Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Uber rival accuses car service of dirty tactics

money.cnn.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

151–160 of 218 posts

Re: Uber rival accuses car service of dirty tactics

#151

Post by xux »

potatolicious wrote: post #137
xux wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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. Sounds like downplaying success to me. Everything is obvious once it's done.

You're reading dismissiveness into my post that was not intended. Uber has done something remarkable, but it is not so novel as to justify calling everyone doing the same thing a "clone". Not to mention Uber is not the first GPS-based car-hailing app. They were the first ones that were able to gain mass traction - which is an achievement in and of itself, to be certain, but also makes claims that "X cloned Uber" some…

But it's precisely because Uber was able to get such traction, that other companies followed into the field. Lyft and Gettit may not be "clones", but I'd wager the followed the industry leader (Uber) in the the field.

Gettit is as much a clone of Uber as Androids a clone of iPhone. Not an exact copy, but probably wouldn't be existing without the other paving the path.

Re: Uber rival accuses car service of dirty tactics

#152

Post by shadowfox »

pmorici wrote: post #6
sp332 wrote: post #4

Order 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.

Because 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.

Could it be because Uber is a CA company? I don't know how the jurisdictions are supposed to work though.

Re: Uber rival accuses car service of dirty tactics

#153

Post by eridius »

techreporter wrote: post #140
eridius wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really? 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 ("di…

I 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…

> 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.

Re: Uber rival accuses car service of dirty tactics

#154

Post by eridius »

doktrin wrote: post #149
eridius wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is 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 t…

> It's obvious Uber was not intentionally trying to disrupt Gett's business. That's certainly Uber's stance, but it's not "obvious" at all : > [OP] "In some cases, Herman said the Uber employees waited until the cars had showed up to cancel the order. Uber said the orders were all canceled immediately." Deliberately waiting until the last minute to cancel a ride would certainly indicate intent to disrupt. That Uber i…

> Deliberately waiting until the last minute to cancel a ride would certainly indicate intent to disrupt.

Sure, if they actually did that. At the moment this just seems to be Gett's word against Uber's, and since doing that would not in any way aid Uber's goal of harvesting phone numbers, I'm not inclined to believe Gett just on their word. The most benign explanation is that the drivers simply didn't check their phone to see that it was cancelled until they'd arrived at the address.

Re: Uber rival accuses car service of dirty tactics

#155

Post by eridius »

diminoten wrote: post #144
eridius wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is 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 t…

Does 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.

Can 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.

Re: Uber rival accuses car service of dirty tactics

#156

Post by debt »

potatolicious wrote: post #11

Wow. 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.

You hire a sales team to sell your product. They're the least invested in the overall business, they have the highest turnover rate of any other department. Typically, they're young, inexperienced, right out of college. Typically, this isn't their only job. Most care less about the overall viability of the company or the company image then they do about making a sale and a commission.

The balance between sales and the long-term vision of a business is hard. You need people that are driven but are interested in sticking it out. Sales has a high-level of burn out so it's hard to get someone driven and interested in staying long-term at a company.

This Uber thing is salespeople doing whatever it takes to get that commission. Uber maybe needs to reinvent their sales incentive structure the same way they've reinvented ridesharing.

Re: Uber rival accuses car service of dirty tactics

#157

Post by mattmcknight »

I 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.

Re: Uber rival accuses car service of dirty tactics

#158

Post by epipsychidion »

redthrowaway wrote: post #96
yapcguy wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you read their statement? They were more worried about being associated with the accident than the accident itself. Lots of weasel words and excuses in trying to claim that the driver didn't work for them, or that the driver wasn't active or doing a trip. If I worked for Uber, I would have posted something simple and left it at that e.g. "We have been informed by law enforcement that there has been a traffic acci…

Just to play devil's advocate, would you apply the same standard to Musk's handling of the Tesla fires? His primary concern there seemed to be to disavow responsibility and blame the driver. While it's true that the fires were driver error, that doesn't change how combative he is about criticism (see: top gear).

No one died/was seriously injured in the Tesla fires. That makes it a completely different situation.

Re: Uber rival accuses car service of dirty tactics

#159

Post by eridius »

avalaunch wrote: post #124
eridius wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's pretty clear they were doing this to harvest phone numbers of drivers (why does Gett give out their drivers' phone numbers?) rather than any attempt to actually disrupt Gett's business. I would be rather hesitant to call this "fraud", as that's a very serious allegation.

They were booking rides without the intent of actually taking or paying for those rides. How is that not fraud? The fact that they were doing it to mine for phone numbers doesn't make it less fraudulent. That'd be like saying it's ok to order a bunch of pizzas from Pizza Hut without the intent of paying for them because you were simply trying to figure out who the drivers are.

They're paying cancellation fees. If I order a bunch of pizzas from Pizza Hut in order to find out who the drivers were, and paid for them, then there's no issue. Even though I don't intend on eating the pizzas, I still paid for the service. In this case, Uber is paying the cancellation fees for the privilege of booking, then cancelling, a Gett ride.

Re: Uber rival accuses car service of dirty tactics

#160

Post by diminoten »

eridius wrote: post #155
diminoten wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does 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.

Can 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.

I agree, that's the real question here, not, "Did Uber mean to hurt Gett?"
Post reply on HN