Uber: quite possibly the most hated app that everyone uses. At least until something even marginally better comes along.
Here’s one more reason to hate the company, if you needed it.
You know how prices were presented “upfront” beginning last summer?
Uber said passengers would win out, since they’d know exactly what the fare would be before agreeing to it. (It also helped disguise fare surges.)
That might be true. But it seems that Uber’s math generally benefits … Uber.
Here’s how it works.
Uber estimates what the total fare would be. You agree to it, and pay it. Uber’s said it believed that overestimates and underestimates would balance out in the long run. Unsurprisingly, that’s not what’s happened, according to one industry observer.
Instead, Uber more frequently overestimates the fare, charging passengers the higher fare. Drivers, though – equally unsurprisingly — only get paid the real (lower) fare. Guess who pockets the difference? According to Quartz: “Over 165 trips from early March to early April, Uber overcharged [one] driver’s passengers by a total of $85.54.”
We’re betting that experience isn’t unique.
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