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Uber concedes deception, prepares for $26M ACCC spanking
- lozenge 5y agoA small cost compared to the amount raised, no doubt. I still get these messages on the cancellation confirmation screen in the UK.
- nsteel 5y agoDoes the same free cancellation apply in the UK? I couldn't find it on the website (and I've long since uninstalled the app as I'm fed up of their drivers cancelling on me constantly).
- curiousgal 5y agoI uninstalled the app(s) after watching Super Pumped. Even though I'd articles about the whole management ordeal, the dramatization struck a chord in me.
- dmitriid 5y agoUber loses up to 6 billion dollars a year. 26 million is peanuts.
- ohgodplsno 5y ago>26 million They'll toss this on the "unexpected expenses" line of the multiple billions they lose every year, right below the "cocaine and hookers for c-suite" budget.
- senectus1 5y agoUber is a doomed business. The real problem is what it will leave behind will be worse than what taxi's were like before uber.
- d82nsjk9 5y ago> Uber is a doomed business. why?
- zarzavat 5y agoThe original plan was to start out with human drivers while developing the technology for self-driving vehicles. This was a solid plan because owning self-driving tech is a good moat. However it’s clear by now that Uber won’t be anywhere near the first to bring self-driving tech to market. Ridesharing itself has only weak network effects because drivers are interchangeable and can easily switch apps. All Uber have in this case is their brand, which is more toxic than a Machineel tree. If self-driving does eventually pan out then they are also in a bad way because whoever develops that tech will likely directly compete with Uber, at lower margins.
- rswail 5y agoBecause the taxi business is a commodity. The returns are ~2%. Uber doesn't have any geographic or other advantages. "Self driving" is a nonsense claim that doesn't stack up because it's not going to be available for at least another 5+ years. Even when it does happen, Uber doesn't have the capital to establish the necessary fleets of vehicles and is currently "outsourcing" that to the owner/drivers. There have been any number of articles about Uber's lack of a sustainable business model. https://www.forbes.com/sites/greatspeculations/2020/09/09/the-emperor-has-no-clothes--ubers-business-model-is-broken/?sh=1a76fb56706a https://www.forbes.com/sites/greatspeculations/2020/09/09/th... https://marker.medium.com/end-of-the-line-for-uber-901e3077bbbc https://marker.medium.com/end-of-the-line-for-uber-901e3077b... And the original guy that showed that the emperor has no clothes: https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2021/08/hubert-horan-can-uber-ever-deliver-part-twenty-six-with-no-hope-of-real-profits-uber-and-lyft-double-down-on-fake-profit-metrics.html https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2021/08/hubert-horan-can-ube...
- lancewiggs 5y agoI would hope the court accepts that the parties have settled, but notes that the amount is far too small, and adds a zero or two to the total.
- KingMob 5y agoWhat's the point of a legal system if it can't deter lawbreaking? Fines should scale the way they do in Scandinavia. Baristas and doctors can both get speeding tickets, but they pay it as a fraction of their income, to ensure it acts as a deterrent.
- mavili 5y agoAlso, what is the point of a fine if it doesn't go to the people that the company wronged? Where does this money go? To the corrupt government entities that don't give a shit about the fees consumers have been charged?
- tapland 5y agoI wish it scaled in Sweden. It's a flat 4000 SEK here, regardless of income.
- loopbit 5y agoOP was probably thinking of Finland.
- jeltz 5y agoIt scales in Finland though which is probably what parent was thinking of. And we do have scaling fines here in Sweden, just not for minor traffic offences. I think we should change all normal fines to scaling fines (dagsböter).
- tapland 5y agoYeah. Fines here (static) can be broken out of convenience for the wealthy (see new SUVs parked illegally on small streets in central Stockholm). It feels like breaking traffic regulations should maybe be considered crimes with dagsböter (income based penalty).
- taotau 5y agoHow is it calculated for non residents. How much would Elon pay if he were caught speeding in Finland?
- dezren39 5y agoweird headline
- smcleod 5y agoPretty common to see informal slang like this used in Australia media / blogs, I agree it is an interesting choice of words though!
- Pawka 5y agoAs non-native English speaker I was confused if this is solid site or some marginal source.
- pessimizer 5y agoRemember when US headline writers started calling everything "epic"?
- teh_klev 5y agoIt's very El Reg in style: https://www.theregister.com/2022/04/25/surface_laptop_studio_repair/ https://www.theregister.com/2022/04/25/surface_laptop_studio... Though sadly they seem to have dialled back their headlines.
- Handytinge 5y agoIn what way?
- oars 5y agoWhere does the $26 million go? Does it find its way back to the consumers impacted?
- phist_mcgee 5y agoBack into consolidated revenue. Rarely are consumers made directly whole.
- baby 5y agoSo they just displayed the wrong message as in people could cancel rides free of charge but the message said they couldn’t? It seems a bit of an excessive fine for something that mostly seems harmless. Like booking.com seems to be using all the dark patterns they can find and I never hear them being impacted by fines.
- jsmeaton 5y agoNot booking .com but similar https://ia.acs.org.au/article/2022/trivago-fined--44-7m-for--highly-misleading--pricing.html https://ia.acs.org.au/article/2022/trivago-fined--44-7m-for-...
- borplk 5y agoThe fines nowadays have just turned into a price tag for breaking the law. The firms take a look and say "Thanks, I'll take that!".
- cletus 5y agoIt's kinda wild to see people here dismissing this. The US equivalent to the ACCC is the FTC is absolutely toothless and ineffective. The ACCC has teeth and has had real impact on many industries. For example, ISPs were essentially forbidden from saying their plans were "unlimited" unless they actually were unlimited (which they never were so there were no "unlimited" plans, which is fine because they were all fake anyway). This particular complaint is about something relatively minor: misleading messaging about cancellation fees. Like do you think that didn't happen in the US? Where's the FTC action and settlement on that? As for the fare estimation part, it's hard to say what the impact of that was. The only US equivalent to this is a class action lawsuit where the lawyers get paid (a lot), several lead plaintiffs will get paid something and everyone else will get a check for $2.35 in 8 years after printing out a form and mailing it in. Even in the really egregious cases like the Equifax hack, the cash settlement part was capped at $31 million [1]. [1]: https://www.nerdwallet.com/article/finance/equifax-data-breach-consumer-guide https://www.nerdwallet.com/article/finance/equifax-data-brea...
- nikanj 5y agoThey might have teeth, but they didn’t use them here. Uber’s 2021 revenues were around 6000 million USD, and the fine was 21 million USD. ”The FTC is even more useless” isn’t really a good argument, and I don’t disagree - the whole Uber/AirBnB business model is built on the realization that you can just blatantly ignore regulators, and pay the miniscule fines out of petty cash
- cletus 5y agoIn what world do you think the ACCC, which only really has jurisdiction over Australia, should fine Uber some large portion of their worldwide revenue of $6B for misleading messaging about cancellations?
- praestigiare 5y agoA world in which an Australian regulatory agency should protect Australian consumers by levying a fine which makes it financially untenable to operate in Australia with these deceptive practices.
- causi 5y agoWe need something on the order of a constitutional amendment stating that fines for breaking the law must be at least equal to the monetary gain obtained by committing the crime.
- viggity 5y agoWife needed to take an uber to work today... it was 7:50am. App said "UberX, drop off at 8:13". Her office is about 15 minutes away. She books it. "Your UberX will pick you up at 8:15" - meaning she wouldn't get there until 8:30. It's horse shit. I get that shit changes for a myriad of reasons. But I've taken uber 4 times in the past month and every fucking time they do this. It isn't a drop off time. It is a fucking pick up time.
- gok 5y agoThey sometimes displayed a warning that cancellation of a ride "might" cost a fee when they could have figured out that it wouldn't. Important lesson that technically-correct-but-potentially-confusing user interfaces can cost you legally!
- safdahfslh23s 5y ago... only in a select set of countries where the regulator is more active. The money they made with this message grossly outweighs any fine they got from 1 country they operate in.
- gok 5y agoI don't quite see why this would be the case. People decided to get in a car they didn't actually need because they wanted to avoid the cancelation fee?
- photochemsyn 5y agoUber is one of the worst companies on the planet. Their culture seems related to the huge amount of cash the House of Saud dumped on them ($3.5 billion initially). Their pricing and employment models are blatantly exploitative and their business model seems to be using a huge pile of cash to drive the competition out of business so they can achieve monopoly status: > "Uber CEO Travis Kalanick said in a statement that the company is partnering with Saudi Arabia to support its economic and social reforms. Uber first began operating in the kingdom in 2014.(businessinsider 2016)." Their drivers are the absolute worst in my region - see someone driving erratically and staring at their phone and doing Crazy Ivan manuevers in traffic, it's an Uber driver 90% of the time. They're poorly trained and dangerous to everyone else - pedestrians, other drivers and bicyclists. If there was ever a boycott movement I'd get behind, it's a boycott Uber movement. Might be able to leverage the Ukraine war for this as well, as the Saudi princeling MBS is so in bed with Putin at present (MBS won't take Biden phone calls, but will take Putin phone calls, according to press reports).
- onionisafruit 5y agoUber drivers’ most consistent bad habit of is stopping mid block to drop off or pick up a passenger. If it isn’t a parking spot or a traffic light, you shouldn’t be stopping there.
- babycake 5y agoWas the cancellation message only deceptive in Australia? Or is it everywhere, and Australia is the only country to prosecute?
- safdahfslh23s 5y agoI'm in the US and I recall seeing these same deceptive cancellation messages on my app in the last year.
- syrrim 5y agoIt was deceptive nowhere, and Australia is just over protective. Surprised at how many people are treating this as a small fine compared to what was done, or as if this should be the standard everywhere.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- mescaline 5y agoSomeone should do something similar with Lyft, who will allow the drivers app to report you’ve been picked up and dropped off all the while the rider is still standing waiting for the car to show up. Adding insult to injury they ask you to “rate” the ride that never occurred before providing a button to report it.
- slackfan 5y ago26m is pocket change to uber, not a spanking.