Be Excellent To Each Other

Don't know how it works in the UK. Some of them are, some of them aren't.

Still, the prices you pay include a percentage that will go to an union/professional order who in turn manages such an antiquated thing as welfare.

European court decided that Uber is a transportation company and not an IT Platform. Fuck yeah.

http://curia.europa.eu/juris/document/d ... cid=346750

Obviously, they, will probably go on as usual, not caring for any local laws because they are from silicon valley, and obviously more important than any of us.

They are self employed. They employ themselves. Whose welfare are they paying into? If their employer is treating them badly, they should probably have a word with themselves.

There are many many reports of Uber treating their employees badly. The problem is that Uber argues that they're not their employees. That's the main cause of concern. Uber takes a good chunk of their earnings and has no social obligations to them whatsoever.

So, that makes the black cabs unantiquated, how?

I ask every Uber I drive in what they think about the working conditions, and that's a lot of them. Absolutely without exception every single one says the flexibility they get from not being directly employed is the most attractive thing about the job. They want to be able to work as many or as few hours as they like, and most of them have not just Uber, but also Lyft or others, which they wouldn't be able to do if they were directly employed.

I appreciate that in somewhere like San Francisco, the pricing model is so brutal in order to steal the market that the drivers are painfully underpaid. In London, my experience is overwhelmingly that the model works for users and drivers.

It makes them "antiquated", according to some people. I was just arguing against that idea.

Traditional cabs model have problems, mainly because they don't have an incentive to offer a good service, but Uber definitely isn't the answer, and does more harm than good.

In my experience, the uber cars are cleaner, drivers cleaner, and fares cheaper than local minicabs. But this is based on 3 uber and lots minicabs.

Do you really think it's fair that Uber charges 25% of the cab fare, after being themselves who stipulate pricing conditions? With such conditions how can are argue that they are "self-employed"? Just because they chose their schedules, it doesn't necessarily mean they are self-employed.

When i do contractor work for someone, i have to pay something in taxes yes. It can be 25% or more if it adds VAT. Still, that money goes to the state and i get social benefits in return and also contribute to social services. It doesn't go to someone already filthy rich in california.

Yes.

Every single black can I’ve ever been in has been driven by a middle aged white guy. Many of them have been openly racist. Every single London Uber I’ve ever been in has been driven by an immigrant to the UK. That’s significant. Uber is a very good idea, executed brilliantly by flaming arseholes. Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater. I strongly distrust any binary opinion of the company, in either direction.

And you think this is due to Uber "amazing inclusion policies" or because it's the immigrants that have more need to work and mind less about not being unionised or not having social benefits?

If someone were to use Bolt and got charged £10 too much when they processed the payment, and later received a text saying ‘oops, we charged your card £10 too much’, they’d be entitled to that money back, right?

Because they aren’t refunding the money and instead have added a £10 credit to the account, which has to be used within the month.

As they aren’t budging, who’d be the ombudsman to complain to? If it were on credit card it might be easier, but I think it is debit card.

Council might be a good shout.

It’s in London, and (I believe) across boroughs, so I’m not entirely sure how that would work.

The bank should sort this out. It doesn't matter whether it's a credit card or not, you can't just overcharge people and retain the credit.

Brill, thanks. It looks like trying to reason with them directly is not working. They’ve already issued credit, so they can’t do anything, apparently.