26 May, 2017
Uber will repay New York City drivers for the ride-hailing firm after admitting it shortchanged them by tens of millions of dollars.
"In New York, we deduct commissions and administrative fees from gross fares, as per our driver agreement", Lyft spokesperson Adrian Durbin said in a statement. According to the WSJ, Uber is planning on refunding all drivers, including former drivers, about $900 each and could end up costing them $45 million as NYC is one of the companies biggest markets.
Uber also reportedly became an issue in the city's recent mayoral primary election, where incumbent mayor and early Uber supporter Bill Peduto won easily.
Druss and dozens of others spent six hours telling a Department of Public Utilities panel about the minor, often decades-old infractions that got them disqualified under an agreement between the DPU and ride-hailing companies. In January, Uber paid $20 million to settle claims from the Federal Trade Commission that it exaggerated how much its drivers could earn.
Moving forward, Uber's new adaptation to an AI calculated service may grow to different industries, as companies look for better ways to charge customers. And maybe more importantly, Steel City officials and residents feel Uber didn't make good on its promise to bring jobs to the city.
Uber drivers have always been suspicious of and frustrated with the ride-hailing service, which has variously subsidized, raised, and slashed driver pay over the last few years. However, in the current case, Uber was taking its part of the fare based on the pretax sum, instead of after taxes and fees as stated in its terms of service.
Uber says that it will deposit the full amount owed to drivers who have worked for Uber in the past 90 days by next week.
So far, Uber hasn't found any other errors during its audit of driver payments. When the company calculates the share to take from driver fares, it does so using the post-tax amount, so both the driver and Uber are getting the correct share of the actual revenue from the fare. "Nice try." Bhairavi Desai, executive director of the New York Taxi Workers Alliance, said in a statement. Under that model, the company asks riders to agree to a price when they book a ride, but pays drivers based on minutes and miles.
