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Interesting story, but I think it was a bit unfair to Uber. I'm glad this guy was made whole, but I'm not sure Uber's reluctance to paying you 4000 dollars beca

by hsod 9y ago

Interesting story, but I think it was a bit unfair to Uber. I'm glad this guy was made whole, but I'm not sure Uber's reluctance to paying you 4000 dollars because a driver stole your backpack qualifies as corruption. From what I can tell, the worst thing Uber did was not be sufficiently cooperative with the police investigation. This part of the narrative is extremely muddled and unclear, so it's hard to take a strong position on their behavior here.

mchanson 9y ago
When one of your customers accuses one of your agents of stealing > $1,000 of stuff from them you should get to the bottom of it. Anything else is poor customer service and apparently also enough to get a magistrate to rule them liable for the theft.
- FireBeyond 9y ago
  Oh no, that's not the Uber way. They're not agents, they're independent contractors and the Uber rep said in court "we have absolutely no control over what they do, and no responsibility for what they do"...
  - Chronos 9y ago
    Which is a blatant lie, or else Uber wouldn't bother with the expense of driver background checks and the like.
EnFinlay 9y ago
The narrative around that is crystal clear. He filed a police report, and when the police went to Uber they gave incorrect information. They cooperated exactly like an accomplice giving a false alibi, actually.
- hsod 9y ago
  Is it? "It was later asserted that they reached out to the police detective to clear this up. They found the information and tried to contact the detective with all the information." "If you are curious as to when this happened, it was April 9th. Uber did everything in their power to make the investigation successful and cooperate with the detective, on April 9th, 2017, four months after the incident. They also only reached out to the detective with the correct information once they were caught obstructing the investigation." How exactly did Uber obstruct the investigation? What incorrect information did they give? Maybe I'm thick, but it's not clear to me at all from the article.
  - FireBeyond 9y ago
    Because it meant that the narrative at the first trial was that he was making it up. "Awfully fishy how you have all this evidence of the existence of something and then it was immediately stolen", "and we don't even have a record of a trip or driver matching that". Which lead to them only being found 50% liable the first time.
    - hsod 9y ago
      That's not true at all, in the narrative of the first trial the author makes it very clear that Uber did not deny that the trip or theft happened: "The one good thing that he did was he did not deny the contents or existence of my backpack." "One point the Uber rep gave was that I should have heard the car driving away and chased after him." "The Uber representative said that their drivers are independent contractors and as such, they are not responsible for making sure that they respond to any phone calls, and actually had zero control over what they do." "Uber said that the driver had a good standing, but was very evasive when asked if he had taken any more trips that night. The Clerk made him answer that there was only one more ride given. This alluded to the possibility that the other passenger could have taken the bag from the backseat."
      - jldugger 9y ago
        Wonder if the other passenger was also stolen from, which would have led Uber to amend a report after the hearing.
zer00eyz 9y ago
FTA: What Uber told the police. "The Uber department responded that they had no record of a trip from the vehicle with that license plate on December 5th, 2016, just after 11 PM, and the driver had not driven with them for 2 years." "Sufficiently cooperative" (per you) and outright lying are two very different things. FTA: "Why would Uber not have the information on the driver for the police? Uber asserted that they don’t have the ability to look up the drive information of my trip with the information provided (license plate, car make and model, name of driver, time and date of trip, and pickup and drop off location of trip) as it was a violation of privacy. " Uhhh... what? It violates privacy? Your either complying with the police or you aren't. "There was no warrant" would have been an OK answer, but that wasn't what they said. They aren't being muddled or unclear here, they are literally avoiding giving answers that would make them look bad. Maybe if they had been more honest and responsive the items could have been recovered rather than the blame falling on Uber.
- spike021 9y ago
  >"The Uber department responded that they had no record of a trip from the vehicle with that license plate [...]" This kind of thing worries me a bit. This past week I've taken two Lyfts where the license plate provided in the app didn't match what the driver was actually using. One of my drivers claimed they had just gotten a new car, but that's a bit odd to me since when I bought a new car it took several weeks to get my license plate. So there should be ample time for a good driver to ensure their record is up to date.
  - donatj 9y ago
    I've bought cars that came with plates and I've bought cars where they had to mail them to me. I think it varies.
    - spike021 9y ago
      True. It's just a bit odd to me that the driver wouldn't think to update the plate number in the app, or that uber/lyft would be so slow to update it. I doubt it's a human in the cloud who sees a notification that a driver would like to update their plate number and then adds it to a queue to work on.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
strathmeyer 9y ago
What's funny is the poster is upset Uber wouldn't give up the information when simply asked for when that is just how the world works, you can't get a judge to look at your evidence unless you hire an expensive lawyer. It was an ok guide on what to do but the blame game is just strange.
- PhasmaFelis 9y ago
  Can we please stop excusing corruption and incompetence with "that's how the world works"? It only works that way because we let people get away with it. Giving the runaround to a paying customer who was robbed by one of your employees is not any kind of good business practice.
PhasmaFelis 9y ago
> I'm not sure Uber's reluctance to paying you 4000 dollars because a driver stole your backpack qualifies as corruption. I honestly can't imagine what else you would call it, except maybe "belligerent incompetence".
ookblah 9y ago
"the worst thing Uber did was not be sufficiently cooperative with the police investigation." Lol, as if that's acceptable for any company in an investigation. I'm not sure if you're playing coy, but your words are trying to insert doubt into his story when there really is none. They blatantly tried to make this guys life much more difficult than it needed to be and their track record has shown they really have a culture of not caring about this stuff no matter the "narrative". Quite frankly, I'm surprised this comment was voted to the top.
drunken-serval 9y ago
They were found 100% liable only after they were discovered obstructing the police investigation.
jmcdiesel 9y ago
I dont think its unfair at all. If uber profits from the trip, they should be ensuring the safety of the trip and passengers, end of story. If uber were a non-profit that simply matched drivers to riders, it would be different, but they are making profit... that makes it a little more on them to handle stuff like this. If a contractor for a public utility like a phone company comes in your house on a repair call for said phone company and pisses all over your couch and takes a dump in your fish tank, do you think that the phone company has no liability for setting up the whole thing and sending someone like that into your house?
skinnymuch 9y ago
I'm all for being cynical and weary of mob hating. However, the article shows many times Uber is not trying to do anything. The driver seemingly didn't get reprimanded or properly investigated by Uber. We don't know this for sure, but based on what went down, this seems to be the case. Uber lied to the police. Uber tried to turn it around against the victim for having so much evidence. When the victim was incredibly lucky to have a few of his evidence items (like photo on plane and security camera). The victim (and police) were never able to get in contact with the driver. Shouldn't Uber have some sort of way for a customer of a driver to get into contact with said driver? The current way made it far too easy for the driver to get away with robbing the victim. This is possibly most damning against Uber -- they don't seem to be doing anything to change things. Perhaps they are. Changes don't happen overnight and they don't have to be transparent if they are trying to better things. So I'll definitely be humbled and retract my assumptions that Uber isn't trying to better things if they do in the coming months.
- vkou 9y ago
  > The driver seemingly didn't get reprimanded or properly investigated by Uber. Sure he did. He got a 1-star rating - surely this will weed out the bad agents from the system.
  - skinnymuch 9y ago
    Yeah the victim would surely give a 1 star. But I was basing what I said on when the article said: > Uber said that the driver had a good standing They could've been lying of course.
- rustid 9y ago
  In court they said the driver was with them in good standing.
  - skinnymuch 9y ago
    Yeah that's why I said the driver seemingly didn't get any sort of reprimanding or negativity from Uber. I used seemingly because Uber lied to the cops. Can't rule out they won't lie in small claims court.
StreamBright 9y ago
uber could have gotten much worse if they were charged with obstruction of justice. Their employee accused the victim of trying to play a scam on them (why do you have a picture of yourself etc.). How do you classify this behaviour?

by hsod 9y ago

mchanson 9y ago

When one of your customers accuses one of your agents of stealing > $1,000 of stuff from them you should get to the bottom of it. Anything else is poor customer service and apparently also enough to get a magistrate to rule them liable for the theft.

FireBeyond 9y ago
Oh no, that's not the Uber way. They're not agents, they're independent contractors and the Uber rep said in court "we have absolutely no control over what they do, and no responsibility for what they do"...
- Chronos 9y ago
  Which is a blatant lie, or else Uber wouldn't bother with the expense of driver background checks and the like.

EnFinlay 9y ago

The narrative around that is crystal clear. He filed a police report, and when the police went to Uber they gave incorrect information. They cooperated exactly like an accomplice giving a false alibi, actually.

hsod 9y ago
Is it? "It was later asserted that they reached out to the police detective to clear this up. They found the information and tried to contact the detective with all the information." "If you are curious as to when this happened, it was April 9th. Uber did everything in their power to make the investigation successful and cooperate with the detective, on April 9th, 2017, four months after the incident. They also only reached out to the detective with the correct information once they were caught obstructing the investigation." How exactly did Uber obstruct the investigation? What incorrect information did they give? Maybe I'm thick, but it's not clear to me at all from the article.
- FireBeyond 9y ago
  Because it meant that the narrative at the first trial was that he was making it up. "Awfully fishy how you have all this evidence of the existence of something and then it was immediately stolen", "and we don't even have a record of a trip or driver matching that". Which lead to them only being found 50% liable the first time.
  - hsod 9y ago
    That's not true at all, in the narrative of the first trial the author makes it very clear that Uber did not deny that the trip or theft happened: "The one good thing that he did was he did not deny the contents or existence of my backpack." "One point the Uber rep gave was that I should have heard the car driving away and chased after him." "The Uber representative said that their drivers are independent contractors and as such, they are not responsible for making sure that they respond to any phone calls, and actually had zero control over what they do." "Uber said that the driver had a good standing, but was very evasive when asked if he had taken any more trips that night. The Clerk made him answer that there was only one more ride given. This alluded to the possibility that the other passenger could have taken the bag from the backseat."
    - jldugger 9y ago
      Wonder if the other passenger was also stolen from, which would have led Uber to amend a report after the hearing.

zer00eyz 9y ago

FTA: What Uber told the police. "The Uber department responded that they had no record of a trip from the vehicle with that license plate on December 5th, 2016, just after 11 PM, and the driver had not driven with them for 2 years." "Sufficiently cooperative" (per you) and outright lying are two very different things. FTA: "Why would Uber not have the information on the driver for the police? Uber asserted that they don’t have the ability to look up the drive information of my trip with the information provided (license plate, car make and model, name of driver, time and date of trip, and pickup and drop off location of trip) as it was a violation of privacy. " Uhhh... what? It violates privacy? Your either complying with the police or you aren't. "There was no warrant" would have been an OK answer, but that wasn't what they said. They aren't being muddled or unclear here, they are literally avoiding giving answers that would make them look bad. Maybe if they had been more honest and responsive the items could have been recovered rather than the blame falling on Uber.

spike021 9y ago
>"The Uber department responded that they had no record of a trip from the vehicle with that license plate [...]" This kind of thing worries me a bit. This past week I've taken two Lyfts where the license plate provided in the app didn't match what the driver was actually using. One of my drivers claimed they had just gotten a new car, but that's a bit odd to me since when I bought a new car it took several weeks to get my license plate. So there should be ample time for a good driver to ensure their record is up to date.
- donatj 9y ago
  I've bought cars that came with plates and I've bought cars where they had to mail them to me. I think it varies.
  - spike021 9y ago
    True. It's just a bit odd to me that the driver wouldn't think to update the plate number in the app, or that uber/lyft would be so slow to update it. I doubt it's a human in the cloud who sees a notification that a driver would like to update their plate number and then adds it to a queue to work on.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

strathmeyer 9y ago

What's funny is the poster is upset Uber wouldn't give up the information when simply asked for when that is just how the world works, you can't get a judge to look at your evidence unless you hire an expensive lawyer. It was an ok guide on what to do but the blame game is just strange.

PhasmaFelis 9y ago
Can we please stop excusing corruption and incompetence with "that's how the world works"? It only works that way because we let people get away with it. Giving the runaround to a paying customer who was robbed by one of your employees is not any kind of good business practice.

PhasmaFelis 9y ago

> I'm not sure Uber's reluctance to paying you 4000 dollars because a driver stole your backpack qualifies as corruption. I honestly can't imagine what else you would call it, except maybe "belligerent incompetence".

ookblah 9y ago

"the worst thing Uber did was not be sufficiently cooperative with the police investigation." Lol, as if that's acceptable for any company in an investigation. I'm not sure if you're playing coy, but your words are trying to insert doubt into his story when there really is none. They blatantly tried to make this guys life much more difficult than it needed to be and their track record has shown they really have a culture of not caring about this stuff no matter the "narrative". Quite frankly, I'm surprised this comment was voted to the top.

drunken-serval 9y ago

They were found 100% liable only after they were discovered obstructing the police investigation.

jmcdiesel 9y ago

I dont think its unfair at all. If uber profits from the trip, they should be ensuring the safety of the trip and passengers, end of story. If uber were a non-profit that simply matched drivers to riders, it would be different, but they are making profit... that makes it a little more on them to handle stuff like this. If a contractor for a public utility like a phone company comes in your house on a repair call for said phone company and pisses all over your couch and takes a dump in your fish tank, do you think that the phone company has no liability for setting up the whole thing and sending someone like that into your house?

skinnymuch 9y ago

I'm all for being cynical and weary of mob hating. However, the article shows many times Uber is not trying to do anything. The driver seemingly didn't get reprimanded or properly investigated by Uber. We don't know this for sure, but based on what went down, this seems to be the case. Uber lied to the police. Uber tried to turn it around against the victim for having so much evidence. When the victim was incredibly lucky to have a few of his evidence items (like photo on plane and security camera). The victim (and police) were never able to get in contact with the driver. Shouldn't Uber have some sort of way for a customer of a driver to get into contact with said driver? The current way made it far too easy for the driver to get away with robbing the victim. This is possibly most damning against Uber -- they don't seem to be doing anything to change things. Perhaps they are. Changes don't happen overnight and they don't have to be transparent if they are trying to better things. So I'll definitely be humbled and retract my assumptions that Uber isn't trying to better things if they do in the coming months.

vkou 9y ago
> The driver seemingly didn't get reprimanded or properly investigated by Uber. Sure he did. He got a 1-star rating - surely this will weed out the bad agents from the system.
- skinnymuch 9y ago
  Yeah the victim would surely give a 1 star. But I was basing what I said on when the article said: > Uber said that the driver had a good standing They could've been lying of course.
rustid 9y ago
In court they said the driver was with them in good standing.
- skinnymuch 9y ago
  Yeah that's why I said the driver seemingly didn't get any sort of reprimanding or negativity from Uber. I used seemingly because Uber lied to the cops. Can't rule out they won't lie in small claims court.

StreamBright 9y ago

uber could have gotten much worse if they were charged with obstruction of justice. Their employee accused the victim of trying to play a scam on them (why do you have a picture of yourself etc.). How do you classify this behaviour?