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Uber tried to get me to agree to arbitration and sign an NDA for a mere $100 of compensation to replace my fianceé's clothes soiled by an Uber car.[1] We were

• thatoneuser 7y ago
  Why not take them to small claims?
  • Sephr 7y ago
    I suspect that a successful small claims suit would also result in a ban from Uber. Unfortunately I still use Uber occasionally, so I'd rather not risk getting banned.
    • imglorp 7y ago
      This customer service just baffles me. Why not just pay their cleaning bill and be done with it, instead of trying to deal with court and lose/ban the customer and all their future business?
      • joncrane 7y ago
        Because people take advantage when the policy is "just pay out."
        • munk-a 7y ago
          Not often. Work in a small town sometime and realize the respect you get - people take advantage of your company out of vengeance more than anything else - which is why most people here would be happy to exploit any justification to lower their cable bill.
      • mindslight 7y ago
        Uber's philosophy is to cast themselves as an abstract service that merely connects drivers with riders, and anything that goes on between them is not their problem. Any admission of culpability or recognizing that users are patronizing "Uber" and not "FungibleDriver23815" erodes that narrative, and pushes them into higher overhead territory (aka it's not "scalable").
      • jellicle 7y ago
        Sounds like Uber won here: they didn't pay out, the customer didn't sue, and the customer was happy enough about shitty clothes with no redress that they are continuing to use the service. Job well done, Uber!
        • Fnoord 7y ago
          Someone is clearly not voting with their wallet. The question is, who else isn't?
          • TeMPOraL 7y ago
            Uber is the perfect proof that the "customers will vote with their wallets" argument doesn't work. This case is just one small example in their long and well-documented history of sociopathic behaviour, and they still are around and happily growing.
    • oldjokes 7y ago
      This is not a sustainable mindset.
      • kolbe 7y ago
        I think it's pretty reasonable. It forces people to ask if their relationship with Uber is worth a claim that they're making. If Uber doesn't add $100 of value to your life, then claim the $100.
        • pjc50 7y ago
          This feels like the logic of an extortionist.
          • kolbe 7y ago
            I'm more interested in what logic is than what it feels like. I think it's the same logic I'd use if I sat in gum at a discount theater, and the owner responded with "I'll pay for your pants, but only if you never come back here. I can't implement a process that keeps you from sitting in gum. We don't have that budget, and you should have been fully aware of that by looking at how dumpy this place is. And if you can't take responsibility for sitting in gum yourself, then I don't want to see what else you will do that you try to hold me liable for." Then I'd have to decide if the discount theater was worth it or not.
    • dmos62 7y ago
      If you get banned, just use someone else's account. I don't use Uber much, so I don't know if there are significant disadvantages to this, though I've heard of people using someone else's account (sharing accounts).
      • michaelmrose 7y ago
        Couldn't you trivially make a new email account and then a new uber account as well?
        • astura 7y ago
          You would need a new phone number as well. (And many services now block Google Voice and similar)
          • tareqak 7y ago
            That's also pretty easy to get.
          • drewmol 7y ago
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    • TenJack 7y ago
      Why not use Lyft?
    • raverbashing 7y ago
      I think you would have a lot of journalists eager to publicize that story if that was actually the case.
    • michaelmrose 7y ago
      Wouldn't they more logically react by paying off such a small suit? Even if not I suggest you show some backbone and do it anyway.
    • ryandrake 7y ago
      Who cares about being banned? Why would one continue to be a customer for a business that behaves this way? By the time you're at the point of suing a company or issuing a credit card chargeback, you've already burned the bridge and decided you never want to deal with the company again. I've done a credit card chargeback about 3 times in my life, and in none of those cases did I ever worry, "Gosh, if these guys ban me, I'll never be able to give them my money again!"
    • dredmorbius 7y ago
      Stip no ban in your case.
    • munk-a 7y ago
      I feel like this story and being able to tell it might also be more valuable than the crap you'd need to go to if you actually wanted them to pony up that 100$. Also, declining the token payment leaves a lawsuit open down the line if more serious complications develop from the incident.
  • elliekelly 7y ago
    Because any action in small claims court would be summarily dismissed. Uber's TOS includes an Arbitration Agreement.[1] [1] Paragraph 2: https://www.uber.com/legal/terms/us/ https://www.uber.com/legal/terms/us/
  • conanbatt 7y ago
    For 100 bucks?
• pbreit 7y ago
  "We couldn't agree to the NDA even if we wanted" Why would that be the case? The NDA would be fore going forward.
• JumpCrisscross 7y ago
  > I don't think we could agree to the NDA even if we wanted to because I already tweeted about the incident before being offered compensation NDAs usually exclude from the definition of confidential information anything disclosed before the fact. They also don’t typically restrict you from letting regulators, et cetera know things. Unless you were planning on writing a book about the experience, the NDA probably wasn’t restricting you. Unless you were planning on going to court, the arbitration clause probably made your ability to seek redress cheaper. Note: I am not a lawyer. This is not legal advice.
• deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
• madengr 7y ago
  Sorry for the experience, but this is great comic material. LMAO. How clean will these cars be when they are fully automated? Funny to think Tesla wants you to send your personal car off to a taxi fleet when not in use.
  • dymk 7y ago
    Even when stuff like this happens, they're so incredibly rare, it's a non-issue. Accidents happen. Presumably in a fully-automated solution, you'll have the ability to report a car as "needs service".
    • mijamo 7y ago
      After trying several free floating services, I can tell you this is definitely an issue.
  • zaroth 7y ago
    Operating at scale means you have to get good at handling the corner cases. Whether it’s AirBnB or Uber or Tesla, shit happens and they need to be able to deal with it quickly and professionally. If cars getting dirty is the worst problem Tesla has with their Fleet, they would be doing pretty tremendously well at that point. At least you never need to worry about background checking the driver.
    • fwip 7y ago
      I agree, dirty cars are the least of many problems that Tesla won't solve.
    • madengr 7y ago
      Yeah, but it’s YOUR car getting dirty, not Teslas. Tesla wants your car to become part of the fleet when you are not driving it.
      • SketchySeaBeast 7y ago
        That's adding a huge amount of wear and tear - what is the compensation for this?
• sametmax 7y ago
  Why complain to uber ? It's the driver's fault. What would be the corrective action anyway ? That none of their drivers ever make any mistake ?
  • clucas 7y ago
    An analogy: Why complain to BP when one of their employees hits the wrong button and blows up an oil rig, spilling massive amounts of oil into the Gulf of Mexico? It's the employee's fault. The reason to hold an employer liable for an employee's actions when acting in the course of employment is that this creates good incentives for the employer to institute good policies and procedures, and proper discipline of employees when they are on the job. This is a well-established legal doctrine called "respondeat superior." Now, the $100 question: are Uber drivers employees? And in either case, how much liability flows up to Uber for a driver's malfeasance? I believe that's still unsettled, but I don't think it's just as simple as "if you have a problem with a driver, that's on the driver, not on Uber." Uber should have some responsibility for establishing standards for their drivers, and they should be held responsible when they are breached.
    • sametmax 7y ago
      I see Uber more like providing the network and the app, not like the service provider. The service is provided by an independant contracter on which Uber has little control over. In fact, a lot of drivers use several apps like Uber, and sometime even contract privately. Imagine the same incident happen, but suddenly the Uber app crashes. You ask for a ride again, but on Lyft, but it's the same car arriving. Now what ? Lyft is responsible ?
      • danShumway 7y ago
        Yes. At that point you would be using Lyft, with an expectation that they vetted their drivers and would protect you from common problems. If I mess up your food at Wendy's, the fact that I happen to also work at McDonald's doesn't change anything. As a business, you are definitely liable for independent contractors you hire -- that's gotten hammered into me hard at every place I've ever worked. To poke a hole in the service provider argument, think about the experience of buying something from a real service provider. Stripe charges me fees to move my money around. That's it -- they don't choose the price of the item, they don't change my fees depending on whether or not the item was shipped or delivered digitally. My Internet service provider charges me a flat fee or a usage-based fee depending on how much Internet I use. Similarly, if I want to advertise on a billboard, I pay for the billboard -- not a percentage of each sale I make. Even in the Internet advertising business, I pay for impressions, and clickthroughs -- not for what happens after a customer is connected to me. In short, you pay for the thing you buy, and companies are liable for the thing they sell you. Stripe is liable if they mess up transferring money, since that's what they charged me for. They're not liable if my item gets shipped wrong, because they tangibly, observably didn't have anything to do with that. So on Uber, the price is fixed by the app and I'm charged based on the distance I travel. Drivers don't set the price-per-mile, Uber does. Uber then directly collects money from me based on the distance I traveled, and separately pays a percentage to the driver after the fact. Optionally, I can tip the driver just like I would tip a normal taxi driver. That doesn't sound like Uber is charging a fee to connect me to someone. It's not a fixed monthly payment to use the app -- it's not based on whether or not the driver uses the Uber GPS or how much data they use. I'm not paying per ride-request. I'm paying Uber for the ride itself. It's a direct mirror of how I'm charged for a normal taxi. So I'm contacting Uber and saying, "I want a ride", and they're charging me directly for a ride, based on attributes of the ride itself and not based on my usage of the app -- and then they want to claim that they're somehow not involved at all when something goes wrong with that ride? No, I am buying a ride from Uber, not from the contractor, and thus Uber is responsible for the quality of that ride.
• elliekelly 7y ago
  I nearly fell off my chair reading that agreement. The scope is unreal. Especially considering the settlement amount is a mere $100. For example, the non-disparagement clause isn't limited to the incident. You'd have keep any negative opinions about Uber to yourself for the rest of eternity. I thought it was odd that only you were a party to the agreement and not your fiance and then I got to paragraph 5 and realized their request is even crazier... they want you to indemnify, defend, and hold them harmless from any other liabilities that might arise from the incident. If it turned out your fiance contracted a deadly illness from her contact with human waste and she sued Uber (or worse, her insurance company sued Uber for reimbursement) not only would you be on the hook for the damages, you would have to pay all of their legal fees during the process. For a $100 settlement. I have to imagine you are in the small minority of people who even reads these contracts of adhesion so I'd bet most people who sign these have no idea what they're giving up. That is truly unconscionable.
  • nabla9 7y ago
    I suspect that agreements like this don't actually hold in court. They are made just in attempt to intimidate.
    • mindslight 7y ago
      In a way this is even worse as it further disenfranchises individuals from the legal system. What's really needed is legislation that assigns direct punitive liability to drafters/pushers of contracts that continue to include outright nonsensical terms. Failing that it would be interesting if someone tried going after the practice as improperly providing incorrect legal advice - its basic goal is to mislead the opposing party into not knowing their own rights.
      • the_watcher 7y ago
        Unfortunately this puts a huge burden on small businesses and individuals, as it requires them to know precisely what is and isn't enforceable in a contract, as they'd no longer be able to rely on templates. For example, the vast majority of leases are templates, and almost all include unenforceable terms. Further, contract law is primarily based in common law, which means a lot of terms that are inserted aren't definitively legal or illegal and it comes down to whether or not they are "reasonable". In this example, almost all of the demands from Uber could be reasonable in an NDA, but are pretty clearly not reasonable in this case. However, when and where terms are reasonable isn't exactly codified anywhere. It's absolutely a problem, but punitive liability on the drafters on contracts just creates a power imbalance somewhere else.
• whitepoplar 7y ago
  holy shit!
  • deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
• the_watcher 7y ago
  I'd have redlined the hell out of the agreement (basically striking everything but "I agree not to disclose this"), added "I agree <legalese> to release Uber from all future claims related to my wife's clothing related to this trip", sent it back, and seen what happened. I doubt they'd have accepted it, but it could have been interesting to see their response.
  • dredmorbius 7y ago
    Contracts are increasingly provided in electronic format only. Makes markup difficult. (As it does providing you a copy.)