In that sense you're right. I remember 03/04 using thefacebook at Northwestern, one of the earliest schools to adopt it. It was definitely a lot of fun those days, now the site is toxic and depressing mostly.

I didn't get it until '06, right before I started college. You had to have a college e-mail address just to be able to obtain an account back then. I don't want to say I enjoyed it because it was elitist but it was just this refreshing alternative to MySpace because none of the dumb@sses I knew and never wanted anything to do with, even had the opportunity to get an account on there and friend request or message me. It was a social media outlet exclusively for me and the friends I was making in school who I actually liked and respected and it allowed me to strengthen ties with all these intellectual people when I attended UC. It was great! Starting college was a really exciting time for me; suddenly being around all these awesome like-minded people and Facebook aided in strengthening ties with these people. Unfortunately, after some time like '08, they seemed to allow absolutely anyone on there and I started getting friend requests from every member of my family, along with co-workers, neighbors, etc. who I despise and want nothing to do with. That's when Facebook became an outlet for drama, airing out dirty laundry, prattling on about political non-sense, sharing fake news, etc. It also became very commercial. It still creeps me out seeing Facebook ads pop up in my news feed that I know are a result of Facebook accessing cached information on my recent google searches and visited sites. I long for the primitive days of Facebook when a "notification" meant a party / event invitation that was SERIOUSLY worth going to and I actually got excited about attending.

 

It was so cool. When Facebook first came up with the concept of "groups" my friends and I would come up with these really clever group names and create them for no reason and ask each other to join. My favorite one, from one of my classmates, was "Urban Planning makes me GIS." Somehow, a lot of those old friends have faded into obscurity. It's quite tragic.

Is Uber Over?  Nice clever clickbait headline for yet another anti-Uber article.  Predicts Uber might be remembered as the Myspace of ridesharing. 

 

https://www.citylab.com/commute/2017/03/is-uber-over/518727/

 

Young people are coming up not knowing how crazy the 90s dot-bomb period was...that Google only rose to prominence because of Yahoo's crazy payout to Mark Cuban...and that Friendster and Myspace were basically the exact same thing as Facebook.  Google and Facebook and Apple and Amazon have been pretty solid for 10-15 years.  Young people would benefit from seeing something as huge as Uber suddenly collapse. 

 

Things are feeling more and more bubbly in Oakland and San Francisco. Things are much crazier here than they were in the late 90s by nearly any measure except the number of IPOs. On BART last night, I heard two (extremely loud, vulgar) girls arguing about the future of their tech start-up in the Mission. Layoffs had started and they were freaking out. From what I could gather, both were in their late 30s still living with 3-4 roommates, and they were worried they would never be able to buy housing in the Bay without a viable IPO or sale in sight. And they were worried their age would prevent them from getting new tech jobs.

 

*These are real issues that highlight how unsustainable the current start-up model has become in Silicon Bay. Uber isn't laying off people yet, but they have in fact peaked in most major cities. They market is only so big for ridesharing, and the big growth days are behind them.

 

That's what is so weird about this current tech bubble. You've got all these tech start-ups that have not tried to do an IPO or sale, and now they are well past their peak growth phases. So if they ever do an IPO, the growth days are behind them. Depending on lock-up conditions, it does seem like most of these companies are designed as pump and dumps (just larger cap than usual). If Uber ever has an IPO, it could be because they're ready to cash out and let the thing go under. Wall Street will eat the losses.

 

The Sanpchat IPO is a great example of this. They are ancient by tech standards, but only recently did an IPO after seeing a lot of weak growth numbers as Instagram continued to eat their lunch, particularly overseas. I wonder what the lock-up terms are for key equity holders at Snapchat? While still very popular with kids, Snapchat could just be the next Twitter. Kids are the most unpredictable market.

 

Why would investors buy stock of a company well past its major growth phase?

 

Markets saturate. Social media is saturated. Ridesharing is probably saturated too...

No surprise here. Who would open a headquarters in a location with relentless trust fund anarchist riots that the Oakland Police never stop? I like how Oakland mayor Libby Schaaf acts like it's no big deal. Oakland is in such a bubble...

 

*Some are saying this could be related to money problems Uber is having, but I think the long game was always to sublease the Oakland space they own. It's funny too how the mayor also singles out non-profits since they're constantly being evicted from San Francisco. But "non-profit" in the Bay can still mean only 100k+ salary employees, so landing those high-paying jobs in Oakland makes sense.

 

Uber Not Coming To Oakland After All?

Spokesman says only 200-300 employees initially to work in Oakland, not up to 3,000.

By Nick Miller

 

Is the tech behemoth Uber ride-hauling its a$$ out of Oakland?

 

Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf told the Express this morning that Uber reached out to her office "a few weeks ago" to let the city know that there would be a "smaller employee presence" when the Uptown Station building eventually opens.

 

“Uber’s sole decision to initially open its Oakland offices with fewer employees than originally planned does not negate the fact this prime office location will be put back into full use and made available for rent to other businesses and non-profits, in addition to the presence that Uber will have there," the mayor wrote.

 

Her statement comes on the heels of a story this morning by the San Francisco Business Times, which reported that the thousands of Uber employees scheduled to move into its Uptown headquarters sometime next year aren't coming.

 

As per SFBT Roland Li's scoop: "Uber now says it will have a few hundred employees when it opens its Uptown Station office in Oakland – not the 2,000 to 3,000 employees that it announced in 2015."

 

CONTINUED

http://www.eastbayexpress.com/SevenDays/archives/2017/03/20/uber-not-coming-to-oakland-after-all

"For months, Oakland community leaders have been concerned about Uber’s impact in terms of gentrification and displacement, and have worried that this company does not respect Oakland’s values"

 

This quote kind of ties in to a post i had made in the Gentrification page. First they're opposed to Uber because of some nonsense fears of displacement. And now they're pissed that Uber is downsizing its presence. I swear you just can't win with some people.

^I agree, although the displacement fears are very real. Oakland has the highest rate of evictions in the United States, and many middle class and upper middle class residents are victims. Millennials are really getting the shaft. Even kids making six figures straight out of college are having a hell of a time finding a room to live in. As a master tenant who picks roommates, I am shocked at the incomes of recent college grads. It's anywhere from 60k to 600k (150k is about average for first year grads with what Midwesterners call "worthless" liberal arts and humanities degrees). And I'm not even going to get started on the trust fund kids and how insane their portfolios have gotten in the Bay. Most evictions have already happened just in anticipation of Uber's move. My neighborhood went through an ungodly number of evictions over the last two years. Many people making six figures were thrown to the streets. The damage is already done in Downtown Oakland. It's a neighborhood only the 1% can afford.

 

Of course, many of these same "community groups" (almost always made up of wealthy property owners who stand to gain the most) have opposed every single housing development in Oakland. The NIMBY politics in Oakland are unfathomable. Even in coastal California, Oakland's NIMBY politics are on a level of greed seen nowhere else. It's the only city where I've seen people violently protest developments on parking lots and urban prairies. There is a strong movement against population growth in Oakland. The wealthy property owners are making serious bank as landlords and want that gravy train to continue. Even regular homeowners who aren't landlords have seen their property triple in value since the recession. They want that to continue forever.

 

*Luckily, since these 3,000 jobs are never going to happen, it may reduce rental pressures a bit in Oakland.

 

**Effects on SF should be minimal since Uber's HQ is being built in a dead zone, not a developed urban neighborhood. The largely vacant southeastern waterfront in San Francisco can absorb tens of thousands of jobs and new residents as long as enough housing is built (which is likely in that part of SF). Oakland can easily absorb hundreds of thousands of new residents and still be a sleepy suburb, but adequate housing has no chance of ever being built in Oakland. So this may help slow down the eviction train in Oakland for a year or two until another big tech company moves in...

 

...probably one far worse than Uber. They're lightweights in terms of bro culture compared to a lot of the other tech startups in San Francisco.

Uber is doomed:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-04-04/mercedes-bosch-join-forces-to-accelerate-rollout-of-robo-taxis

 

The fact is that rolling out an app is a lot easier than learning how to build cars.  Uber at this point can only hope to license its service to cars manufactured by others -- but what is stopping the others from building their own fleets and starting their own apps?  Absolutely nothing. 

Give a man a job, he'll treat it like a job. Give a man a gig, he'll treat it like a gig. Apparently Uber is really bad about getting rid of intoxicated people who drive for them.

 

 

 

http://m.sfgate.com/business/article/California-tells-Uber-it-s-sloppy-about-11069749.php

Uber is doomed:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-04-04/mercedes-bosch-join-forces-to-accelerate-rollout-of-robo-taxis

 

The fact is that rolling out an app is a lot easier than learning how to build cars.  Uber at this point can only hope to license its service to cars manufactured by others -- but what is stopping the others from building their own fleets and starting their own apps?  Absolutely nothing. 

 

If Uber actually proved to be an innovator, I'm sure those car companies could be convinced to use a licensed product instead of figuring it out on their own. They don't appear to be forward thinking though and from what I've seen, they're working on nothing that would give them a comparative advantage, even over Lyft,  let alone the entire industry.

 

I'm not a fan of Uber, but there's no denying that it's app is far, FAR more advanced than 99% of the apps you'll find in App Store or Google Play that were simply coded in a matter of days or weeks (with mostly cutting and pasting) to make a quick buck. I don't know exactly how they did it - I don't work for Uber or Lyft but I know that their app entails very complex database design that would need to relate to complex functions/methods that they would have to figure out how to code while implementing complex GPS APIs. It is really complex stuff. Software development has its challenges just like mechanical engineering and at the same time, I'm sure automotive engineering or mechanical engineering as a whole, has an abundance of copy and pasting. They're just different disciplines. Once upon a time, Uber probably did have quality, innovative Software Engineers who liked the concept and the promise of equity in a company with a bright future and what seemed like a cool company culture, until they realized they would be "bro-grammer"

 

Most Software Engineers don't actually need to know much about cars to design software for the automobile industry and I'm sure the best/brightest/most experienced would hop on board with Mercedes or any other big car company before helping that frat boy CEO at Uber at this point.

EU courts will likely rule that Uber is a transportation service, not just an app:

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/11/technology/uber-ecj-europe.html?_r=0

Uber plans to change their pricing model to a slimy "What will you give me to drive you there?" system. Computers rather than the driver set the rate, though, so it won't be quite as Second or Third-World as it sounds. What is likely though is that drivers will focus on business travelers and city-center drinkers at the expense of everyone else. Little coverage in the 'hood for example.

 

 

Uber Fares Will Soon Be Based On How Much Uber Thinks You’re Willing To Pay

https://consumerist.com/2017/05/19/uber-fares-will-soon-be-based-on-how-much-uber-thinks-youre-willing-to-pay/

 

The system uses machine-learning techniques to determine estimates on how much a passenger would be willing to pay for a ride based on their chosen route and time of day.

 

In other words, someone going from a downtown office building to a commuter train station might be willing to pay more than someone going the same distance between their apartment and a restaurant.

So Uber just showed us that they can change their entire pricing strategy on a whim, potentially screwing over their drivers or their customers, with no notice. And yet we still have politicians and libertarians saying that we should stop investing in transit and hand over our transportation systems to Uber.

That's weird. I want to say it's profiling and discrimination. Imagine if you went to a restaurant or grocery store where they charged everybody based on what they thought they would be willing to pay. Instant backlash. Geographic locations and commute patterns definitely tend to concern particular demographics...

 

From a business standpoint, it makes sense since any sale (as long as it's at all profitable) is better than no sale but you also want to profit the most when you can - but is this ethical? Wow, this is weird.

Cities need to step up and just kick Uber out.  Cabs were regulated for 100 years for just these kinds of reasons.  Turns out you see why regulations exist when you see something operating as it wishes. 

Absolutely not. Uber/rideshare is a major part of people's lives, including those who live in areas with limited public transportation and prohibitive taxi fees. It has some growth issues and rates do need to increase reasonably, but I can't oversell how much a gamechanger rideshare is.

 

Especially compared to loud, smelly, hostile and corrupt taxi agents who are only recently being called out for the unethical and anti-consumer business practices now that a viable industry has emerged. F**k taxis; God bless rideshare.

Amen.  As someone who travels nationally and internationally Uber is a lifesaver.

 

The drivers can control their own destiny.  If every driver stayed home for a day I bet Uber would take notice.

The drivers are desperate for money.  Like semi owner-operators, they can't afford not to drive.  I know that two years ago Lyft (and possibly Uber) started paying drivers the day they drove...for a fee.  So if you netted $75 in a day's driving, instead of waiting until the end of the pay period, for a 10% penalty or something like that they'd deposit into your checking account that day.  So they're not only loan sharking on the cars, they're payday lending with the pay.  The whole thing is unbelievably exploitative and there's an army of yuppies out there who have never been in desperate financial shape who shout down people like me who call them out of not caring about the plight of the drivers. 

 

There's no reason why a city can't pay to have an app created which networks all of the yellow cabs and does everything Uber does right now so far as GPS-based requests and credit card billing.  The city can force the cab companies to offer first-world benefits (health, vacation, retirement, etc.) to their drivers or else they can't participate in the app. 

 

 

 

 

I'm not opposed to taxis on Uber.  In several cities, they are the lowest-priced option on Uber (Toronto comes to mind).  The Uber fare is the same that would have been on the meter, but you get to pay with your app.

^^It isn't just yuppies who use Uber but people who live in low income neighborhoods that now have an alternative means of getting from x to y. And what the heck do you mean by an army of yuppies? Ridiculous. Hell, I'd guess that the majority of Uber consumers are millennials who by and large are not making yuppy money, especially when compared to their massive debts. White collar business types, those who can write off the crazy fees, are still the main consumers for cabs, and a lot of those people are "yuppies." If anything, Uber is for the non-yuppy.

 

And as for the company's low pay, well, it's up to the driver to decide if the numbers work for him/her. And if we start challenging Uber's low costs and insisting the company shuts down, shouldn't we do the same for all service-based jobs that tend to pay on a lower scale and can be seen as exploitive.  Better to fix the problem from within and incorporate tipping into the software as opposed to shutting down a highly used and depended upon service.

I did over 1,000 drives.  Very, very few people who were obviously low income used Uber.  Maybe 10 out of over 1,000 drives.  Overwhelmingly, the passengers were obviously quite affluent. Remember, you more often than not see where these people live. 

 

And yet again (as I have explained numerous times), Uber uses predatory tactics to lure (and keep) drivers.  You can blame people all you want for not understanding how 1099 status works, vehicle depreciation, etc., but the fact is that many do not and cannot (witness the popularity of payday lending, lottery tickets, etc.).  And there's no reason why a task as serious as physically driving you around in a 2,000-lb machine should be considered a "gig". 

 

 

Sorry, bro! One of the problems with hiring no one is that there's nobody internally to run the business when you have to leave.

 

 

 

Uber Weighs Leave of Absence for Chief Executive

 

Travis Kalanick, the chief executive of Uber, is facing employee attrition, drivers angry about their pay, and investors worried that one of the most well-funded start-ups in history has come unglued.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/11/technology/uber-holder-report.html

I did over 1,000 drives.  Very, very few people who were obviously low income used Uber.  Maybe 10 out of over 1,000 drives.  Overwhelmingly, the passengers were obviously quite affluent. Remember, you more often than not see where these people live. 

 

And yet again (as I have explained numerous times), Uber uses predatory tactics to lure (and keep) drivers.  You can blame people all you want for not understanding how 1099 status works, vehicle depreciation, etc., but the fact is that many do not and cannot (witness the popularity of payday lending, lottery tickets, etc.).  And there's no reason why a task as serious as physically driving you around in a 2,000-lb machine should be considered a "gig". 

 

I have an accounting degree. I tried driving for Lyft on the side a few years ago as I was paying down student debt, and after about 6 drives I stopped because it was pretty clear to me that there was almost no real profit involved once you took out gas, maintenance, and wear and tear. Let alone self employment tax. Driving for a rideshare company, in my mind, is essentially withdrawing equity from your car like it's an ATM machine.

 

Simply taking the revenue I got deposited in my bank account and subtracting the IRS' mileage rate left me barely above breaking even. Some people look at that as a good thing because in their mind they are getting a "big tax deduction" but what they don't understand is that that means they don't have any profit.

Right, and this is why I agree with Jake about driver exploitation. Many drivers who don't have accounting degrees just see the paychecks coming in and don't realize that they are maybe only make a few pennies an hour in profit after factoring in the wear and tear on their cars, gas, insurance, etc. It's really pretty similar to the way that people get exploited by payday loans, pawn shops, etc., because they see only the cold hard cash and don't understand the bigger economic picture.

^When Uber and Lyft first came to Ohio in 2014, the pay was much higher than it was just a year later.  I can't remember what it was specifically but I do remember driving someone from CVG to Mason without a surge and getting $65.  A year later that same ride was paying about $45, which means you're not making any money. 

 

I just got an email from Uber saying they're going to be adding in-app tipping soon.

^Also, investors have forced out Travis Kalanick.

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/21/technology/uber-ceo-travis-kalanick.html

Transportation Network Companies -- TNCs include Gett, Lyft, Juno, Cabify, Uber, goCatch, Via, Ola Cabs, GoCar, GO-JEK, Careem, Wingz, Taxify, GrabTaxi, Didi Kuaidi, Easy Taxi, 99 and Fasten. TNCs are examples of the sharing economy.

A @HumanTransit post worth revisiting often: Why we can't abandon transit for "innovation" (Uber, automated) https://t.co/UUuRFu2Tn8 https://t.co/txRJPo7QQL

Uber shut down in London:

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/4522816/uber-stripped-london-licence/

That's a lot of drivers without work all of the sudden

This is an example where market forces will overwhelm what bureaucrats are trying to do and Uber will be back in a few months.

That's a lot of drivers without work all of the sudden

 

I lot of workers working for free for a company burning through billions of dollars per month. 

Apparently, you get what you pay for when using fake Uber:

 

https://www.cincinnati.com/story/news/2017/11/02/mother-car-during-road-rage-incident-feared-her-childs-safety/828042001

 

Investigators say 29-year-old Jasmine Cheatham was the driver in the car that was hit, and a mother along with her 3-month-old son were in the backseat... Police said Cheatham jumped out of the car and started shooting at the silver car that hit her.

 

...

 

She said she doesn't know Cheatham, but heard she was running a fake ride share service through a friend and called Cheatham to run a few errands for her son's birthday party this weekend, who will be turning two.

"Hey bro, my dude just got out of prison. He's had it really hard, could you be a bro and just let him drive you around. Ask him about his face tattoos. They're totally sweet."

 

 

Uber fined $8.9 million by Colorado for allowing drivers with felony convictions, other driver’s license issues

 

Colorado regulators slapped Uber with an $8.9 million penalty for allowing 57 people with past criminal or motor vehicle offenses to drive for the company, the state’s Public Utilities Commission announced Monday.

 

The PUC said the drivers should have been disqualified. They had issues ranging from felony convictions to driving under the influence and reckless driving.

 

http://www.denverpost.com/2017/11/20/uber-colorado-fine/

 

I've noticed a ton of very obviously former cab drivers jumping over to Uber (and to a lesser extent lyft) as of late.  Its actually really erroded the quality of the service as cabbies in Chicago are more often then not total garbage drivers and usually have attitude problems.

50 million customers and 600,000 Uber Drivers have personal data stolen:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-11-21/uber-concealed-cyberattack-that-exposed-57-million-people-s-data

 

Can we just wake up and kick this stupid company out of Ohio?

50 million customers and 600,000 Uber Drivers have personal data stolen:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-11-21/uber-concealed-cyberattack-that-exposed-57-million-people-s-data

 

Can we just wake up and kick this stupid company out of Ohio?

 

So we can have old-fashioned taxi drivers rip us off in person?  No thanks. 

 

 

I know some of you read MMM, here's his latest article about the math of driving for Uber:

 

Mr. Money Mustache, UBER Driver

 

“Hmm”, I would think to myself.

 

“If this driver is burning through $30 of gas, (twelve gallons), they’re probably covering over 250 miles. Whether they realize it or not, it’s costing them $125 in direct car costs before even accounting to the damage to their health or the risk of injury. Thus, the net profit might be as low as $50 for a big day on the road, or five bucks an hour.”

 

More: https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2017/11/22/mr-money-mustache-uber-driver/

I think this girl did end up apologizing, but then wondered why she became such a spectacle in the media :'( What's that matter with kids today?

50 million customers and 600,000 Uber Drivers have personal data stolen:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-11-21/uber-concealed-cyberattack-that-exposed-57-million-people-s-data

 

Can we just wake up and kick this stupid company out of Ohio?

 

So we can have old-fashioned taxi drivers rip us off in person?  No thanks. 

 

 

 

Or we could have a non-profit taxi service operated by transit agencies.  Pay the drivers (of fleet vehicles) a proper salary with benefits. 

^^ Is she just wearing a bra as a top? Sue Ellen Mischke?

^^It's because she's very pretty. Think "Hot Felon"

and she wonders why she's being sexually harassed and getting death threats??

 

Scantily clad woman who stole money from Uber driver's tip jar says she's being harassed

By Katherine Lam| Fox News

 

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2017/11/15/scantily-clad-woman-who-stole-money-from-uber-drivers-tip-jar-says-shes-being-harassed.html

 

-----------------------

 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5059399/PICTURED-Woman-stole-tips-Uber-driver-s-jar.html

 

nobody deserves to be sexually harassed and threatened.

That girl reminds me of one I picked up in 2014 or 2015.  In fact, I seem to recall it being the Wednesday night before Thanksgiving, so exactly 2 or 3 years ago. 

 

I pull up to a house party on Flora St.  After a moment of confusion a girl dressed in a very short skirt sits down in the front passenger seat.  Unprompted, she immediately tells me that she is a senior in high school (so a high schooler at a college party), just lost her virginity the Saturday night before, and that she she just had sex with a different guy at the Flora St. party.  She asks me if I think dude #1 is going to be upset.  I told her well...just don't tell him.  Somehow it hadn't yet occurred to her that the guy might not find out if she just didn't tell anyone.  But she had already told me, and who knows how many in that crowd waiting out by the sidewalk. 

 

It was a short ride to a condo in Over-the-Rhine.  She gets out and I wish her luck.  The door shuts and something catches my eye.  It's a spot of a suspicious substance square in the middle of my passenger side seat.  I pull over and get out the upholstery cleaner and the spot is 90% erased, but now I have a softball-sized wet spot on the seat.  I'm out of business for at least an hour.  I think I drove around with the window open to a gas station to try and dry it out. 

 

^^It's because she's very pretty. Think "Hot Felon"

 

She's not pretty, she's just scantily clad.

This appeared today in my inbox. 

 

[...]

 

 

 

 

Click HERE to file a claim online

 

 

LEGAL NOTICE OF SETTLEMENT OF CLASS ACTION

 

There are 40 days remaining to submit your Claim.

 

The deadline to submit a Claim Form is January 15, 2018.

 

If you have already filed a Claim, you do not need to submit another Claim.

 

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA

 

If you used, or sought to use, the Uber App as an “independent transportation provider” (sometimes referred to as a “Driver”) in the U.S., you may be entitled to a payment from a class action settlement.

 

A federal court directed this notice.  This is not a solicitation from a lawyer.

 

DO NOT ADDRESS ANY QUESTIONS ABOUT THE SETTLEMENT OR THE LITIGATION TO UBER, THE CLERK OF THE COURT OR THE JUDGE

 

 

 

•

 

If you are the named recipient of this e-mail you may be entitled to receive a payment from a Settlement in a class action lawsuit against Uber Technologies, Inc. (“Uber”) and Rasier, LLC (collectively, “Defendants”), regarding whether Defendants obtained consumer background check reports in violation of the Fair Credit Reporting Act (“FCRA”) and related state laws (collectively the “Background Check Laws”).  Plaintiffs allege that Defendants failed to provide proper notice regarding their intention to procure background check reports, to obtain proper authorization to procure background check reports, and to provide required information and copies of the reports before taking “adverse employment actions” against them, in violation of the Background Check Laws.  Defendants deny the allegations in the lawsuit and Plaintiffs’ contention that the Background Check Laws apply to “independent transportation providers” (as this term is defined and used in the software licensing agreements that permit access to the Uber App as a Driver).

 

 

 

 

•

 

The Settlement will result in the creation of a $7,500,000 Settlement Fund to be paid to people who were subject to a background check at Defendants’ request prior to January 3, 2015, called “Class Members.”  The Settlement also requires Defendants to agree not to deliberately return to the form of background check disclosure that was provided to independent transportation providers who sought to use the Uber App in or before 2014.

 

 

 

 

•

 

To be eligible to receive a payment from this Settlement, you must submit a Claim Form by January 15, 2018.  Click HERE to file a claim online.

 

 

 

 

•

 

What do I get from the Settlement?  The Settlement Fund will be used to satisfy payments to Class Members (called “Settlement Shares”); the Service Awards to the named Plaintiffs as approved by the Court; Attorneys’ Fees and Expenses as approved by the Court; and a payment to California Labor and Workforce Development Agency.  You will receive a monetary payment if you fill out and submit a Claim Form and this Settlement receives final court approval. We estimate that you could recover $27.00 or $62.00, depending on whether you are in the ADR group or the Court Group. This amount is an estimate.  Your actual recovery amount may vary, depending on the number of valid claims submitted.

 

 

 

 

•

 

Payments to Class Members will be made only after the Court grants “final approval” to the Settlement and after any appeals are resolved.  If there are appeals, resolving them can take time.  Please be patient and check www.UberFCRASettlement.com for updates.

 

 

•

 

What are my other options? If you do not want to be legally bound by the Settlement, you must exclude yourself from the Class by December 14, 2017, or you will not be able to sue, or continue to sue, Defendants for the claims that this Settlement resolves.  If you exclude yourself or “opt out” from the Settlement, you will not receive payment of your share of the Settlement Fund and you cannot object to the Settlement.  If you stay in the Class, you may object to any part of the Settlement by filing an objection by December 14, 2017.

 

 

 

 

•

 

The Court’s Fairness Hearing?  The Court will hold a hearing in the case, known as In re Uber FCRA Litigation, 3:14-cv-05200-EMC, on February 8, 2018 at 1:30 p.m., to consider whether to approve the Settlement, and the requests by Class Counsel for reasonable attorneys’ fees of up to one-third (1/3) of the Settlement Fund (or $2,500,000) plus expenses, and for Service Awards to the Class Representatives.  The hearing may be moved to a different date or time without additional notice, so it is a good idea to check www.UberFCRASettlement.com for updates.  You or your own lawyer, if you have one, may ask to appear and speak at the hearing at your own cost, but you do not have to do so.

 

Your legal rights are affected whether you act or do not act.

 

 

 

 

•

 

How can I get more information?  See the Detailed Notice for more information, file a Claim Form online, and review other information by visiting www.UberFCRASettlement.com.  You can also call 1-855-770-4368 to hear more about the Settlement.

 

New York City seeks to follow Chicago's lead and impose significant fee on all Uber rides to discourage its use:

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/26/nyregion/uber-car-congestion-pricing-nyc.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=first-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news

Well then how about mammoth fines to those loudmouth cab drivers who are on f'ing partylines or blaring music the whole ride. Let's start with a $500 fine for all documented evidence.