# Lyft Payment Inaccuracies - Underpaying Drivers



## elelegido (Sep 24, 2014)

I noticed a while ago that Lyft is not accurate in its calculation of gross fares payable to drivers. To quantify the losses for me, I analyzed the last several hundred rides I did for them, and found that over the period in question, Lyft understated my gross earnings by just under $150. Taking off their commission, I was underpaid approximately $120 over three months.

The main areas of inaccuracy are:

Lyft Line - Lyft calculates the fare as normal, then rounds down the fare to the nearest dollar and keeps the change. So, if your Line fare should have been $5.99, your gross will not be $5.99, but $5. From that $5 Lyft will then take 20% commission of $1. Their total take from the driver on this $5.99 fare would be $1.99, which equates to a huge 33% commission. Every single Line fare is rounded down. On average the driver loses 50c per Line fare because of this.

Another huge money grab by Lyft occurs when Prime Time is involved. In over 90% of the Line Prime Time fares I analyzed, Lyft shaved up to $2 off the gross fare, keeping 100% of this money, and then took 20% commission of what was left.

The final problem that came to light with Line is when rides are confirmed as being Prime Time at the end of the ride on the Lyft driver app, and then again on the daily summary, but the fare is calculated as non-Prime Time. This happened on appromimately 10% of PT rides. Obviously a big money loser for drivers at +50 or above PT.

Any Lyft Line drivers out there - check your Line earnings; they will be wrong and you're being underpaid.


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## Uber-Doober (Dec 16, 2014)

elelegido said:


> I noticed a while ago that Lyft is not accurate in its calculation of gross fares payable to drivers. To quantify the losses for me, I analyzed the last several hundred rides I did for them, and found that over the period in question, Lyft understated my gross earnings by just under $150. Taking off their commission, I was underpaid approximately $120 over three months.
> 
> The main areas of inaccuracy are:
> 
> ...


^^^
In-Blanking-Credible! 
I'm rarely speechless, but in this case...? 
How can they do this kinda shit?


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## Txchick (Nov 25, 2014)

elelegido said:


> I noticed a while ago that Lyft is not accurate in its calculation of gross fares payable to drivers. To quantify the losses for me, I analyzed the last several hundred rides I did for them, and found that over the period in question, Lyft understated my gross earnings by just under $150. Taking off their commission, I was underpaid approximately $120 over three months.
> 
> The main areas of inaccuracy are:
> 
> ...


Did you bring that to Lyfts attention??


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## Uber-Doober (Dec 16, 2014)

Txchick said:


> Did you bring that to Lyfts attention??


^^^
Bring it to their attention? 
What? 
Something of that magnitude is not an accounting error, that is purposeful and I think even actionable.


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## Txchick (Nov 25, 2014)

Uber-Doober said:


> ^^^
> Bring it to their attention?
> What?
> Something of that magnitude is not an accounting error, that is purposeful and I think even actionable.


Well if that is the case, bringing it to their attention would make them aware of their action & also make them explain it.


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## Western Warrior (Jan 20, 2015)

Thanks for your keen eye. I'll certainly be more vigilant. Greed appears to be taking over this whole ride share business and drivers are at the short end of the stick.


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## elelegido (Sep 24, 2014)

Yes, Lyft is deliberately underpaying the drivers on Line. They do correct fares if you write in, but obviously it's a hassle. I have contacted Lyft about this before; one such email exchange is below. It was from earlier this year, when I emailed Support about a fare:

Original message
*Elelegido *wrote:

On 1/10 at 7:08am I picked up rider Stephanie. At 7:19 I dropped her off; the trip distance was 4.1 miles. The prime time rate was +25%. The fare should have been:
(2.25 + (4.1 x 1.35) + .27 x 10) x 1.25 = $13.10. The fare notified to me by Lyft after the ride was only $12.

I am getting REALLY tired of Lyft nickel and diming me on Lyft Line fares. Lyft owes me $1 for this fare. Please update the fare to $13 instead of $12.

Also, please explain why Lyft rounds DOWN the fare and pockets the difference. I lose 5 - 10% of the fare to Lyft on every Lyft Line I do. This is MY money that I have earned. When is Lyft going to start paying drivers the cents and stop taking money they have earned? What is the date for this?

JAN 13, 2015 | 04:28PM PST
*John B.* replied:

Hi,

Thanks for taking the time to write in about this.

I looked up your account and reviewed your ride on 1/10 with Stephanie. Our records show that the ride was recorded as 4.2 mi, 11 min. Here's how a ride with those stats should breakdown:

Pickup: $2.25
Distance: $1.35 per mile * 4.20 miles = $5.67
Time: $0.27 per minute * 11 minutes = $2.97
Ride total: $10.89

Prime Time: $2.72 ($10.89 * 25%)
Ride total w/ PTT: $13.61

Lyft Take: $2.72 ($13.61 * 0.20)

Total paid to driver: $10.89

I confirmed that your earnings for the ride were $9.60. At this time, I've requested a bonus for $1.29. This amount will be included in your deposit that gets processed this coming Tuesday, 1/20.

As a heads up, our Engineering Team implemented a code freeze a couple weeks ago to ensure the Lyft platform would be stable for New Year's Eve. In the new year, one of the first features we're looking at launching is decimal support for Line ride.

Thanks for your patience! Let us know if there's anything else we can help with.

Best,
Lyft Support

After I got this reply, I asked:

"My second question is why, if you personally can manually access my trip records and then manually calculate the correct fare, why doesn't Lyft's automated fare calculation application? Where is the calculation error occurring? Surely the application accesses the same database you did to get the trip details."

And got this reply:

"As to the other points you mention, they are far beyond the scope of my role and I am not familiar with any of the programming going on "under the hood" of the Lyft app. If there is a systemic issue going on with Lyft Line calculations, we certainly want to identify it and make sure that drivers are getting paid the correct amount."

That was three months ago. Obviously there's no interest on Lyft's part in making the necesssary changes to pay drivers correctly.

It's as if an employer said to an hourly worker, "we pay you $12.80 an hour, but we feel like rounding down and pocketing the 80 cents, so we'll just pay you the $12. Is that OK?". Or if you were go into a supermarket, you pay for $8.50 worth of goods with a $10 bill and the checkout clerk just says to you, "Oh, we're going to keep the change; move along now".

It's outrageous; I don't know how Lyft has got away with this for so long.


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## elelegido (Sep 24, 2014)

It looks like getting paid when Lyft shorts you on Line rides depends on the CSR you get when you contact them. My latest request for the correct fares for Line rides performed was rejected by a CSR. But, the useful thing he/she did give was an explanation of exactly how Lyft calculates its underpayments

Hi Sucka,

Thanks for getting back to us. I took a look at a few different rides you were referring to and can confirm that you have been paid out properly for all rides you wrote in about. 

This was the first ride on the sheet you provided: 

Pickup: $2.25 
Distance: $1.35 per mile * 2.62 miles = $3.54 
Time: $0.27 per minute * 8.717 minutes = $2.35 
Ride total: $8.00 (rounded down from $8.14) 

Prime Time: $4.00 ($8.00 * 50%) 
Ride total w/ PTT: $12.00 
Cost minimum adjustment: $0.00 
Adjusted ride total: $12.00 :

Best,

Lyft Drone


So... On all rides they round down driver pay, but it's worse on Prime Time Line rides, because they remove the cents before applying the PT multiplier. Meaning that on a +200 ride they will short the driver up to $2.97 on the ride. The loss from their rounding down is multiplied by whatever the PT multiplier is.

Geee.... Thanks, Lyft!


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## oneubersheep (Nov 27, 2014)

Oh what a surprise!

They understand exaxtly how much time, effort, collaboration and expense it would take to have that corrected. 

They rely on our lack of unification, education and resources!


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## elelegido (Sep 24, 2014)

onefuctubersheep said:


> Oh what a surprise!
> 
> They understand exaxtly how much time, effort, collaboration and expense it would take to have that corrected.
> 
> They rely on our lack of unification, education and resources!


The latest response from Lyft was,

"As a standard business practice, we round each component of the ride down to the whole dollar amount. We wanted to strike a balance that would benefit the community as a whole when we were considering pricing calculations."

My reply:

"Really? Well, my standard business practice is that I require payment for ALL work I perform. This is not a matter to be clouded with claims about pricing. It is a simple matter of Lyft not paying drivers the amounts it is CONTRACTED to pay them. It is totally separate from and unrelated to any customer pricing considerations."

Their reply (paraphrased):

"Tough shit; that's how we pay drivers"


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## jiwagon (Feb 19, 2015)

Lyft sucks.


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## elelegido (Sep 24, 2014)

Tonight I turned Lyft app on and it told me to update it. So I did and soon got a Lyft Line ping. At the end of the ride, the fare screen showed dollars and cents. No rounding down. A second Line ride afterwards also showed a fare with no rounding down.

It's too early to claim victory over Lyft and its refusal to pay its drivers for the whole Line ride, but it looks promising so far.


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## OCBob (Jan 20, 2015)

Was there ever a law suit concerning the rounding down (or up)? That would seem against the law.


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## AintWorthIt (Sep 30, 2014)

Ugh both Lyft and uber blow. Lyft was busy here a few months back and now it's a ghost town, I wonder if they are on their last legs?


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## elelegido (Sep 24, 2014)

OCBob said:


> Was there ever a law suit concerning the rounding down (or up)? That would seem against the law.


It's not against the law; it would be a civil matter over failure to pay money owed.

I can't believe there hasn't been major kickback against this scam, though. Maybe every other Lyft Line driver is thinking the same thing. I'm looking now to see if I can get a reporter interested enough to do a story on it.


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