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Uber London loses licence to operate

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Uber London loses licence to operate

#261

Post by overcast »

FreeRadical wrote: post #143
Nursie wrote: post #40

If they can't or won't reform then excellent, let's be rid of them. I don't want to give any business to a company that are seeking to become a worldwide cab monopoly, and squirrel away any profits to the US. We have a perfectly healthy cab ecosystem in my city, app-driven and with fare competition and city regulation. Which I suppose is why Uber, though present, hasn't really taken off here. That said, talk of profi…

More UK cabs need to start allowing cars payments. Instead they use their local monopolies to force cash use and under declare taxable income.

Had a terrible experience my first trip to London with black cabs. Headed to Heathrow express, late for flight as it is, He tells me 3/4 of the trip through, no cabs accept credit. We pull up to a stop light, and a cab directly to our left, has "we accept credit" on the window. So now I'm sitting here driving around with the cab guy to find an ATM at 5am just to pay him.

Re: Uber London loses licence to operate

#262

Post by gsnedders »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #224
SamColes wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Try that at 3am and see if the cab driver cares.

Do TfL "mystery shop", they should and with confiscation of license and vehicle for malfeasants.

Yes, but their enforcement team is way too small for the number of taxis and private hires on the road for it to have much effect.

Re: Uber London loses licence to operate

#263

Post by delta1 »

cjsuk wrote: post #108
sambe wrote: post #16

When I have reported black cab drivers misleading passengers, lying about pricing and regulations or bus drivers driving dangerously and being rude to everyone, TfL are totally uninterested. They give the impression that they know the scams operate and don't care. It's an interesting comparison with my Uber experience, which has been almost flawless and issues are usually fixed by Uber themselves promptly.

Same experience here. Nothing done about a virtual mugging where the cabbie had no idea where he was going, shouted at me and told me I was a cunt because I wasn’t stupid enough to fall for it and pulled him up on it. I rounded his fee down to the nearest £10 and told him to sue me. I’ve seen black cab drivers shouting “Uber scum” and spitting in the windows of Uber drivers before. This isn’t want I and my wife wante…

> spitting in the windows of Uber drivers before

In South Africa the local metered taxis have gone as far as petrol bombing Uber drivers cars.

https://www.timeslive.co.za/news/south-africa/2017-09-07-wat...

Re: Uber London loses licence to operate

#264

Post by alexasmyths »

KyeRussell wrote: post #170
bko wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't want to give any business to a company that are seeking to become a worldwide cab monopoly You don't have to use their service

For now, sure, but you may have missed the word "monopoly". Fact is, Uber is running an unsustainable business in a lot of markets to gain market share. It's anticompetitive business practice. Free market fanboys will argue that the issue will fix itself after Uber raises prices - thus allowing more healthy competition, but this takes time. Not everyone can drive or rely on public transportation. In modern society, t…

"For now, sure, but you may have missed the word "monopoly"."

The Taxi business in every city is a 'monopoly'. Shares in this 'rent seeking entity' are bought by owning 'medallions'.

It's hypocritical that a cabal of local medallion owning rent-seekers want to attack Uber for their 'monopolistic' practices.

The cab drivers who don't own medallions aren't getting much out of it.

Uber is not a monopoly, nor has it been demonstrated that their drivers are 'more unsafe' than other drivers.

Love or loathe Uber - this is a political move - and it's scary. A government can come along and arbitrarily decide they 'don't like you because you're foreign' or whatever and ban you from doing business?

If London wants to make 'cabs outside of those holding medallions' illegal, I would disagree with it, but it would be fair at least.

It seems that there is room for competition in London in terms of taxi services.

40 000 people are going to be out of a job - let's say 1/2 are full time - that's 20 000 jobs.

Literally, a US 'startup' creates 20 000 jobs for people in London alone using tech - and the Mayor squashes it?

'We don't want jobs' is the essence of his argument.

It would seem there's quite a lot of rent-seeking in the Black-cab business if London can sustain an additional 20K full time drivers, that can't be ignored.

Re: Uber London loses licence to operate

#265

Post by cjsuk »

dx034 wrote: post #207
cjsuk wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd not sure I'd call the AL drivers professional. A number of them are complete psychopaths around the Heathrow area.

More so than cabbies or Uber drivers?

Considerably worse. Some people use them as a cab service for the local school and it's like a pinball machine.

Re: Uber London loses licence to operate

#266

Post by pbhjpbhj »

microcolonel wrote: post #250
pbhjpbhj wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some companies are happy to serve a restricted demographic, provide work for the owners and employees; you don't have to be a megalomaniac to lead a company. That seems rational, can you explain why it isn't? Some people aren't primarily motivated by power and profit.

> Some companies are happy to serve a restricted demographic Right, but whatever their target demographic is, they're still going to want to have an exclusive stake in it. I'm not saying that Taco Bell can/should seek to monopolize all food.

We have customers who go to other places for our niche services (art/craft), I don't have a problem with that. We could seek to get those customers exclusively to use our services, I just don't find a compelling reason to do so (of course I'm greedy for money, but other than that?).

Re: Uber London loses licence to operate

#268

Post by cjsuk »

delta1 wrote: post #263
cjsuk wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same experience here. Nothing done about a virtual mugging where the cabbie had no idea where he was going, shouted at me and told me I was a cunt because I wasn’t stupid enough to fall for it and pulled him up on it. I rounded his fee down to the nearest £10 and told him to sue me. I’ve seen black cab drivers shouting “Uber scum” and spitting in the windows of Uber drivers before. This isn’t want I and my wife wante…

> spitting in the windows of Uber drivers before In South Africa the local metered taxis have gone as far as petrol bombing Uber drivers cars. https://www.timeslive.co.za/news/south-africa/2017-09-07-wat...

Nothing in South Africa surprises me these days to be honest. I've had too many colleagues from that part of the world :)

Re: Uber London loses licence to operate

#269

Post by AsyncAwait »

moomin wrote: post #241
bsmithers wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>We have a perfectly healthy cab ecosystem in my city, app-driven and with fare competition and city regulation Sure, but that doesn't exist in the majority of cities. The user experience is why I use Uber.

Uber's rhetoric doesn't seem appreciably different in London from elsewhere. And yeah, I'm a Londoner, don't really feel the need for Uber to exist in my area.

In my city, especially as a disabled person, I've had vastly better experience with Uber than with regular cabs. Just being able to indicate precisely where to stop on a map is an incredible improvement for me over having to provide instructions to a cab driver who can't find the spot. Not having to deal with cash, drivers more willing to help etc. gives me a much better experience with an Uber.

Re: Uber London loses licence to operate

#270

Post by cjsuk »

dx034 wrote: post #205
cjsuk wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The option (2) happened to me many times in a row. One of the intermediate touch stations that you're supposed to whack at Highbury and Islington when you transition from tube to rail wasn't reporting or not working. This meant I got mugged every day for a week. Getting the cash out of them proved very difficult. Sure there are arcane and complex rules but the nature of those demands that the liability is on them.

You didn't get mugged. Please don't downplay muggings. Getting mugged is much worse than paying too much because of a software error. Tfl always reimburses and they pay out to any bank account, you just have to call them for the details. I can understand that it's annoying but that wasn't mugging. Did you report the faulty purple reader? Those are used by several thousand people per day, I've never seen card readers…

Mugging is a colloquial term. Yes I did report the faulty reader. The reader was reading cards and acknowledging them ergo it wasn't faulty and I was charged correctly apparently. Unfortunately this was, to use another colloquial term, bollocks.
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