Uber Drivers Forum banner

New Fare Details From Uber. What are they?

2K views 13 replies 10 participants last post by  Spock B 
#1 ·
Since the new fare details came out on May 22 I have noticed some interesting things.

I looked at minimum fares and noticed riders were being charged various amounts for nearly identical trips. Additionally Uber is stating the mileage and time rates and then making the payment up as a "minimum payment supplement". How is this being reported or added on my 1099?

For example I am seeing a charge of 50 cents made on trips to "other parties". When I asked about this I received a response that it is a City of New Orleans fee yet the same fee appears on trips conducted in Jefferson Parish. What is this fee?

I also had minimum fare trips on two occasions on the same day which were nearly identical yet one rider was charged $6.56 and one rider was charged $6.78. In both cases it was the service fee that changed with one rider being charged $1.25 and the other $1.48. Neither was a split fare or anything other than a regular fare.

In both cases the service fee should have been 25% or $1 yet in all minimum fare rides I am seeing at minimum a charge of $1.02. What are these extra charges being made?

Additionally have you noticed we can no longer either download or print fares unless you print each web page.

I posed the following questions to Uber

What are the additional fees being charged?
Why can't I print or download my fare details?
How do these disbursements affect my 1099?

My initial request produced a canned response to go look at the earnings page which tells you nothing. After repeated requests for clarification they simply ignored it and closed the ticket.

So technically on both these minimum fares Uber made $3.78 and $3.56 less their "supplement" and I made $3.00. So it looks like Uber is now turning to riders to make more money but NOTE - the TOTAL charges to riders are what is being reported on your 1099. Additionally as a supposed "contractor" should I not have the right to receive all the fare details in a form which I can use for my own analysis and not just a 1099?
 
See less See more
#3 ·
Man I've been on news twice in 2015 and 2016. We Uber drivers are our worse enemies & I can't blame folks who depend Uber to feed their family or themselves cuz psychologically Uber has us all. If this re-match thing at the airport is not enough for us drivers to be protesting at the office on Bayou Rd, then nothing will matter. I have photos of 5 & almost 6 hour waits at the airport for drivers. I just wonder how are the rental car drivers are going to make it
 

Attachments

#4 ·
Does anyone really know how the APP works. For example if you look at the FAQ's on ratings, acceptance rates and cancellations you will see a little statement that says "Higher acceptance rates can mean shorter wait times". How does that equate to you getting rides? Does someone with a 98% acceptance rate get a ride before you if yours is 97%? I personally have not yet received a rematch at the airport as of yet. Has anybody?

Perhaps another area to consider has been matching you with another rider. How many drivers have nearly reached their rider and/or even talked to their rider only to have this happen and in some cases the new rider has been further away than your current rider. What happens to the driver that had the original ride. How many drivers have received the message "The client has cancelled the ride" for no apparent reason. Is Uber cancelling the ride for the original driver to give it to someone else? You will never know because you don't get to see the rider. I am sure they are not going to send you a message saying they have given the ride to someone else. I recently picked up a rider and was a minute into the trip when the ride was suddenly cancelled. The rider had no clue. They didn't do it. Notably she tried to request the ride again while actually sitting in my vehicle only to be told that there were 8 drivers available and the nearest one was three minutes away and guess what, it wasn't me.

Of course even though we are supposed to be independent contractors we are not privy to the workings of Uber which also apparently changes and modifies its app and web pages all the time and at their discretion. They turn off your ability to select a destination when it suits them. Their navigation is terrible and now often tells riders I'm five minutes away when I am at their door and Uber holds that they have no accountability for their actions. You are right to feel sympathy for those that depend on Uber for their incomes because Uber does not care one bit about them. If you don't agree with them, their agreements or requirements you lose access to drive. You have no choice other than when you can drive and the current investigation into their greyball and VTOS programs (Violation of Terms of Service) software shows the lengths they are prepared to go.
 
#6 ·
Does anyone really know how the APP works. For example if you look at the FAQ's on ratings, acceptance rates and cancellations you will see a little statement that says "Higher acceptance rates can mean shorter wait times". How does that equate to you getting rides? Does someone with a 98% acceptance rate get a ride before you if yours is 97%? I personally have not yet received a rematch at the airport as of yet. Has anybody?

Perhaps another area to consider has been matching you with another rider. How many drivers have nearly reached their rider and/or even talked to their rider only to have this happen and in some cases the new rider has been further away than your current rider. What happens to the driver that had the original ride. How many drivers have received the message "The client has cancelled the ride" for no apparent reason. Is Uber cancelling the ride for the original driver to give it to someone else? You will never know because you don't get to see the rider. I am sure they are not going to send you a message saying they have given the ride to someone else. I recently picked up a rider and was a minute into the trip when the ride was suddenly cancelled. The rider had no clue. They didn't do it. Notably she tried to request the ride again while actually sitting in my vehicle only to be told that there were 8 drivers available and the nearest one was three minutes away and guess what, it wasn't me.

Of course even though we are supposed to be independent contractors we are not privy to the workings of Uber which also apparently changes and modifies its app and web pages all the time and at their discretion. They turn off your ability to select a destination when it suits them. Their navigation is terrible and now often tells riders I'm five minutes away when I am at their door and Uber holds that they have no accountability for their actions. You are right to feel sympathy for those that depend on Uber for their incomes because Uber does not care one bit about them. If you don't agree with them, their agreements or requirements you lose access to drive. You have no choice other than when you can drive and the current investigation into their greyball and VTOS programs (Violation of Terms of Service) software shows the lengths they are prepared to go.
I think they mean shorter wait times for the passenger. Higher acceptance rates means the closest person to them picks them up more often.
 
#9 ·
Since the new fare details came out on May 22 I have noticed some interesting things.

I looked at minimum fares and noticed riders were being charged various amounts for nearly identical trips. Additionally Uber is stating the mileage and time rates and then making the payment up as a "minimum payment supplement". How is this being reported or added on my 1099?

For example I am seeing a charge of 50 cents made on trips to "other parties". When I asked about this I received a response that it is a City of New Orleans fee yet the same fee appears on trips conducted in Jefferson Parish. What is this fee?

I also had minimum fare trips on two occasions on the same day which were nearly identical yet one rider was charged $6.56 and one rider was charged $6.78. In both cases it was the service fee that changed with one rider being charged $1.25 and the other $1.48. Neither was a split fare or anything other than a regular fare.

In both cases the service fee should have been 25% or $1 yet in all minimum fare rides I am seeing at minimum a charge of $1.02. What are these extra charges being made?

Additionally have you noticed we can no longer either download or print fares unless you print each web page.

I posed the following questions to Uber

What are the additional fees being charged?
Why can't I print or download my fare details?
How do these disbursements affect my 1099?

My initial request produced a canned response to go look at the earnings page which tells you nothing. After repeated requests for clarification they simply ignored it and closed the ticket.

So technically on both these minimum fares Uber made $3.78 and $3.56 less their "supplement" and I made $3.00. So it looks like Uber is now turning to riders to make more money but NOTE - the TOTAL charges to riders are what is being reported on your 1099. Additionally as a supposed "contractor" should I not have the right to receive all the fare details in a form which I can use for my own analysis and not just a 1099?
What you can do is the money you never received to pay business taxes on... Do a 1099 form back to them for the funds they received. It is legal, because you only suppose to pay taxes on money you received not what other parties received. They are making your business income taxes higher if you don't do it that way, that's the more you pay in taxes for a business.

If you do not understand .... in box me...
 
#10 ·
Before forming a union they claim they won't negotiate with, I say this and this is just wishful thinking because these drivers out here won't fight with those willing to, but a show of unity in front of the Bayou Road would be a good start. Form a car block party with our apps on and refusing to take fares. Alert the news to the plan and if we can do this for at least 3-5 days, hopefully it catches fire around other cities. BUT!!!! What can you expect from folks having to pay those high ass rental fees and who need those $3 trips to feed their family? Now they have forced us into the city and after 5 hours of sitting in city, it got me and a friend $15 a piece. So when I spoke to a local union office about forming a union two Novembers ago, he wanted to know how many drivers Uber had and without a reliable number he wouldn't know what the 50% driver mark was. Now we definitely don't know now. I'm down for whatever cuz this b.s. has to stop before those driverless cars stop it for us.
 
#12 ·
In a true scientific analysis I have been painstakingly transferring my fare details (since we no longer can download them...Hmmm) and analyzing calculated fares against those actually paid. While drivers are getting paid correctly solely on the fare base, riders are being charged different "service fees" than just the flat 20 or 25%. In fact there are very few cases where the service fee actually matches what it should be.

My conclusion. The majority of riders in New Orleans are tourists or convention people. I cannot check against college riders since there are now few around. It would appear to me that the service fee being charged riders is based upon where they are from and not based upon the city they are in. In some cases they are as low as 69 cents and in one case ( a rider from India) they actually credited them $2.14. In a lot of cases, however, the rider is actually being charged more than the calculated service fee. In all cases of minimum fare rides though, I am seeing a minimum service fee of $1.02 and not $1.00. May not sound much but I am just one driver of thousands. So take heart drivers. They are no longer just screwing drivers but riders as well.

Considering also the number of executives and managers leaving Uber there can be no doubt that ethics plays no part in Uber's business model.
 
#14 ·
The deal only comes in if they are saving money and I have seen only a few instances where that is happening. One where an Australian paid 69 cents for the service fee and one where an Indian was actually credited $2.14. In particular minimum fares for locals seem to attract this minimum $1.02 while local rider service fees seem to be accurate for higher fares. I am of the opinion Uber is using service fees as a means to subsidize rides in one area by taking them from another.
 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top