# How does Uber control drivers setting up multiple driver accounts to get more rides?



## cclinkscales (Jan 31, 2016)

Hi. I am new. I am waiting to see how well this works for income in South Florida.

Question: How does Uber control drivers setting up multiple driver accounts in order to grab more rides than others - in a given area? One of the drivers I know who is the one who told me about making money this way has a friend doing this - it is a scam - wondered if Uber has a plan to control this.
Thanks C. C.


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## Uberfood (Aug 16, 2015)

How can you take more than one pickup at a time, though?


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## Maderacopy (Nov 24, 2015)

I don't understand why someone would do this. Why not just do Lyft along with Uber. Why two uber accounts?


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## cclinkscales (Jan 31, 2016)

He explained to me that this is how the scam works: Person A has multiple cars, and then finds people who will let him set up driver accounts in their name. Easy to do in a place with lots of desperate foreigners who don't speak English so their only other hope of a job is something cleaning toilets for minimum wage. He sets up 7 accounts - one in each of the foreigners' names ( they are legal foreigners with working papers - they just don't speak English so their job chances are limited.) Then really, Person A is the only driver, but he has access to 7 accounts, so he has 7 chances to "grab" the riders instead of the one chance an honest driver gets. This earns him more money. Of course the income, for tax purposes, is going to each of the 7 people, so they would be liable for the taxes on that income, so his way of dealing with that is to technically give them each an invoice each month for rental fee for the car (he has title to several cars) so their taxes don't end up being too much. The amount of the invoice is apparently the majority of the income. This way Person A gets more chances at rides, is able to take in more $$ than one person would take in, the foreigners earn more than they could earn elsewhere, and this invoice he gives them for the use of his car which never really was lent out covers them so that they show little disposable income and their taxes are not too much. He has been doing this for quite some time, apparently. Person A is the only one driving; these 7 foreigners just sit back and get paid a relatively small percentage for the use of their name for fake accounts. What I wonder is when a person goes to request a driver and there is one picture, but a different person shows up what then? I wonder why riders don't report that. Also if there were an accident, the driver would be a different person from the person on the account. But Person A has been doing this and earning quite well for quite some time.


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## Fauxknight (Aug 12, 2014)

If the person and vehicle don't match the account a rider shouldn't take the ride. Not all riders check, but the smart ones make sure the plates and driver match at least...a lot of people aren't good enough with cars to tell the difference between many models.

I don't really see more than two or three accounts being viable, you need one on trip, maybe one on way to pick up, and one available for pings, much more than that is overkill.


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## cclinkscales (Jan 31, 2016)

That's good. My concern was that Uber did not have the proper controls in place to guard against scams like this. I want to have my fair chance.


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## Coachman (Sep 22, 2015)

cclinkscales said:


> He explained to me that this is how the scam works: Person A has multiple cars, and then finds people who will let him set up driver accounts in their name. Easy to do in a place with lots of desperate foreigners who don't speak English so their only other hope of a job is something cleaning toilets for minimum wage. He sets up 7 accounts - one in each of the foreigners' names ( they are legal foreigners with working papers - they just don't speak English so their job chances are limited.) Then really, Person A is the only driver, but he has access to 7 accounts, so he has 7 chances to "grab" the riders instead of the one chance an honest driver gets. This earns him more money. Of course the income, for tax purposes, is going to each of the 7 people, so they would be liable for the taxes on that income, so his way of dealing with that is to technically give them each an invoice each month for rental fee for the car (he has title to several cars) so their taxes don't end up being too much. The amount of the invoice is apparently the majority of the income. This way Person A gets more chances at rides, is able to take in more $$ than one person would take in, the foreigners earn more than they could earn elsewhere, and this invoice he gives them for the use of his car which never really was lent out covers them so that they show little disposable income and their taxes are not too much. He has been doing this for quite some time, apparently. Person A is the only one driving; these 7 foreigners just sit back and get paid a relatively small percentage for the use of their name for fake accounts. What I wonder is when a person goes to request a driver and there is one picture, but a different person shows up what then? I wonder why riders don't report that. Also if there were an accident, the driver would be a different person from the person on the account. But Person A has been doing this and earning quite well for quite some time.


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## Maderacopy (Nov 24, 2015)

I don't understand why someone would do this. Why not just do Lyft along with Uber. Why two uber accounts?


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## Coachman (Sep 22, 2015)

Maderacopy said:


> I don't understand why someone would do this. Why not just do Lyft along with Uber. Why two uber accounts?


If you read the explanation above it becomes clear. You pay people some percentage of your uber earnings so you can drive under their foreign identities. It's brilliant!


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## Fauxknight (Aug 12, 2014)

Coachman said:


> If you read the explanation above it becomes clear. You pay people some percentage of your uber earnings so you can drive under their foreign identities. It's brilliant!


Why bother though, you could just drive under your own identity the whole time. Taxes would be the only benefit, but we're already writing off most of our earnings, so taxes aren't really that big of a liability.


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## Coachman (Sep 22, 2015)

Fauxknight said:


> Why bother though, you could just drive under your own identity the whole time. Taxes would be the only benefit, but we're already writing off most of our earnings, so taxes aren't really that big of a liability.


Apparently if you have seven uber accounts signed on in your car you have seven times the probability of getting a ping.


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## Uberchampion (Oct 17, 2015)

Ummmm...that's dumb


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## Ziggy (Feb 27, 2015)

cclinkscales said:


> He explained to me that this is how the scam works: Person A has multiple cars, and then finds people who will let him set up driver accounts in their name. Easy to do in a place with lots of desperate foreigners who don't speak English so their only other hope of a job is something cleaning toilets for minimum wage. He sets up 7 accounts - one in each of the foreigners' names ( they are legal foreigners with working papers - they just don't speak English so their job chances are limited.) Then really, Person A is the only driver, but he has access to 7 accounts, so he has 7 chances to "grab" the riders instead of the one chance an honest driver gets. This earns him more money. Of course the income, for tax purposes, is going to each of the 7 people, so they would be liable for the taxes on that income, so his way of dealing with that is to technically give them each an invoice each month for rental fee for the car (he has title to several cars) so their taxes don't end up being too much. The amount of the invoice is apparently the majority of the income. This way Person A gets more chances at rides, is able to take in more $$ than one person would take in, the foreigners earn more than they could earn elsewhere, and this invoice he gives them for the use of his car which never really was lent out covers them so that they show little disposable income and their taxes are not too much. He has been doing this for quite some time, apparently. Person A is the only one driving; these 7 foreigners just sit back and get paid a relatively small percentage for the use of their name for fake accounts. What I wonder is when a person goes to request a driver and there is one picture, but a different person shows up what then? I wonder why riders don't report that. Also if there were an accident, the driver would be a different person from the person on the account. But Person A has been doing this and earning quite well for quite some time.


And this is why many cities are pushing for FBI fingerprint backgrounds. Personally, I want the fingerprints to slow down uber from bring drivers into my city from surrounding cities. And if your friend ever gets into an accident with one of the "leased" cars ... the real owner of the car is screwed


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## Ziggy (Feb 27, 2015)

cclinkscales said:


> That's good. My concern was that Uber did not have the proper controls in place to guard against scams like this. I want to have my fair chance.


I've heard of one driver driving under his cousin's identification here; but apparently that's because the guy driving "lost" his license due to tickets. But I don't know of anyone driving with multiple profiles ... that sounds like a good way to get jammed up


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## observer (Dec 11, 2014)

Yea, what if he is in driver "B"s identity but driving his own car.

No insurance coverage in case of accident.


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## nickd8775 (Jul 12, 2015)

All 7 accounts would be in the same location. Easy to detect.


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## CIncinnatiDriver (Dec 17, 2015)

Wouldn't Uber not cover the guy if there was an accident?
How would the pax feel about driving completely un-insured ?

this scam sounds dangerous and unethical to pax.


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## Tim In Cleveland (Jul 28, 2014)

There is no way someone could get away with this for long. Customers will report that the picture or car doesn't match and Uber would investigate. You are allowed to have multiple accounts that you sublet to other drivers. They drive cars that you own and pay you a percentage of their fares as rent.


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## DriverX (Aug 5, 2015)

cclinkscales said:


> He explained to me that this is how the scam works: Person A has multiple cars, and then finds people who will let him set up driver accounts in their name. Easy to do in a place with lots of desperate foreigners who don't speak English so their only other hope of a job is something cleaning toilets for minimum wage. He sets up 7 accounts - one in each of the foreigners' names ( they are legal foreigners with working papers - they just don't speak English so their job chances are limited.) Then really, Person A is the only driver, but he has access to 7 accounts, so he has 7 chances to "grab" the riders instead of the one chance an honest driver gets. This earns him more money. Of course the income, for tax purposes, is going to each of the 7 people, so they would be liable for the taxes on that income, so his way of dealing with that is to technically give them each an invoice each month for rental fee for the car (he has title to several cars) so their taxes don't end up being too much. The amount of the invoice is apparently the majority of the income. This way Person A gets more chances at rides, is able to take in more $$ than one person would take in, the foreigners earn more than they could earn elsewhere, and this invoice he gives them for the use of his car which never really was lent out covers them so that they show little disposable income and their taxes are not too much. He has been doing this for quite some time, apparently. Person A is the only one driving; these 7 foreigners just sit back and get paid a relatively small percentage for the use of their name for fake accounts. What I wonder is when a person goes to request a driver and there is one picture, but a different person shows up what then? I wonder why riders don't report that. Also if there were an accident, the driver would be a different person from the person on the account. But Person A has been doing this and earning quite well for quite some time.


This makes no sense at all and Person A is a terrible criminal.

Here's how you do it. Throw away the notion of having multiple accounts for one driver. It's the opposite. One person has multiple vehicles and 
"leases" them to multiple drivers for a percentage of their earnings. I'd bet that 75% of the SUVs at the airport aren't driver owned.


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## thehappytypist (Oct 9, 2014)

Tim In Cleveland said:


> There is no way someone could get away with this for long. Customers will report that the picture or car doesn't match and Uber would investigate. You are allowed to have multiple accounts that you sublet to other drivers. They drive cars that you own and pay you a percentage of their fares as rent.


Exactly! Riders WILL complain if things don't match up, which means a member of my team will be up your ass trying to find out what's going on.


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## Fauxknight (Aug 12, 2014)

DriverX said:


> This makes no sense at all and Person A is a terrible criminal.
> 
> Here's how you do it. Throw away the notion of having multiple accounts for one driver. It's the opposite. One person has multiple vehicles and
> "leases" them to multiple drivers for a percentage of their earnings. I'd bet that 75% of the SUVs at the airport aren't driver owned.


Which is allowed for the commercial services like Black and SUV. It's not allowed for the P2P sevices like X, XL, and Select.


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## DriverX (Aug 5, 2015)

Fauxknight said:


> Which is allowed for the commercial services like Black and SUV. It's not allowed for the P2P sevices like X, XL, and Select.


Uber isn't really P2P. If uber was a true P2P the drivers would have to be employees or uber and or uber would have to be a free service offered to drivers with their own insurance, which would be ideal.


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## Fauxknight (Aug 12, 2014)

DriverX said:


> Uber isn't really P2P.


That's aside from the point, they still have two classes of vehicles, normal commercial and 'other'. Other was originally set up under the lax P2P laws, so that seems to be the best descriptor for them.


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## Santa (Jan 3, 2016)

He might have multiple account, and unless he can clone himself multiple times, he won't be making any extra. The reason is that he'll get a ping where he and the phone is, and he can only be at one place at a time. Unless he has clones.


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## JaxUbermom (Jan 26, 2016)

And he is busting surge wherever he goes and making it disappear because there are seven available rides. Ghey. 

I suspect this might only work if all the passengers are just like his accomplices. Unable to speak English and communicate with Uber to complain. Talk about taking advantage of the already downtrodden. Ugh. There is one in every crowd. I suspect this is a hypothetical situation, and cannot be real. But nice try.


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## cclinkscales (Jan 31, 2016)

Hi It is not hypothetical. It is real. I even have a name but I won't post it here. I told the person who told me about this what an above poster said that realistically you can only juggle like three at a time. he said that this guys is exploiting this at the airports, where Uber drivers are lined up. That is a longer drive so it is more money and he now has 7 times the ability to be summoned in the line at the airport.

I agree he is a slime ball - I wondered if this scam was known about. Thanks everyone.


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## LCamacho (Jan 9, 2016)

WTF! You probably spend too much time at Disneyland!


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## cclinkscales (Jan 31, 2016)

Not sure who you are addressing with the Disneyland comment. I've been about 4-5 times - I used to live in California. Not sure what that has to do with my initial thread.

On another note how do you send a private message through this board? I have clicked and clicked and can't seem to find it. I find something but then it looks like it becomes a true post and not a private message. Thanks.


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## observer (Dec 11, 2014)

cclinkscales said:


> Not sure who you are addressing with the Disneyland comment. I've been about 4-5 times - I used to live in California. Not sure what that has to do with my initial thread.
> 
> On another note how do you send a private message through this board? I have clicked and clicked and can't seem to find it. I find something but then it looks like it becomes a true post and not a private message. Thanks.


Click on members avatar.

Go to "start a conversation".


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## Dude in the Car (Aug 31, 2015)

cclinkscales said:


> Hi. I am new. I am waiting to see how well this works for income in South Florida.
> 
> Question: How does Uber control drivers setting up multiple driver accounts in order to grab more rides than others - in a given area? One of the drivers I know who is the one who told me about making money this way has a friend doing this - it is a scam - wondered if Uber has a plan to control this.
> Thanks C. C.


This doesn't make sense, so he pays for insurance coverage for all the seven accounts? Does he use the same vehicle? How many phones does he use Seven? He must be paying a bill for seven phones.


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## cclinkscales (Jan 31, 2016)

Hi

I am not sure how he does the insurance but he does have several phones. He's a real jerk frankly and I hope he gets caught.


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## LGC (Sep 3, 2014)

Assuming the fact that he has seven accts is true.

It still makes zero sense.

I don't see how he has a better chance of getting rides since all the vehicles would be in the same spot.

Picture this:

3 people standing near me. I give 2 of the people a single card from a deck of 52.

I hand the 3rd guy seven cards.

Each person will put their pile on a table. 

I blindfold a 4th guy and tell him to grab a pile.

The guy with more cards doesnt have a better chance at being picked.

Just my $.02

P.S. I stopped reading after the 4th or 5th post so if someone already mentioned this, I apologize.


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## Nooa (Dec 30, 2014)

Coachman said:


> If you read the explanation above it becomes clear. You pay people some percentage of your uber earnings so you can drive under their foreign identities. It's brilliant!


It's sounds freaking stupid.


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## LGC (Sep 3, 2014)

Nooa said:


> It's sounds freaking stupid.


Agreed, but pretty certain that coachman just forgot his /sarcasm tags.


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## Dutch-Ub (Mar 1, 2016)

I saw a youtube clip about this on the forum, cant find it now. One guy stays at the airport with all the accounts activated, on the waitlist. Whenever one account is up his buddy grabs the phone and does the pickup. When he is on the way back the other accounts are already on the waitlist so the next trip should be less waitingtime.

Other way is to have two phones, once u drop pax off, you log off and ur buddy at the airport logs in on the other phone with your account. Now u can easily drive back half an hour and when u arive u already cued up half an hour on the waitlist. Works only in teams. I have absolutely no proof of this really happening, just saw it on the yt clip..

Edit: the buddy is also an driver.


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## observer (Dec 11, 2014)

Dutch-Ub said:


> I saw a youtube clip about this on the forum, cant find it now. One guy stays at the airport with all the accounts activated, on the waitlist. Whenever one account is up his buddy grabs the phone and does the pickup. When he is on the way back the other accounts are already on the waitlist so the next trip should be less waitingtime.
> 
> Other way is to have two phones, once u drop pax off, you log off and ur buddy at the airport logs in on the other phone with your account. Now u can easily drive back half an hour and when u arive u already cued up half an hour on the waitlist. Works only in teams. I have absolutely no proof of this really happening, just saw it on the yt clip..


I think I saw that in the London forum.


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## UberPissed (Aug 13, 2014)

Not really the spirit of the question, but I wanted to set up an account in a different city - they won't allow both accounts active, and check based on drivers license #.


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## thehappytypist (Oct 9, 2014)

UberPissed said:


> Not really the spirit of the question, but I wanted to set up an account in a different city - they won't allow both accounts active, and check based on drivers license #.


They won't? When I was there, it was very common to have multiple accounts for different cities if it was necessary. In some places it isn't necessary, one account can go for multiple cities.


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## UberPissed (Aug 13, 2014)

thehappytypist said:


> They won't? When I was there, it was very common to have multiple accounts for different cities if it was necessary. In some places it isn't necessary, one account can go for multiple cities.


They said you could do neighboring markets. This was Chicago and Grand Rapids. They wouldn't allow both. Makes no sense.


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## phillipzx3 (May 26, 2015)

cclinkscales said:


> That's good. My concern was that Uber did not have the proper controls in place to guard against scams like this. I want to have my fair chance.


A "fair" chance? Who are you trying to kid? There are no caps set in any city for the number of active Uber (or Lyft) drivers. Why would you think Uber, who makes money no matter if it's fair, or not, cares if drivers are "cheating"

I bet you don't carry commercial insurance on your car either. Yet I bet you feel you're in a "fair" business with cab drivers.

If you expect anything fair from Uber, you need to do a grip more research on their business model.


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## thehappytypist (Oct 9, 2014)

UberPissed said:


> They said you could do neighboring markets. This was Chicago and Grand Rapids. They wouldn't allow both. Makes no sense.


Sounds like maybe they didn't understand what you were wanting. There's no reason not to allow you to do both and set up an account for Grand Rapids.


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## UberPissed (Aug 13, 2014)

thehappytypist said:


> Sounds like maybe they didn't understand what you were wanting. There's no reason not to allow you to do both and set up an account for Grand Rapids.


Now your starting to thing logically -- something Uber is incapable of.


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## Oscar Levant (Aug 15, 2014)

cclinkscales said:


> Hi. I am new. I am waiting to see how well this works for income in South Florida.
> 
> Question: How does Uber control drivers setting up multiple driver accounts in order to grab more rides than others - in a given area? One of the drivers I know who is the one who told me about making money this way has a friend doing this - it is a scam - wondered if Uber has a plan to control this.
> Thanks C. C.


I dunno, but I should think Uber will find out soon enough, and they will be permanently deactivated. I always advise people to resist any temptation to game the system, they always find out, sooner or later.


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## Oscar Levant (Aug 15, 2014)

DriverX said:


> This makes no sense at all and Person A is a terrible criminal.
> 
> Here's how you do it. Throw away the notion of having multiple accounts for one driver. It's the opposite. One person has multiple vehicles and
> "leases" them to multiple drivers for a percentage of their earnings. I'd bet that 75% of the SUVs at the airport aren't driver owned.


I'm an SUV (sometimes airport ) guy, and when I'm hanging out at Laning road ( san diego hangout area ) I've put that question to other drivers, and my impression is that most own their vehicles, having sold their taxi medallions long ago when UberBlack just started, and they were able to get a high price for them.


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## RichR (Feb 12, 2016)

thehappytypist said:


> Sounds like maybe they didn't understand what you were wanting. There's no reason not to allow you to do both and set up an account for Grand Rapids.


Since you're in-the-know: In a couple weeks or so, Uber is going to start serving Iowa City. I drive for Uber in Cedar Rapids, which is about 20 minutes from Iowa City.

So, let's say I get a ping from the Cedar Rapids airport, and the pax wants to go to Iowa City. After I drop him off there, will I be unable to get pings in Iowa City on my existing Cedar Rapids account?


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## thehappytypist (Oct 9, 2014)

RichR said:


> Since you're in-the-know: In a couple weeks or so, Uber is going to start serving Iowa City. I drive for Uber in Cedar Rapids, which is about 20 minutes from Iowa City.
> 
> So, let's say I get a ping from the Cedar Rapids airport, and the pax wants to go to Iowa City. After I drop him off there, will I be unable to get pings in Iowa City on my existing Cedar Rapids account?


Well I used to be in the know lol I honestly don't know. Usually the rules for uberX are more relaxed since professional licensing isn't required.


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