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FTC takes action against Uber for deceptive billing and cancellation practices

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Re: FTC takes action against Uber for deceptive billing and cancellation practices

#121

Post by HenryBemis »

dghlsakjg wrote: post #96
paxys wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who is Visa / MC / AMEX going to side with? The company that gets them hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue every year or a random account holder? It doesn't really matter who is right or wrong.

If it becomes a systemic problem, the CC companies will absolutely drop merchants or entire industries. CC companies, especially in the states, almost always favor the cardholder over the merchant.

CC companies have little choice. Laws in EU give right/priority to the customer, and the burden of proof to the company. Now, imagine pissing 1 million Europeans, and them all going to their banks and file a complaint. And Uber (or any other vendor) be hit by 1 million claims that they have to fight for one-at-a-time.

Re: FTC takes action against Uber for deceptive billing and cancellation practices

#123

Post by HenryBemis »

radicaldreamer wrote: post #84
MrDarcy wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What’s the threshold for getting banned? I’ve done a few chargebacks against Lyft since they removed all forms of customer support and haven’t gotten banned yet.

Uber is likely a lot more aggressive banning people as that’s how they operate all aspects of their business

Uber was (and I have no idea if still is) the culture-bro and rape-do-nothing-about-it company. I never forget that when they come up in discussions.

Re: FTC takes action against Uber for deceptive billing and cancellation practices

#124

Post by olyjohn »

0cf8612b2e1e wrote: post #54
reverendsteveii wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I tried that with my real card and it turns out that if you report a card lost/stolen and get a replacement behind the scenes your bank will still forward some transactions from the old card to the new one without having to update

Many years ago, I had an XBox 360 with a valid credit card attached. With a ten year+ gap of service, I then connected my account to a new Xbox. Somehow Microsoft was able to still use and charge a ten year old credit card account even though I have had many replacement cards in the intervening years.

I've had new credit / debit cards show up in the mail... and then vendors tell me they automatically updated my card info! What's the point in expiring a card if they can just get the new info automatically anyways?

Re: FTC takes action against Uber for deceptive billing and cancellation practices

#125

Post by HenryBemis »

Spooky23 wrote: post #114
bdangubic wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

though the commenter might have been obtuse to say that banned from the duopoly of ride-share services is a life-altering thing to happen is quite mad. I live in a city and have never used a ride-share service. out the pool of another dozen friends/co-workers 10 of them seldom-to-never use it (we are all in 40's / early 50's). so most definitely not "life-altering thing"

Have you ever considered that perhaps others conduct themselves differently? I live in a small city. When I travel, I generally have to be at the airport or train station between 4 and 530 AM. Uber put the taxis out of business, so the choice is Uber, Lyft, wasting a half hour and alot of money parking, or trying to find a black car service. I was in Rome for business. The choice is Uber or the local cab hailing app,…

Heh, Rome!! The meter wrote €40, the taxi driver asked for €60. He tried verbal-aggression and threatened to call the police. I took a photo of the meter and asked him to please call the police, I will show them the photo and tell them that he threatened me. He took the €40 and went his merry way.

Once upon a time (around 2005-2006) I had a colleague whose father was a taxi driver. He (the colleague) was openly telling us that every cabbie cheats. Once in a blue moon you find an honest one, or one whose cheating-meter-subsystem is broken.

Re: FTC takes action against Uber for deceptive billing and cancellation practices

#126

Post by tuesdaynight »

nradov wrote: post #118
paxys wrote: post #40

The latest dark pattern in all these apps is that they will mess up your order/ride and then "refund" you in the form of account credit. There's no way to actually get your money back. Trying to contact support results in an endless loop of help screens and chatbots. If you are able to figure out the magic combination of options that will get you to a support agent they will say "sure we will refund your money" but t…

I still can't fathom why so many customers voluntarily subject themselves to abuse by food delivery services. Overpay for cold, late food (which the driver might have already sampled). I mean I can sort of understand the use case for customers who are stuck at home due to illness or something. But I've seen plenty of young people in good health waste scarce funds on UberEats and similar services. Why? When I want tak…

The last part is the answer for your question: they just don't want to get in their car if they can pay someone else to do that job for them. It's the same reason people pay for cleaning services.

Re: FTC takes action against Uber for deceptive billing and cancellation practices

#127

Post by woodruffw »

paxys wrote: post #95
teeray wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The worst thing is that you can't even do a chargeback, otherwise you get banned. There is no recourse for the consumer. If this is their solution for fighting chargebacks, they should get banned from accepting Visa / MC / AMEX.

Who is Visa / MC / AMEX going to side with? The company that gets them hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue every year or a random account holder? It doesn't really matter who is right or wrong.

This tidily demonstrates the value of a competent regulatory authority. The payment processor (i.e. card provider) should be even more afraid of the regulator than they are of potential lost business.

Re: FTC takes action against Uber for deceptive billing and cancellation practices

#128

Post by Calavar »

Fade_Dance wrote: post #102
zippergz wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the same thing the food delivery apps (including Uber Eats) do. I have screenshots showing the estimated delivery time pretty consistently jumping up anywhere between 20% and 50% from what it shows on the initial screen to what you get once you've placed the order. And then often they don't even make that time estimate.

An accurate estimate isn't really possible with the food delivery business model. Couriers will have 2-3 orders, so if you are order 1 or two, there is a new variable that enters the equation after you purchase the food. They obviously add other items on a similar route, but wait times and such are fairly random). Of course they could do 1 order to 1 driver but that would double the labor costs (sequential orders wou…

That doesn't explain why the delivery consistently jumps 30% to 50% as soon as you hit the confirm button and they process your payment. If they were giving an honest estimate, you'd expect a gradual increase in the estimate as the delivery person showed up 2 minutes late at point A, then 5 minutes late at point B, then 10 minutes late at point C, etc.

The Uber Eats delivery time estimates are a lie, plain and simple. Once they have your money in hand, they'll shamelessly admit to the lie, which is why the estimate jumps instantaneously.

Re: FTC takes action against Uber for deceptive billing and cancellation practices

#129

Post by dkrich »

I’m bearish on uber because despite all of these shady tactics they are still barely profitable at the current scale and with enormous tailwinds. Last quarter they made $770 million on $12 billion of revenue. It’s just a lousy business model and they are desperate to beat Wall Street’s ever inflated expectations each quarter.

Re: FTC takes action against Uber for deceptive billing and cancellation practices

#130

Post by woodruffw »

rd wrote: post #92
Forgeties79 wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In a city? Cabs, busses, bikes, trains...

Don't be intentionally obtuse - even for people living in a place with public transport as encompassing as say NYC, you _need_ some form of ride-sharing service eventually in day-to-day life. Being banned from the duopoly of ride-share services is a life-altering thing to happen.

> even for people living in a place with public transport as encompassing as say NYC, you _need_ some form of ride-sharing service eventually in day-to-day life

Not really. You can say this about smaller US cities, but NYC is absolutely a city where the >90% percentile of people can live without the daily use of a car.

(The simplest reason for this has nothing do to with car ownership or desirability per se: it's because of NYC's food delivery happens by bike or moped.)

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