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Transportation Technology

Some Uber Drivers Use Bogus Identities and Shared Accounts (cnet.com) 83

Posted by msmash from the bigger-problems dept.
An anonymous reader shares a report: Uber faced a blow on Monday when London regulators refused to renew the ride-hailing company's operating permit because of safety concerns. The biggest issue lawmakers cited was drivers using false identities as they ferried unsuspecting passengers. At least 14,000 trips were made by unauthorized drivers, according to city regulator Transport for London. The way it worked is this: A number of drivers would share one account, and whenever one of them went out to drive, they'd upload their own photo to fool passengers. The unauthorized drivers were able to pose as vetted, licensed and insured, when often they weren't. Turns out, the issue of fraudulent Uber drivers isn't isolated to London.

Instances of unauthorized drivers, including convicted felons, being on the Uber app have surfaced in other cities, including San Francisco, Houston and Boston. Sometimes drivers reportedly used another person's license and Social Security number to sign up for the ride-hailing service. Other times they used fake names. And on some occasions they bought bogus identities on the internet. "For bad actors, it's not hard to circumvent Uber's signup process since it's designed to get drivers onboarded as quickly as possible and with as little hassle as possible," said Harry Campbell, a ride-hail driver who runs the popular Rideshare Guy blog. "From time to time, Uber uses a 'selfie check' to verify the driver, but it's not clear how accurate this method is."
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Some Uber Drivers Use Bogus Identities and Shared Accounts More

Some Uber Drivers Use Bogus Identities and Shared Accounts

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  • Cutting all those corners... (Score:5, Informative)

    by VeryFluffyBunny ( 5037285 ) on Friday November 29, 2019 @12:41AM (#59468380)

    ...and Uber still can't make a profit. Sounds like a bad business model to me.

    At least we get to see some very rich "investors" lose some money.

    • Re:Cutting all those corners... (Score:4, Interesting)

      by jellomizer ( 103300 ) on Friday November 29, 2019 @09:08AM (#59468828)

      A lot of these companies that grew fairly rapidly and are overtaking many of our traditional boring companies are running into these issues.

      When you are a small company you can be very agile, you have a small staff who is often on the same page as you are. Your customer base is also small and is getting what they want. There was a small niche and you have filled it.

      When a company begins to grow, you get a larger number of staff, to a point where you can no longer manage them directly so you hire manager, then directors to manage these managers, VPs to manage these directors... This creates silos in the company because every new employee will have their own spin on what is needed, and often taking a high level objective from the CEO and considering it an order, then doing whatever it takes to meet the objective. This is where most companies ethics breakdown. With each level bending the rules a little further until it is skewed at the bottom.

      There are very few CEO's who can make the transition from a small company to a big one without this company turning into a corrupt junk company that usually will not last in the next recession.

      What really should happen is after a startup gets to a size and it become profitable and is at a good size, the Founding CEO should step down, and hire one of those boring CEO's who just deal with the Business, and hires experts to manage the details.

      There are not many Steve Jobs who can take a company from a garage to the worlds largest companies out there, and be involved in Product design, Sales and Marketing, and finance... And I wouldn't say that Steve Jobs is a good roll model, as he was a freak in business.

    • and they're doing the same thing. Uber's just spending a lot on new tech, which they can drop at any time.

      Also the individual investors will do just fine. Rules have changed to let public pensions buy into high risk investments [qz.com] like Uber.

      At this point I think Uber is an elaborate scheme to extract money from public pensions and in turn tax payers. The TL;DR of the above is that rich venture capitalists will pull out of Uber quickly when the collapse happens leaving slow moving Public Pensions holdin
  • Yeah, let's not let people who have been through our prison system get jobs. That's totally the right thing to do.

  • Convicted Felons (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Iamthecheese ( 1264298 ) on Friday November 29, 2019 @02:02AM (#59468444)
    Oh my god, you mean there are FELONS out there that actually have a shot at working and integrating into society? We can't have that shit! Every one of them needs to be squeezed out of the job market and back on to the street where they can once again become productive inmates!

    • Re:Convicted Felons (Score:4, Informative)

      by DrMrLordX ( 559371 ) on Friday November 29, 2019 @02:24AM (#59468472)

      Some felons can't do domestic delivery/taxi-style service as a part of their probation (assuming they're still on probation, which frequently they are). Then there are those who are registered sex offenders who have similar restrictions.

      A registered sex offender (in some states) can't take any job having to do with home delivery, taxi service, or domestic service (read: someone's home is a job site). That means no working as a residential mechanic/tradesman of any kind, no residential delivery (not even newspapers), no working for taxi/ridesharing services, no working for the phone/cable company (except for commercial deployments or maybe lineman work), and possibly not even working in certain construction fields. Commercial is fine as long as you are not working directly with schools/churches/playgrounds/parks/other banned locations and as long as you are not required to linger within 1000 feet of one of those for longer than about 5 minutes.

      What they want you doing is working in some industrial warehouse (or similar) surrounded by people with steel toe boots and boxcutters.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by dryeo ( 100693 )

        The problem is how easy it is to become a registered sex offender in America. Sending pictures to your significant other who happens to be a year younger. Caught having a pee at 3:00 in the morning by a school on the way home from the pub and so on.

        • Comment removed based on user account deletion

          • Re: (Score:3)

            by dryeo ( 100693 )

            It's the problem with the legislature passing laws to punish people rather then the courts. Here in Canada, to get put on the sex offenders list takes a Judge to do it as part of sentencing, so you end up with a much shorter list full of actually dangerous people on it. Same with firearms, the only people banned from owning them are people banned during sentencing for doing something stupid with a gun, and the bans are often for a limited time. Actually it is likely a court order might limit firearm ownersh

      • Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Re:Convicted Felons (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Joce640k ( 829181 ) on Friday November 29, 2019 @03:02AM (#59468510) Homepage

      Oh my god, you mean there are FELONS out there that actually have a shot at working and integrating into society? We can't have that shit!

      We're fine with the "felon" part, it's the "uninsured driver" part that's ruining it for us.

      • Re: Convicted Felons (Score:4, Insightful)

        by MrNaz ( 730548 ) on Friday November 29, 2019 @04:45AM (#59468558) Homepage

        So yea. We won't stop them from getting a job. We will, however, stop them from working anywhere other people are, from getting insurance, and from doing anything that makes anyone uncomfortable, whatever that means.

        • Driving without insurance is against the law. Period.

          It doesn't matter who's doing it, it's still illegal.

          • Comment removed based on user account deletion

            • This one is easy. Uber should be liable for all uninsured rides. Sure aligns their incentives with their drivers!

            • Driving without insurance is against the law. Period.

              It doesn't matter who's doing it, it's still illegal.

              Not to pick nits, but it’s not, actually... at least in some jurisdictions,

              The jurisdiction being discussed is a place called "London".

      • Technically, the "illegal" driver masquerades as being the official account owner (and probably the vehicle owner).

        In the end, the one who's going to be in trouble is the original account (and probably car) owner, once the insurance company realises that they paid to cover damage for an accident where the insured guy turned out to not even be physically present, only his car and some black-market driver.

        It's going to end up with an insurance company suing the account sharer, over the money the insurance gav

  • It hasn't caused a problem has it? WTF is the big deal? Has there been even one incident of a violent crime occurring because of this?

    • So they should wait until there ARE violent crimes to do something?

      They cheated. They were caught. They lost the license. Makes sense to me.
      • That's a great point. There hasn't been a problem with you stealing from the company, but turn in your security badge as we aren't about to wait until that actually happens to solve the problem.

    • It hasn't caused a problem has it?

      Depends. Uninsured drivers are considered a problem by many.

      WTF is the big deal?

      Shouldn't let people drive around uninsured, and shouldn't let livery services ("sharing" or not) operate with unidentifiable drivers.

      • I know Uber puts up $1 million, but trust me that's not a lot if you a long term injury. Especially if you're in a country like the United States without single payer healthcare.

        As for the driver's insurance, it's non-commercial. Unless they bought a commercial policy, which of course they didn't those are expensive, you're screwed. You can sue the driver, but he's driving Uber so he's broke. You can sue Uber, and their lawyers will tie it up until you're dead or the company is.

        Uber's a disaster wai

    • Re:So what? (Score:5, Informative)

      by spaceman375 ( 780812 ) on Friday November 29, 2019 @02:30AM (#59468478)
      I saw this many times last year when I lived in Rio. They didn't even bother to change the profile pic. Sometimes the car license plate and make didn't match what the app reported, but they knew my name and where I was going. I refused to get in the car sometimes. One guy tried to make me pay him directly because "The app isn't working" until I started walking towards a busier street and yelling "Policia!" So Yes, it IS a problem.

    • Re:So what? (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Joce640k ( 829181 ) on Friday November 29, 2019 @03:00AM (#59468508) Homepage

      It hasn't caused a problem has it? WTF is the big deal?

      Which part of "Uninsured Driver" are you failing to understand?

      All they need to do is pay car insurance like the rest of us do, problem solved.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by 3247 ( 161794 )

        Which part of "Uninsured Driver" are you failing to understand?

        All they need to do is pay car insurance like the rest of us do, problem solved.

        Nope. They likely have "car insurance like the rest of us". However, they need extra insurance if they use their car commercially.

        • ie. They're not obeying the law therefore they don't get a license.

          Which part of that is difficult to understand?

    • How much insurance fraud has there been? Or tax fraud? And would a violent crime be reported, or settled out of court quietly?

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by rldp ( 6381096 )
      There have been actual rapes, but they didn't rape you so you don't care. People get in accidents with uninsured drivers, need lifetime medical care, which will never be paid for, but it didn't happen to you, so you don't care. All that's important to you is you save a couple bucks when you're out drinking. The ultimate "fuck you, i got mine" attitude. You are a big ole load of suck on toast.

  • is what Dara Khosrowshahi will say.

  • People enter fake data and throwaway email addresses into smartphone apps?

    Call me shocked.

  • 43 drivers (Score:3, Informative)

    by cmseagle ( 1195671 ) on Friday November 29, 2019 @03:45AM (#59468538)

    The fact that never seems to make these headlines is that the TfL investigation uncovered 43 unauthorized drivers. That's in a city with 45,000 registered. [theguardian.com]

    14,000 is insignificant in a city with millions of rides per month.

    • If they caught 43 it is a pretty safe bet there will be many times that that have not been caught yet.

      • Perhaps. To draw that conclusion we'd need to know TfL's methodology.

        Did they investigate every driver who had ever changed their photo? If so, 43 could be pretty close to the upper bound on the scope of this form of fraud.

        Or, were they spot checking? How many did they check? Did they find 43 fraudulent drivers after checking 100 accounts, or after checking 10,000? Those two rates of fraud tell very different stories.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Malc ( 1751 )

          Given the duration of most licenses that TfL issue, this is something that could quickly grow in to a problem with lower pressure to resolve. Renewal is a good deadline that TfL can use to force companies to do something, and probably an easier process for them than that revocation/early license termination.

    • Re:43 drivers (Score:5, Informative)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 ) on Friday November 29, 2019 @07:19AM (#59468710) Homepage Journal

      What your summary is missing is that they didn't just find 43 drivers, they found that Uber wasn't properly vetting drivers so there could in fact be many more than 43. Nobody knows because Uber didn't bother to check.

      It's not the number, it's the fact that Uber's procedures are inadequate and now nobody can be sure how many of their drivers are legitimate. Unless they improve the procedure, re-vet every driver and then re-apply we can't trust them.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by mi ( 197448 )

        Uber wasn't properly vetting drivers so there could in fact be many more than 43

        The traditional taxi cab companies could be having the same problem — and on a much larger scale too.

        Indeed, for all we know, AmiMoJo could in fact be a serial rapist — it is an outrage, that such people are allowed to post online without their identities immediately known.

        Slashdot ought to lose its license for allowing criminals to use it to interact with each other, and affect public opinion in general — and

        • The traditional taxi cab companies could be having the same problem â" and on a much larger scale too.

          Yeah they *could* except you know TfL check these things and that's how they caught uber. Uber isn't the first company they've caught and banned and it won't be the last. So as usual you're full of shit.

          Indeed, for all we know, AmiMoJo could in fact be a serial rapist â" it is an outrage, that such people are allowed to post online without their identities immediately known.

          More being full of shit

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by shilly ( 142940 )

      14,000 is insignificant in a city with millions of rides per month.

      Not a fan of six sigma, then?

  • Uber drivers in Poland work for companies that do share accounts; apparently they do that to go around some Polish law. so the driver listed in the app and the one picking you up are sometimes different.

  • What we need is an alternative to Uber and Lyft, preferably one that is bonded and insured so that this kind of thing doesn't happen. An alternative that, regrettably, might require some regulation, but how else are you going to ensure that the drivers are accountable? If only someone would step in and devise a way to hold drivers and their employers accountable, and maybe alleviate the burden of the drivers having to provide their own vehicles, with the attendant wear and tear and cost of upkeep.

    On top of

  • A photo needs to be updated maybe once per year. Why did Uber even allow more frequent updates of key identification?

  • The biggest issue lawmakers cited was drivers using false identities

    This would never, never ever, happen to a regular taxi company of the good old times...

  • They have every right to hire additional workers so long as the work is completed, don't they? When I hire a guy to build a fence I don't expect him to do it by himself, right?

    Or is it maybe possible they're not really independent.

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