honest sometimes I'm anxious when my bill ends up some number that's hard to tip from; but if I don't tip, nothing will happen.

My thanks for being polite, but I think "awful" is a perfectly reasonable and accurate term for the state of affairs here :(

Re: Uber Driver Tip-Hustling Schemes

#669

Post by developer2 »

chimeracoder wrote: post #494
lostboys67 wrote: post #450

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Until chip and pin this was thing in some uk restaurants waiter used a black (of the books) cardreader out of sight of the punter to skim your card.

They still can do that. The only difference is that they would then sell the numbers to be used online, instead of running as fraudulent card-present transactions.

At least in Canada, portable card readers are the norm. Specifically to counter fraud, you no longer expect to hand your plastic over to an employee who brings it behind the bar. They come to you with a wireless machine, and you insert your own card. It blows my mind how the U.S. is 10-15 years behind the rest of us; the technology behind "debit cards" in the U.S. compared to that of Canada and Europe is almost laughable. The refusal to perform a one-time upgrade to new tech, while continuing to absorb the costs of rampant fraud is completely senseless.

Re: Uber Driver Tip-Hustling Schemes

#670

Post by gcr »

amgin3 wrote: post #54
gcr wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whenever worker exploitation is involved (such as in this case), or when the worker materially relies on tips to stay afloat, I always try to tip. Wherever it's accepted by society, I also generally tip.

Then you are just enabling that process to continue. You are subsidizing their wages and making it seem ok for their employer to pay them peanuts. I don't tip anyone and tipping is not a common practice where I live. In fact, most people would feel insulted if you gave them a tip here.

What would you do instead? Just not tip them?
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