181–190 of 218 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I agree that they may have violated the spirit of the contract. But the contract specifically handles the case of cancelling an order (including some restitution), so I would hardly consider it fraud.
Running into the path of a moving car isn't fraud? End result is the same for when it's an accident.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
What you describe is a hoax, contrasted to fraud in that there was no intent of gain on the perpetrator's part and that no harm was caused (debatable in your example). What Uber did, and in my example, there was both intent of gain and harm. You could argue that there was no harm to Gett because of the cancellation fees, but that's only true if the cancellation fees are greater than the cost they incurred which may o…
It hinges on whether there was harm done. I strongly doubt there was harm. Or at least intentional harm. Such as if they meant to cancel immediately but didn't.
Are you a lawyer familiar with fraud related laws in New York?
IANAL. However, in the UK I suspect it would hinge on whether you gained or whether there was harm. Fraud by false representation is - IRC - defined in those sorts of terms in the Fraud Act 2006.
Point being this stuff varies and doesn't necessarily align with what we might intuit it does.
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.
I don't thin the issue is Uber recruiting drivers. The issue is DOSing their competitor to do so.
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.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
And they paid cancellation fees.
They claim they paid cancellation fees. Gett claims the charges are pending. At this point it would be stupid of them to not let those charges through though.
- p. 146, The Tycoons, Charles R. Morris, ISBN:1429935022
This type of behavior is often swept under the rug in the startup world, eg. Airbnb hijacking Craigslist: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=261024
It'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…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Each Uber user benefits when there are more Uber drivers. They can get rides faster and more conveniently. Each Uber driver benefits when there are more Uber users. They can get clients faster and closer to their current position and thus make more money with less downtime. These are the network effects. A consumer can use Uber and a competitor. This, however, is not unlike social networks, it is entirely like social…
This is not true. Users and drivers benefit when the number of drivers and the number of users are in a good enough balance, such that there are enough free drivers on the road to be able to have one near to each prospective user, but not so much as to be wasteful. But the absolute numbers of each do not matter . Adding more drivers does not benefit existing users if more users are added as well to cause those driver…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is not true. Users and drivers benefit when the number of drivers and the number of users are in a good enough balance, such that there are enough free drivers on the road to be able to have one near to each prospective user, but not so much as to be wasteful. But the absolute numbers of each do not matter . Adding more drivers does not benefit existing users if more users are added as well to cause those driver…
Even if the drivers/users ratio is constant, raw #drivers does matter, given a fixed amount of space. As you get more drivers in the same amount of space, the minimum average distance from a user to a driver decreases.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
If you order pizzas and pay for them, you're completely the transaction as expected. If you order a car from a car service and then cancel it, you're not. The fact that a cancellation fee exists doesn't give you the right to use the system in such an unintended manner. A better analogy than the pizza analogy might be a "customer" repeatedly buying clothes with the intent to wear and then return them. Despite the fact…