Ride-sharing spat: Uber hits back, says Lyft employees canceled Uber rides

By Trevor Mogg August 13, 2014

lyft ride sharing — Image used with permission by copyright holder

A day after ride-sharing service Lyft accused Uber of underhand tactics in the fight for customers, Uber has hit back with its own claims of improper conduct by Lyft.

The increasingly bitter war of words between Lyft and Uber is a mark of just how intense the competition has become between the two rivals as they seek to gain the upper hand with their respective services.

Uber on Tuesday rejected Lyft’s claim that its employees had ordered and canceled more than 5,560 Lyft rides over a 10-month period, instead accusing its rival of pulling the same move with 12,900 Uber rides.

Such tactics not only waste drivers’ time and impact on the next (genuine) customer, but also reduce the number of available cars on the road.

An Uber statement described Lyft’s accusation as “baseless and simply untrue.”

The startup even suggested Lyft’s decision to go public with its accusation was in some way designed to encourage Uber to acquire its business.

“A number of Lyft investors have recently been pushing Uber to acquire Lyft,” Uber said. “One of their largest shareholders recently warned that Lyft would ‘go nuclear’ if we do not acquire them. We can only assume that the recent Lyft attacks are part of that strategy.”

Lyft was quick to respond, on Tuesday issuing the following statement:

“Once again Uber is deceiving the public, now with false allegations and an attempt to deflect from their illegal cancel campaign.

“Lyft has more than 100 investors, all of whom are extremely excited that Lyft is approaching IPO-level revenue. Our ‘nuclear’ strategy is continuing to take market share with 30 percent month-over-month growth, while building the strongest community of drivers and passengers.”

Starting out a couple of years ahead of Lyft, Uber has grown to offer its on-demand car service in more than 100 cities around the world. Lyft, meanwhile, currently operates in around 60 cities in the US only. However, while plenty of ride-sharing services exist, it’s Lyft that has emerged as the main rival to Uber.

The current spat comes just weeks after Lyft launched in New York City, a location where Uber has been operating since 2011.

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Contributing Editor

Not so many moons ago, Trevor moved from one tea-loving island nation that drives on the left (Britain) to another (Japan)…

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An Uber App on a smartphone.

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Uber is now arguing that it doesn’t actually have any drivers

An Uber App on a smartphone.

If you've been living a life where you thought Uber had “drivers,” it’s time to rethink your entire existence.
In 2017, Uber executive Nicholas Valentino, the operations manager for the company’s Atlanta operations at the time, repeatedly corrected the plaintiff’s attorney in a case when the latter referred to the people operating cars on Uber’s platform as “drivers,” the Washington Post reported Monday.
According to Valentino, they are not drivers. Instead, he wanted those individuals referred to as “independent, third-party transportation providers."
If that sounds like an off-the-cuff remark, think again. Apparently, Valentino repeated the claim a total of 16 times in the course of the case. The case, Jessicka Harris v. Uber, was filed by a woman who almost lost her leg when she was struck by a vehicle being operated on Uber’s behalf that she claimed had veered off the road.
In that same case, Uber was asked to “admit or deny that Uber is in the business of providing transportation,” to which the company’s attorneys also repeatedly “denied.”
Uber later settled the case out of court but has maintained throughout a number of similar cases that it does not employ its drivers, going as far as to say about one driver that it “never had an agency, employment, partnership, joint venture, or joint enterprise relationship with him.”
Gives you the warm fuzzies, right?
The transcript of the 2017 case comes as Uber is fighting a similar but different battle in its home state of California regarding whether or not its “third-party transportation providers” should be considered employees.
Last month, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed the bill AB5, which will give gig workers some of the same labor protections and benefits afforded to regular employees of companies, including health care subsidies, paid parental leave, overtime pay, and a guaranteed minimum hourly wage. It also gives employees the ability to unionize.
Uber strongly opposes the bill and said that the majority of the drivers on the platform would prefer to stay independent and have flexibility rather than be classified as employees.
“We expect we will continue to respond to claims of misclassification in arbitration and in court as necessary, just as we do now. But we will also continue to advocate for the independence and choice that drivers tell us again and again in surveys, polls, focus groups, and personal conversations that they value most,” Tony West, Uber’s chief legal officer, said in a blog post after Newsom signed the bill.
“Today, drivers have control over when, where, and how they work," West said. "They can choose to work for any of our competitors at the same time, and many do. In the U.S., 92% of drivers drive less than 40 hours per week, and 45% of drivers drive less than 10 hours per week. This would all change dramatically if they were employees. We will continue to defend the innovation that makes that kind of choice, flexibility, and independence a reality for over 200,000 drivers in California.”
AB5 is expected to go into effect on January 1, 2020.