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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

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.
    - donatj 9y ago
      I doubt the guy was trying to pull something over on you. I don't drive for Lyft but I feel like it's one of those small easily missed details that's very important to a small subsection of your customers and no one else cares. Having used Lyft countless times over the last few years I know I have personally never checked the checked that the plate matched.
      - spike021 9y ago
        Oh, definitely. However, usually that's the way I identify the correct driver. For instance Priuses are the more common car and sometimes it's easier to memorize the first 4 or so digits on a plate than the make/model/color that my driver is driving. But on the other hand, it's still a small issue at least because in some rare circumstance somebody could use it maliciously.
- MichaelGG 9y ago
  Did you report the driver? The one time that happened to me, I asked the driver and showed me that he had both cars registered in Uber and had selected the wrong one.
  - spike021 9y ago
    Honestly no because I wasn't sure what the process is for that.
    - zer00eyz 9y ago
      Well you start by taking photos! First and foremost for your own safety. Second just send them to CS. If something terrible ever happens and it shows up on the 11pm news, at least you can say "I tried" and the company can't run and hide from its bad policy
- smsm42 9y ago
  > One of my drivers claimed they had just gotten a new car That can happen, you don't even need a new car for it. I've bought a car with one license plate missing, and when I went to DMV to ask what to do with it, I just was issued a new set. One other time, on another car, my back license plate disappeared - still have no idea what happened to it, I suspect it was stolen, but I have no idea where (how often you check the license plate on your own car?) or why. It's very easy to steal it, it's just two screws, so it was gone, and I went to the DMV and got another set. Some of my documents still list the same car under an old license plate. So it's not impossible to have several sets of plates for the same car, and it's very easy to get a new set. Getting license plate btw can be very fast - at least in California, once you're in the DMV they just have a stack of plates sitting there and they take one from the top and give it to you (obviously, after you waited in the line and paid and filled in the documents, etc. - that may take time :) Brand-new car may take longer or if you get them by mail.
samstave 9y ago
I was looking for my ride history from Uber a while back, as I have been a rider since pretty close to their inception date in SF. I sent an email to support asking for my full ride history, and I asked what was the date which I created my account as I wanted to know how close to the birth of Uber I signed up... I was told that I couldn't have any of that info as it was a violation of privacy. I found this bizarre as it was my account info I was seeking. --- When Uber had the "party" thing happen, I thought it was going to be an interesting lottery to attend an Uber corporate as a user. Turned out it was simply a ploy to measure how many people they could get to tap on the lottery button, then deliver them to Harlot, a club in SF which typically charges a cover to enter, but there was no cover - the bar was still full price and at the end of the lame party, everyone was just standing on the corner like any other schlepp. I was amazed that Uber had arranged this "secret party lottery" where the driver only knew the location and would pick you up and drop you at the party... but they didn't arrange for any pickups from the party to take you back home. I had asked some Uber party planners that were there at the time if they intended on sharing any of the user behavior data gathered from this experiment, they laughed and said "not a chance" It was the lamest secret party ever - and given that they didn't even cover Uber rides home after taking people free to a bar, I thought it was very poor on their part.
- skinnymuch 9y ago
  > I was told that I couldn't have any of that info as it was a violation of privacy. I found this bizarre as it was my account info I was seeking. Does seem bizarre. Do other companies provide this information? I can't imagine Amazon or Facebook not telling you. But I've never tried. Facebook and Google have their data take our services (I know neither provide everything especially FB), but maybe that includes the info. Amazon at least shows you your entire purchase history, equivalent to ride history. -- The party stuff just seems funny in a sad way. I never heard of it before.
  - jandrese 9y ago
    There is a tab in your Amazon account that lists every single thing you've bought from them on that account. I have purchases going back to 1998 in there. Uber is maybe in a little different position because they're in danger of outing a cheating spouse if they give up that info. Maybe a better option would be to let you access all of your trip info, but have an option to hide certain trips? Sort of like private browsing mode in your browser?
smsm42 9y ago
Giving out detailed info just because somebody calls and says "he stole from me" would be a violation of privacy and if Uber acted this way it would be vulnerable to basic social engineering. Involvement of the police makes it more substantial, but not enough alone - you can just tell the police "he stole from me", get the info, and then tell them "oh, it was a misunderstanding, never mind" and the police would never bother to verify what happened. OTOH, if there's a warrant, that means you testified under the penalty of perjury it happened, and then if you lied, you can be prosecuted, so it is a barrier most social engineers won't want to clear. However, if Uber claimed they can not do the lookup, that would be a lie. They definitely can, they may not want to do it for some reasons (e.g. that may be sued by the driver if it turns out it was a scam on the part of the passenger, and maybe even in case it's even a simple misunderstanding - people have been suing for less), but no question they can. If they lied to the police and the court, that would be a huge mistake.
hsod 9y ago
I'm saying the article is muddled and unclear, not Uber. > "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." How do we know this is a lie? It could be true due to driver fraud (driving a different car than the one they have registered with Uber). Or it could have been some kind of mixup on their support team. > 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. "It violates privacy" and "there was no warrant" aren't mutually exclusive, feels like you're splitting hairs here. If a request violates privacy, that's a good reason to ask for a warrant. Also, you left out this confusing paragraph: "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." It's still unclear to me how exactly Uber obstructed the investigation but maybe my reading comprehension is lacking.
- zer00eyz 9y ago
  > It's still unclear to me how exactly Uber obstructed the investigation but maybe my reading comprehension is lacking. Im terrible with dates so stuff like this slips by me ALL the time! - Monday, December 5th, 2016, the crime - Uber tells police that they "don't have a record of a trip..." - March 3rd, 2017. first court date - April 9th, uber amends statement to the police. We do have records but won't share due to privacy... You know, telling the driver that they are a matter of a police investigation and that they would be sharing data with them (aka cooperating) would have given uber a leg to stand on. Uber saying "We gave all the info to the police, it is out of our hands, we don't control our contractors" goes a long way in court. Lying, changing your story, tends not to.
  - hsod 9y ago
    Except in the author's own narrative, Uber explicitly acknowledges that a trip and a theft took place during the first court date.

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.
  - donatj 9y ago
    I doubt the guy was trying to pull something over on you. I don't drive for Lyft but I feel like it's one of those small easily missed details that's very important to a small subsection of your customers and no one else cares. Having used Lyft countless times over the last few years I know I have personally never checked the checked that the plate matched.
    - spike021 9y ago
      Oh, definitely. However, usually that's the way I identify the correct driver. For instance Priuses are the more common car and sometimes it's easier to memorize the first 4 or so digits on a plate than the make/model/color that my driver is driving. But on the other hand, it's still a small issue at least because in some rare circumstance somebody could use it maliciously.
MichaelGG 9y ago
Did you report the driver? The one time that happened to me, I asked the driver and showed me that he had both cars registered in Uber and had selected the wrong one.
- spike021 9y ago
  Honestly no because I wasn't sure what the process is for that.
  - zer00eyz 9y ago
    Well you start by taking photos! First and foremost for your own safety. Second just send them to CS. If something terrible ever happens and it shows up on the 11pm news, at least you can say "I tried" and the company can't run and hide from its bad policy
smsm42 9y ago
> One of my drivers claimed they had just gotten a new car That can happen, you don't even need a new car for it. I've bought a car with one license plate missing, and when I went to DMV to ask what to do with it, I just was issued a new set. One other time, on another car, my back license plate disappeared - still have no idea what happened to it, I suspect it was stolen, but I have no idea where (how often you check the license plate on your own car?) or why. It's very easy to steal it, it's just two screws, so it was gone, and I went to the DMV and got another set. Some of my documents still list the same car under an old license plate. So it's not impossible to have several sets of plates for the same car, and it's very easy to get a new set. Getting license plate btw can be very fast - at least in California, once you're in the DMV they just have a stack of plates sitting there and they take one from the top and give it to you (obviously, after you waited in the line and paid and filled in the documents, etc. - that may take time :) Brand-new car may take longer or if you get them by mail.

samstave 9y ago

I was looking for my ride history from Uber a while back, as I have been a rider since pretty close to their inception date in SF. I sent an email to support asking for my full ride history, and I asked what was the date which I created my account as I wanted to know how close to the birth of Uber I signed up... I was told that I couldn't have any of that info as it was a violation of privacy. I found this bizarre as it was my account info I was seeking. --- When Uber had the "party" thing happen, I thought it was going to be an interesting lottery to attend an Uber corporate as a user. Turned out it was simply a ploy to measure how many people they could get to tap on the lottery button, then deliver them to Harlot, a club in SF which typically charges a cover to enter, but there was no cover - the bar was still full price and at the end of the lame party, everyone was just standing on the corner like any other schlepp. I was amazed that Uber had arranged this "secret party lottery" where the driver only knew the location and would pick you up and drop you at the party... but they didn't arrange for any pickups from the party to take you back home. I had asked some Uber party planners that were there at the time if they intended on sharing any of the user behavior data gathered from this experiment, they laughed and said "not a chance" It was the lamest secret party ever - and given that they didn't even cover Uber rides home after taking people free to a bar, I thought it was very poor on their part.

skinnymuch 9y ago
> I was told that I couldn't have any of that info as it was a violation of privacy. I found this bizarre as it was my account info I was seeking. Does seem bizarre. Do other companies provide this information? I can't imagine Amazon or Facebook not telling you. But I've never tried. Facebook and Google have their data take our services (I know neither provide everything especially FB), but maybe that includes the info. Amazon at least shows you your entire purchase history, equivalent to ride history. -- The party stuff just seems funny in a sad way. I never heard of it before.
- jandrese 9y ago
  There is a tab in your Amazon account that lists every single thing you've bought from them on that account. I have purchases going back to 1998 in there. Uber is maybe in a little different position because they're in danger of outing a cheating spouse if they give up that info. Maybe a better option would be to let you access all of your trip info, but have an option to hide certain trips? Sort of like private browsing mode in your browser?

smsm42 9y ago

Giving out detailed info just because somebody calls and says "he stole from me" would be a violation of privacy and if Uber acted this way it would be vulnerable to basic social engineering. Involvement of the police makes it more substantial, but not enough alone - you can just tell the police "he stole from me", get the info, and then tell them "oh, it was a misunderstanding, never mind" and the police would never bother to verify what happened. OTOH, if there's a warrant, that means you testified under the penalty of perjury it happened, and then if you lied, you can be prosecuted, so it is a barrier most social engineers won't want to clear. However, if Uber claimed they can not do the lookup, that would be a lie. They definitely can, they may not want to do it for some reasons (e.g. that may be sued by the driver if it turns out it was a scam on the part of the passenger, and maybe even in case it's even a simple misunderstanding - people have been suing for less), but no question they can. If they lied to the police and the court, that would be a huge mistake.

hsod 9y ago

I'm saying the article is muddled and unclear, not Uber. > "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." How do we know this is a lie? It could be true due to driver fraud (driving a different car than the one they have registered with Uber). Or it could have been some kind of mixup on their support team. > 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. "It violates privacy" and "there was no warrant" aren't mutually exclusive, feels like you're splitting hairs here. If a request violates privacy, that's a good reason to ask for a warrant. Also, you left out this confusing paragraph: "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." It's still unclear to me how exactly Uber obstructed the investigation but maybe my reading comprehension is lacking.

zer00eyz 9y ago
> It's still unclear to me how exactly Uber obstructed the investigation but maybe my reading comprehension is lacking. Im terrible with dates so stuff like this slips by me ALL the time! - Monday, December 5th, 2016, the crime - Uber tells police that they "don't have a record of a trip..." - March 3rd, 2017. first court date - April 9th, uber amends statement to the police. We do have records but won't share due to privacy... You know, telling the driver that they are a matter of a police investigation and that they would be sharing data with them (aka cooperating) would have given uber a leg to stand on. Uber saying "We gave all the info to the police, it is out of our hands, we don't control our contractors" goes a long way in court. Lying, changing your story, tends not to.
- hsod 9y ago
  Except in the author's own narrative, Uber explicitly acknowledges that a trip and a theft took place during the first court date.