Uber are getting shirty

[drainbrain]

PF62 said:

You mean like I did recently. Journey involved two trains and a trip across London, so wasn't sure whether I would end up at my home town at 3pm or 4pm so couldn't book until I arrived at Kings Cross. When I knew about an hour before I needed the car, I phoned the PH firm at my home town (there is only one firm).

"sorry, can't book you a mini-cab as they are all on school runs. You will have to wait an hour or so before I an get you one".

And then the next time, booked the mini-cab two hours in advance. They were still 20 minutes late.

Never had any issue with Uber not being able to provide a car or being 20 minutes late.

"No car available" is exactly what a good ph firm should tell you. Time for an uber as a really good ph firm would tell you in that circumstance. The overspill function. (and of course you're talking London which is the one place where you should always find an uber available because they are oversupplied. That's a problem for the firm and the driver, tho, not for the passenger. It's a blessing for the passenger.

20 minutes late for a pre-booked arrangement is exactly what a crap ph firm does and has no excuses. Like any other business when pre-booked appointments are dishonoured. Base Controller should have contacted you as soon as they knew they were going to mess it up. And, as well as grovelling, offered a compensation like a free or reduced fare or a future freebie etc. Or contacted another firm and asked if they could catch it. etc etc. Absolutely not tolerated in professionally run firms which do account or airport work. Row, sanction and sacking territory.

Car provision is about supply/demand. The ph problem is never having the right number of cars you need logged on. When it's dead you've too many. When it's bouncing you've too few. Having an oversupply isn't an answer unless you're content to run unprofitably and run a revolving recruitment plan as well. As uber clearly are and do.

Uber are gradually finding their provincial niche. One part of it is catching rush hour overspill. Their way of managing that is by surge charging. Keeps drivers logged on when normal fares wouldn't entice them to stay. The interesting question is, why haven't ph firms adopted the same surge charge tactic?

Edited by drainbrain on Sunday 6th November 14:57

[hunton69]

The Mad Monk said:

I don't understand what the point is that you are trying to make?

So, Uber is a complete and utter disaster from beginning to end. Only, it isn't.

People that want to use Uber are using Uber. People that want to drive for Uber are driving for Uber.

As long as everybody is operating within the law - and they seem to be, what's your beef?

Just tell us. Instead of constantly nibbling away at this bone, what do you want them to do? Go away? That's not going to happen.

My point is that they are not operating within the law.

The operator has to accept the booking from the customer and then despatch that booking to the driver. The Uber app works by the driver accepting the booking. Legal for a Hackney carriage driver (taxi) but not a Private Hire vehicle.
The Uber app is a world wide product it was explained in great detail in a court case Toronto V Uber 2015

The second failure is that enforcement officers or the police have the right to inspect operators records at any time of the day. As an uber office is generally a PC in a Regis building that don't have that facility.

If you loose something in a Uber car good luck getting it back such as your phone. The answer from one council was you can use social media or email Uber
As an operator we have duty to provide not just a car but a service.

[p1stonhead]

Well one thing is certain and that is that the new Uber update makes the app crap and unintuitive.

You can as far as I can tell no longer call for a cab without putting in a destination. That means people can pick and choose if they want to take you somewhere. I tried to use it the other day and the wait was 15 minutes whereas normally it would be almost instant. May be something different but I think it was because people couldn't be arsed to go the way I wanted.

[Russ35]

From reading the doc from the recent employment tribunal case, there was a section that described how the system worked and it said that the driver did not get any destination info until they were at the pickup point. They were given the offer of a job and the passenger rating. If they rejected the job it was then offered to the next nearest car.


As a PH driver (not Uber), our system does something similar, you just get a message on the screen to say there is a job, you either hit OK, and you then get the details of the job, including destination, although that is only there in probably 15% of jobs. If you don't hit OK the system times you out after 10-15seconds, you are then blocked for x minutes before you can log on again.

[hunton69]

p1stonhead said:

Well one thing is certain and that is that the new Uber update makes the app crap and unintuitive.

You can as far as I can tell no longer call for a cab without putting in a destination. That means people can pick and choose if they want to take you somewhere. I tried to use it the other day and the wait was 15 minutes whereas normally it would be almost instant. May be something different but I think it was because people couldn't be arsed to go the way I wanted.

They have introduced that to comply with Licencing conditions. All private hire bookings must have Pick up and Destination details.

The councils that have issued Licences have not been arsed to check if the app actual complies with anything within the Private Hire trade.

The app was designed for the Taxi trade. Basically you can find the location of a car on your phone and electronically flagging down that car.

[BlackLabel]

"Uber loses court case to block English-language test in London"

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/mar/03...

[Legacywr]

Uber claim that, as many as 10,000 of their drivers face losing their jobs, because they can't pass the English written test... ummmm.....

[anonymous-user]

My old office in Leeds was next to Uber's regional base. And next door to us both was the English Languafe School.

Unrelated, but I remember Uber changing the fare structure with little notice to the drivers last year. It looked like an angry Islamabad outside, with about 100 gentlemen Uber drivers being egged on chanting, by a man in what looked like robes and trainers stood shouting on a veg box. Surreal worrying and amusing all at the same time. Uber had the shutters down more often after that.

[ClockworkCupcake]

janesmith1950 said:

And next door to us both was the English Languafe School.

Ironic.

[ClockworkCupcake]

Legacywr said:

Uber claim that, as many as 10,000 of their drivers face losing their jobs, because they can't pass the English written test... ummmm.....

I'm not sure that they need a high degree of written English do they? They just need acceptable spoken English in order to be able to converse with their passenger(s) and take verbal instructions. Their satnav / dispatch screen can be in their native language, and they only need to be able to read street signs and house names.

[hyphen]

Jaw dropping stuff- Don't think I will be using Uber for the foreseeable future.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-39164880

Add to this the legal case, and Uber CEO caught on hidden cam https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/feb/28...

[Jonesy23]

There have been so many bad stories from Uber over the years covering so many different things I don't think my opinion of them can possibly drop any lower.

[Smollet]

Jonesy23 said:

There have been so many bad stories from Uber over the years covering so many different things I don't think my opinion of them can possibly drop any lower.

Having a bad experience is somewhat different to hearing about one so I'll base my judgement on my experience when using them. Very good.

[bitchstewie]

From what I can work out the Uber "experience" is a nice idea, it's just unfortunate that it appears to be backed by a completely and utterly toxic corporate culture.

[jamoor]

hyphen said:

Jaw dropping stuff- Don't think I will be using Uber for the foreseeable future.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-39164880

Add to this the legal case, and Uber CEO caught on hidden cam https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/feb/28...

Certainly a far sight better than the old minicab firms.

They are trying to totally destroy an old industry that has ripped off consumers for years and gotten away with it.


They have to be really ignore the status quo no matter what to achieve it.

[ClockworkCupcake]

bhstewie said:

From what I can work out the Uber "experience" is a nice idea, it's just unfortunate that it appears to be backed by a completely and utterly toxic corporate culture.

Indeed.

[ClockworkCupcake]

My local taxi firm have embraced a lot of Uber's best features. They have a phone app, and you can make a booking with it, and the driver will drive to your location with the app giving real time updates on a map just like Uber does. Only thing lacking is you pay (and tip) the driver as normal, unless I missed something in the settings. Anyway, it's a damn sight better than phoning up for a taxi and then having no idea when it will arrive (if ever).

Edit: I should add that Uber doesn't really operate in my area. The one time I successfully got an Uber taxi was because a driver just happened to be driving past on the M3 on his way back from a Heathrow drop off.

Edited by ClockworkCupcake on Saturday 4th March 17:22

[BlackLabel]

bhstewie said:

From what I can work out the Uber "experience" is a nice idea, it's just unfortunate that it appears to be backed by a completely and utterly toxic corporate culture.

They also don't seem to be making any money.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-12-20...

[jamoor]

BlackLabel said:

They also don't seem to be making any money.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-12-20...

It's hard to make money, when every market you enter into is a legal battle.

Amazon didn't make money for years either.

[anonymous-user]

kapiteinlangzaam said:

We used Uber for the first time this weekend in Madrid.

It was brilliant.

We made 4 journeys (including to the airport) and every journey was minimum 25% cheaper than a local taxi, and was always in a lovely car.

I for one welcome the arrival of our new Uber overlords.

One can only presume that your moral compass is aligned with the very dubious "leader" of that awful organisation.

But never mind; as long as you can save a few €, all's well, eh?