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Don't Sass Your Uber Driver - He's Rating You Too 265

HughPickens.com writes David Streitfeld reports at the NYT that people routinely use the Internet to review services from plumbers to hairdressers, but now the tables are turned as companies like Uber are rating their customers, and shunning those who do not make the grade. "An Uber trip should be a good experience for drivers too," says an Uber blog post. "Drivers shouldn't have to deal with aggressive, violent, or disrespectful riders. If a rider exhibits disrespectful, threatening, or unsafe behavior, they, too, may no longer be able to use the service." It does not seem to take much to annoy some Uber drivers. On one online forum, an anonymous driver said he gave poor reviews to "people who are generally negative and would tend to bring down my mood (or anyone around them)." Another was cavalier about the process: "1 star for passengers does not do them any harm. Sensible drivers won't pick them up, but so what?" In response, some consumers are becoming more polite and prompt. "The knowledge that they may be rated is also encouraging people to submit more upbeat reviews themselves, even if the experience was less than stellar," writes Streitfeld. "When services choose whom to serve, no one wants to be labeled difficult."
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Don't Sass Your Uber Driver - He's Rating You Too

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  • by JDAustin ( 468180 ) on Monday February 02, 2015 @02:59PM (#48960997)

    Simple rule to follow...

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]

    • Re:Be nice (Score:5, Insightful)

      by PolygamousRanchKid ( 1290638 ) on Monday February 02, 2015 @04:05PM (#48961749)

      Actually, I travel a lot in Europe, and take a lot of taxis. I have only had very positive experiences with taxi drivers . . . because I treat them with respect.

      Taxi drivers are the eyes and ears of a city . . . the NSA should drop all this online monitoring crap, and just put some taxi drivers on the payroll. They know everything. I was joking with one in Brussels, and asked him if he knew the address of the mistress of the Prime Minister. He answered, "Which one of his mistresses?"

      Which is why this scares me a wee bit, when I hear that Über or whoever is harvesting data on passengers. And who will have access to that data . . . I think you know who.

      Anyway, I have recently been in Delft, Holland, Paris, France, not Hilton, Nice, France, Birmingham, Southampton, UK, Brussels, Belgium, Zürich, Switzerland, Böblingen, Germany, Stuttgart, Germany, Darmstadt, Germany . . .

      And where-ever you are . . . there you go. There is a taxi driver who will take you to where ever you need to go . . . if you treat him or her with respect!

  • Eating itself? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by TWX ( 665546 ) on Monday February 02, 2015 @03:02PM (#48961027)
    Between the liability/risk issues of potentially not having commercial insurance, the looming threat of municipal regulation, the increasing prices, and now the disclosure that some drivers may be just as petty as riders, it sounds to me like these ride-sharing companies are eating their own. Makes me question how long-term-stable the business model is.
    • Re:Eating itself? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 02, 2015 @03:16PM (#48961215)

      They aren't "ride sharing". Stop using that ridiculous phrase. When you wait around for someone to ask you for a ride somewhere that you weren't going to go otherwise for money that isn't ride sharing.

    • Between the liability/risk issues of potentially not having commercial insurance...

      Uber drivers are covered under Uber's commercial insurance. The commercial insurance policy is online. And you're actually free to read it, which is more than you can do with the insurance policy of traditionaly Taxi companies.

      The only thing about Uber's insurance is that the driver must be logged into the Uber app for it to apply (so this also implies that the driver is covered when he/she is on his way to pick up a ride, or just waiting around for people needing rides). For the rest of the time, the Uber

  • Geez, can't any of you people LISTEN??

  • by vux984 ( 928602 ) on Monday February 02, 2015 @03:02PM (#48961039)

    Seems like a mixed bag to me. On the upside if it motivates customers to be on their best behaviour; to be polite, prompt, etc. That's only a good thing.

    On the other hand, if its just creating a circle jerk of good reviews that's not doing the system any good.

    Driver only ran over one child; and the odor in the vehicle was less rank than the vehicles state of cleanliness would have suggested it would be. Could not hear radio over soothing rattles and squeaks. Would ride again! 10/10. A+++++

    • by rwa2 ( 4391 ) *

      Eh, I think the restaurant business was looking into doing something like this as well... (maybe they do now that FourSquare is processing payments).

      Imagine if a restaurant knew as soon as walked in how much you tipped them (or other restaurants in the "socio-financial network") last time?

      • by gstoddart ( 321705 ) on Monday February 02, 2015 @03:25PM (#48961309) Homepage

        Imagine if a restaurant knew as soon as walked in how much you tipped them (or other restaurants in the "socio-financial network") last time?

        Hey, I have a better idea ... how about you remember you work in the service industry and if you are an incompetent or a rude server you won't get tipped?

        A bunch of snot-nosed teenagers who think they deserve a 20% tip for asking if you want fries with that is not what the world needs.

        I've seen some utterly terrible service before. And some useless server who checks to see who the big tippers are will basically give crap service to someone who was the victim of another useless server and didn't leave a tip. It divorces the reason for the tip from the actual tip.

        Some distributed social network of lazy servers keeping tabs on people who don't tip them enough ... yeah, what could possibly go wrong with that?

        • by nobuddy ( 952985 )

          You are right for some on the server side, but you also have to admit there are cheap assholes on the customer side that won't tip no matter how stellar the service is.

          • So fucking what?

            Yes, there will always be people like that ... having a bunch of idiots using social media as an excuse to give you bad service because they know in advance they might not get a tip?

            Sorry, but get over your self entitled bullshit, or get a real job.

            Increasingly it sounds like social media is being used so people with shitty jobs can act like self entitled assholes and pretend their dead-end job is important.

            You're a cab driver, or a waitress, not some precious little snowflake. Want better

        • by Rinikusu ( 28164 )

          Yes and no. I used to deliver pizzas for extra money back in the day and we certainly knew the neighborhoods where people generally tipped and the neighborhoods where people generally didn't. I was always polite, courteous, and never malicious towards the non-tippers, unless you were an *asshole* non-tipper. Don't want to tip? That's great, don't tip, let me get on my way to the customers who *do* tip. Don't pull out $15 in nickels, dimes, and pennies and just shove them at me and berate me because you

        • Comment removed based on user account deletion
          • by suutar ( 1860506 )

            I have to admit, my experience in a non-tipping society (Japan, to be exact) had generally excellent service. I think it's a combination of a culture which considers showing respect to others very important (the tenets of Shinto all boil down to "respect others") and a very competitive environment (if you can go half a block in Tokyo without passing a place to get food, you're in an unusual district).

      • by perpenso ( 1613749 ) on Monday February 02, 2015 @03:36PM (#48961403)

        Eh, I think the restaurant business was looking into doing something like this as well... (maybe they do now that FourSquare is processing payments). Imagine if a restaurant knew as soon as walked in how much you tipped them (or other restaurants in the "socio-financial network") last time?

        Happens all the time. Waiters/waitresses recognize past customers. A little mark on the ticket lets the cooks know the good tippers.

        Restaurants with delivery service recognize addresses. Good tippers get moved to the head of the queue, a little extra care is taken with their order, etc.

        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          by Anonymous Coward

          And thus, the cycle continues. Why would you tip for good service if you have been systematically ignored, served lower-quality food and have to wait longer?

          • Thus, don't be an asshat from the beginning and you are good.

          • And thus, the cycle continues. Why would you tip for good service if you have been systematically ignored, served lower-quality food and have to wait longer?

            You are assuming that non-good tippers will get bad service. That is not necessarily so. What routinely happens is that known good tippers get outstanding service, moderate tippers get good service, and only the most troublesome customers get bad service to encourage them not to return. Even modest tipping is a win for the staff, they won't want to lose those customers.

          • by suutar ( 1860506 )

            Out of delight to finally be getting some good service?

    • I can't remember exactly how the Uber review process worked but I THINK it was like the AirBnB system where host and guest could not see each others reviews/ratings until both had finished.

      • by vux984 ( 928602 )

        I can't remember exactly how the Uber review process worked but I THINK it was like the AirBnB system where host and guest could not see each others reviews/ratings until both had finished.

        How does that work?

        If the driver doesn't review anyone, then no one can ever see the passengers reviews? (No exploit there... if a driver suspects the passenger was unhappy, he can just not review them to supress their review.)

        Or everyone can see the review except the driver? (Trivial to work around with a 2nd account.)

        Ne

        • How does that work? ... If the driver doesn't review anyone, then no one can ever see the passengers reviews?

          There's a simple solution for that: give both sides a fixed amount of time (several days) to enter a review. Reviews remain hidden until the time limit has passed.

          The site should allow reviews to be edited until the time limit expires, rather than locking in reviews once both sides have submitted, to as a safeguard against coercion. Otherwise one party could force the other to enter a positive review while they watch, then lock it in by submitting their own review.

        • If the driver doesn't review anyone, then no one can ever see the passengers reviews?

          Since the driver would stay unrated forever, even that wouldn't work very well for them...

          I'm sure for Air B&B there's some kind of timeout where the reviews are eventually seen and the other side is locked out of making a review at that point.

      • Maybe bad ratings should cancel each other out.

        OTOH, I think they should have a separate ratings for personal interaction and also hygiene. Stinky drivers and passengers can then still get together.
      • UberX works like this; I've driven for UberX for three months:

        Neither driver or passanger can see each other's ratings. After a probationary number of trips, the driver gets a rolling lifetime average rating in the app, and a weekly average rating via email. Drivers and riders start out with a 5 star rating, so if you encounter a driver with a five star rating they are still on probation. I don't believe riders get a probation (Uber has never said as much) but if a passenger has a 5 star rating I find th
    • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 ) *

      It didn't work very well for PayPal. Both sides were fearful of getting a negative rating in retaliation for any criticism, so they were rarely used. Once they got rid of buyer feedback the sellers started being extra nice.

  • by OhPlz ( 168413 ) on Monday February 02, 2015 @03:08PM (#48961091)

    I think Comcast has prior art here. Such as the story the other day of a Comcast rep changing a customer's first name to "Asshole". The significance is that Comcast can get away with it. They're part of a monopoly or equally bad duopoly in many of the areas they serve. Uber is not. A company that denigrates its customers isn't going to be able to keep its customers, and that opens the door for another competitor to step in.

  • by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 02, 2015 @03:10PM (#48961125)

    > "The knowledge that they may be rated is also encouraging people to submit more upbeat reviews themselves, even if the experience was less than stellar,"

    Ebay had the same problem with sellers threatening to give buyers crappy feedback ratings if they weren't first given a perfect rating. Eventually ebay changed their system [theguardian.com] so sellers could not rate buyers. That's imperfect too, but seems to be less imperfect than the previous iteration. I have no opinion as to whether a similar change would be a good thing for Uber, I don't use their service.

    • That's an indicative precedent, It will be interesting to see if they go through that same evolution.
    • by nobuddy ( 952985 )

      Thanks for the link. I had seen that was the case but did not know what happened. I suspected (correctly) but did not know.

    • by blackomegax ( 807080 ) on Monday February 02, 2015 @03:37PM (#48961415) Journal
      And as a result of that, ebay is flooded with the scammiest, worst buyers of any service anywhere. 3 out of my last 4 sales there got charged back and there was jack all I could do about it.
    • by Nick ( 109 )
      Apples and Oranges. As an Uber rider, you don't see your rating, you don't know who rated you what. Sure you can ask a driver what your rating is, but all ratings are not transparent, you have no log of what was rated.
    • ebay improved the system by only allowing buyers to provide feedback, but they could improve the system more by giving the buyer the same rating as the buyer is giving the seller. Feedback is useful in determining whether or not the transaction was successful, but not useful in determining which of the two parties is responsible for a failed transaction.

  • Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Monday February 02, 2015 @03:11PM (#48961143)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • sorry but Uber seems to have a higher share of body odor drivers than regular taxi companies.

  • WTF? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by gstoddart ( 321705 ) on Monday February 02, 2015 @03:14PM (#48961183) Homepage

    So, first Uber thinks they're exempt from the laws, and now they expect their customers to fawn over them to protect their fucking fragile egos?

    These guys sound like uber assholes.

    Sorry, but nothing I've ever heard about this company makes me think I'd ever want to have anything to do with them.

    • That's not what this is. Some riders are assholes, these riders are less likely to get picked up by a taxi. You don't have to fawn over Uber on Yelp or whatever.

    • I would imagine there's just an asshole meter associated with a client. Drivers can still pick them up, but some won't. It's supply and demand with a new analytic on the demand side. I would imagine that anyone violent or abusive would get banned altogether so we're not talking about people that pose an actual danger to drivers...just assholes.

  • by SuperKendall ( 25149 ) on Monday February 02, 2015 @03:18PM (#48961243)

    AirB&B faces a similar issue where they need to have service providers and guess rate each other.

    What Air B&B does to prevent people leaving less than honest reviews out of fear, is to have both sides finish rating the other before they can see what each other left for feedback.

    That way you can leave an honest review without fear of getting dinged.

    The summary tries to cast a lot of shade on Uber for allowing this but honestly doesn't this put them 1000 years ahead of the cab industry where you cannot even see ratings for cab drivers AT ALL?

    If you really want to imagine future issues, think of this - an obnoxious rider of the future who only cab companies will serve. Can you not imagine some kind of law passed requiring a driver of any service to pick up even the most threatening person for the sake of "fairness"...

    Should it be possible that a person annoying or violent enough cannot get cab service at all? Or is cab service a right...

  • I wonder how long (Score:5, Insightful)

    by taustin ( 171655 ) on Monday February 02, 2015 @03:37PM (#48961411) Homepage Journal

    I can't help but wonder how long it will take the less savory drivers to develop code words for the following:

    "Too black."
    "Too Jewish."
    "Lives in a neighborhood that's too black."
    "Too black, and was rude when I called him a nigger and accused him of trying to carjack me because he wouldn't give me a tip of ten times the fare."
    Uber is about a hundred different kinds of lawsuits that have found a place to happen.

    Now, it's 101.

  • Like retail. I think everyone here as encountered at least one of those individuals where you start being ashamed that you have to share a queue with them, let alone a country. The kind that thinks their 2 bucks 50 purchase entitled them to being a total asshole to the poor guy working there. Aka the "I'm a paying customer asshole".

    How much I'd love to rate these people in hopes they will never ever clog the line I'm in and make me wait for half an hour because the cashier can't honor their expired coupon t

    • by sribe ( 304414 )

      Like retail. I think everyone here as encountered at least one of those individuals where you start being ashamed that you have to share a queue with them...

      So speak up and call them out on their behavior. Seriously. I do this, and it's amazing how fast they back down when the person shaming them is not an employee and cannot be fired for doing so.

  • If customer A consistently gives lower-than-average ratings, scale their reviews upward to that a "3" from them is a "5" from someone else. If they consistently give "5" rating but give a "1" to a particular driver, then pay attention to that deviation.

    Same for drivers: if B frequently gives "1" ratings to passengers, then that's a roundabout way of saying that B is a difficult jerk and you can ignore those.

    • Uber claims that if you don't get a 5 rating every time, you can't use their app. Which is inane. As a consumer, I rarely give anyone a '5', since I believe that one can always improve. It would be more reasonable if Uber says that any rating below 3 would be grounds for disabling the app. Although one thing I don't get - if you can't use the app any more, doesn't that effectively disable you from driving as a Uber driver?
      • FFS, you're taking a vehicle from point A to point B. What more can you possibly do to improve upon this? If you got there in one piece and was charged the expected amount, give them a 5 rating. This isn't a scale where 3 is average and 5 is you want them as your spouse. 5 is met expectations.
  • XXX rating (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Dishwasha ( 125561 ) on Monday February 02, 2015 @03:41PM (#48961465)

    "Attractive female customer did not respond well to aggressive sexual advances" - Uber Driver #756234

  • by Okian Warrior ( 537106 ) on Monday February 02, 2015 @03:46PM (#48961527) Homepage Journal

    A lot of economists view and post on this board, so maybe one of them could explain something to me.

    The libertarian view would seem to apply here: a capitalistic system taken out of the free-market model and run by well-meaning regulation to prevent certain bad practices. Taxi rides must be regulated by government, lest the rides become unsavory, price gouging, and unsafe. Taxi rides are considered a necessary infrastructure, and thus a natural monopoly.

    (And to be clear, having safe, reliable transportation in a city brings a lot of benefits: tourism, visiting businessmen, and so on.)

    Despite the well-meaning reasons for all this, the taxi medallion system does not live up to it's purported goals. Taxi rides are the subject of satire, sarcasm, and mockery [grandslamnewyork.com].

    Here's a typical first-hand report [forbes.com].

    Taxi medallions sell for multiple hundreds of thousands of dollars [slashdot.org]. The money is used to fund the regulatory system surrounding taxis, and one would *suppose* that with this much money available that there would be a lot of infrastructure keeping things clean, safe, and reliable.

    And yet, taxis are neither clean, safe, nor reliable. Here's a series of articles [bostonglobe.com] from Boston on the situation. From those articles:

    [...] Passengers hurt in accidents often run into denial and evasion by poorly insured firms

    [...] fleet owners get rich, drivers are frequently fleeced, and the city does little about it

    It's abundantly clear that the government-regulated, natural monopoly solution simply *doesn't work*.

    So here's my question: It would seem on first reading that the Libertarian view, of "remove regulation and let the free market decide" is the better solution. We have two models both active in the same market (taxi medallions with regulation, versus app-driven Uber) and it would appear that the Libertarian model is better.

    Why is the Libertarian view on this particular narrow situation not the correct view?

    • The link above, "multiple hundreds of thousands of dollars", was somehow replaced. It should point to the Chicago schedule of Taxi medallion transfer fees.

      Transfer fees are less than the auction costs of a medallion, but are still in the 6-figure range.

    • by ljw1004 ( 764174 ) on Monday February 02, 2015 @05:16PM (#48962461)

      Here's a typical first-hand report [forbes.com]... taxis are neither clean, safe, nor reliable.... It would appear that the Libertarian model is better. Why is the Libertarian view on this particular narrow situation not the correct view?

      My experience with taxis has been that they're almost always clean, safe and reliable. I flat out disagree with your "typical" first hand report. The chance of that report being typical and yet not repeated in any of my own many hundreds of taxi rides makes me disbelieve that it's typical.

      Your "it would appear" claim doesn't stand up to scrutiny. I think you're looking at the available evidence through libertarian-tinted spectacles. Please repost when you have some statistically significant comparisons.

  • "Drivers shouldn't have to deal with aggressive, violent, or disrespectful riders. If a rider exhibits disrespectful, threatening, or unsafe behavior, they, too, may no longer be able to use the service."

    Just you wait, Uber, until a year later it turns out, your drivers have blacklisted a "disproportionally" large share of some minority — sexual, racial, or religious. Let's see, if having Obama's top political adviser in employ [recode.net] will help you then...

    Why should not a business-owner — whatever the

  • I'm not an Uber driver, but several times when I've been waiting by the curb to pick up my wife at her office, Uber passengers have jumped in my back seat. Where do I submit my reviews of them?

  • Companies do customer assessment for a long time. This is no new development. Credit companies and banks do it, and when you have a bonus card then a couple of companies are profiling you. So what else is new? Ah yes, Uber the overrated taxi killer and exploiter of drivers is doing it too. I would rather walk home in a Blizzard than ever using their service. Why is that news? Because they are sooooo in or is it because they pay some extra? Either way it sucks. The best thing for all of us would be to ignore

  • Screw Uber. I just want to get from A to B. Don't really care how.

  • I'd love it if there was some sort of service evaluation tool that could follow you around, frankly.
    I make a deliberate effort to be polite and courteous to service people, even (especially) when circumstances make it hard - it's the mark of being a civilized human. I have *absolutely* no problem with people evaluating my conduct and wearing that evaluation on my sleeve.

    Sure, there are going to be some people that just downrate me for personality, or whatever.
    What would be great is if the evaluators are LI

  • They are obligated legally to get you and transport you where you wish. You are not at the mercy of some asshole wanting to get back at you if you had bad mood or you gave him/her a bad tip.

Waste not, get your budget cut next year.

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