Recent article from the ABC
Some Uber riders are pay up to three times the cost of their trip, with reports of drivers manipulating the system to make more money.
www.abc.net.au
Without a doubt, an interesting article, but there are a number of things that the passengers (Riders) do not know. So here goes......
As most people know, Uber states it is just an IT company that has an App they 'make available for Drivers (Partners) to utilise. Partners have 0% involvement or say in what happens, they just drive! There are occasional discussions but there is a view that little comes of it all.
Partners have to go to some expense to acquire all the relevant documents before being permitted to utilise the Uber App. Government form which means applying for a PTD and a PTV (n addition to the regular drivers licence), DOT vehicle inspection (gone up over 100% in the past few years), police check, driver infringement check, Rego goes up, Insurance goes up (Uber only covers the Rider), Medical and Eye test and most of these have to be done every year.
Late last year Uber increased the commission they take from Partners, in my case, up by 21% to 28% in one go. At the same time Uber 'reduced' the cost of fares to the Riders so the minimum fare dropped by around 50 cents. Uber said that it would encourage more people to ride with Uber and as a result, the partners would earn more. Absolute rubbish!. Partners can still only drive for the same amount of time so as a result, Partners are earning less now than they did a few years ago.
In the ABC article there is reference to fraudulent activities, such as, "deliberately increasing time and distance of a trip, accepting trip, order or delivery requests without the intention to complete, may result in loss of access to the Uber apps," the statement said. Suggesting Riders are paying up to three times the cost is a bit of a stretch. You should know that Uber monitors all trips and one of the main problems is that Uber continually 'under estimates' the time of trips. There only has to be 5-10 minutes extra driving from time to time on some of the longer trips which effectively adds up to several hours in a month and on an annual basis, full time drivers are being cheated on a considerable sum of earnings by say, 100 hours a year.
If a Partner does not accept a trip it is referred to as a 'decline' and if that happens too often, then the partner risks breaching the 15% allowance at which point the Partner loses out and is effectively punished by Uber. Possibly a safety issue here.
As for queues at the airports, I have dropped Riders off and I have seen that the queue is full EVERY time. I never waste time in queues....... it's a taxi mentality. However, when several planes land at the same time and hundreds of passengers are looking for transport, there are often not enough drivers available, hence the SURGE pricing. If you can wait 15-20 minutes that surge usually drops back to normal levels.
I don't necessarily agree with some of the antics, but driving for 12 hours a day for a living is hard work; not physically, but mentally.
