# Lyft Drivers Say They're Getting Shortchanged



## autofill (Apr 1, 2016)

https://www.nbcdfw.com/news/busines...ng-Shortchanged-by-the-Company-468282433.html

*Lyft Drivers Say They're Getting Shortchanged*

Published 6 hours ago | Updated 4 hours ago
The Lyft driver who picks you up may be getting cheated out of the money you're paying for the ride. Fed up, drivers reached out to NBC Responds for help.

Brian Bleecker has been driving for Lyft for more than two years. He said he's been happy, but he admits it's not an easy living.

"I'm struggling to make this work full time," he said. "I wasn't sure my house payment was going to clear this month."

Bleecker gets paid per ride. He thinks Lyft pays him the rider fare, minus a 20 percent cut that Lyft takes. He said that's what he agreed to when he signed up.

But, Bleecker recently heard rumblings that Lyft wasn't being upfront about what it's charging riders. So, he asked some of his riders to help him investigate.

"I was totally floored that it didn't match. It didn't make any sense," Bleecker said.

Here's what he told us he found: A rider paid Lyft $22.16 for a ride, but the fare Lyft reported to Bleecker was $17.78.

Another ride: Lyft charged the rider $48.46, but Lyft told Bleecker the rider paid just $35.47.

Lyft is paying Bleecker based on a fare that's lower than what it's charging the rider. Bleecker said Lyft is pocketing money that should be his, and also duping the rider, leading them to believe the driver is paid based on the fare they paid.

"I'm overwhelmed that this is happening," he said. We heard this same story from dozens of Lyft drivers who feared retaliation by the company if they spoke to us.

So, we took some rides to see what we'd find. And sure enough, time and time again, the fare Lyft reported to the driver was lower than what we paid, usually by a buck or two.

"They're breaching their deal. They're being deceptive. They're being misleading," said Attorney Stephan Mashel.

Mashel accuses Lyft of deceiving drivers and shorting their paychecks. He filed a class action lawsuit, claiming Lyft is secretly making two fare calculations per ride. One determines what riders pay. And the second determines what drivers are paid. Mashel said the driver formula is almost always lower.

"Those monies go into the coffers of Lyft that should go into the pockets of the hard working drivers who are trying to make a living doing rides and providing a service to customers," Mashel said.

Mashel believes Lyft is hiding the fare discrepancy and that it should be clearly disclosed in its contract with drivers. He said Lyft recently made the fare calculations more available, but he argues it's still difficult to find.

Mashel wants Lyft to simply pay drivers based on the fare riders pay.

Bleecker and the other drivers who talked to us say want to see the same.

"There has to be some retribution, some fairness to it," Bleecker said.

Lyft didn't respond to our repeated phone calls and emails for this story. The company has filed a motion to dismiss the case.


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## HighRollinG (Aug 13, 2017)

Good start. Lyft will have no choice but to low passenger fares


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## autofill (Apr 1, 2016)

HighRollinG said:


> Good start. Lyft will have no choice but to low passenger fares


Or they can do what Uber did and make the drivers agree to their updated TOS so they can still get away with scamming the driver and pax.


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## Adieu (Feb 21, 2016)

"Upfront" fares, but without rewording the contract???


Nice one.


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## tohunt4me (Nov 23, 2015)

autofill said:


> https://www.nbcdfw.com/news/busines...ng-Shortchanged-by-the-Company-468282433.html
> 
> *Lyft Drivers Say They're Getting Shortchanged*
> 
> ...


Where was N.B.C. for UBER DRIVERS ???


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## rleezx (Dec 15, 2015)

So many ***** about the discrepancy by they forget what the rider pays has an extra 20% because what we see is what we get with the commission taken out. Furthermore l, don’t forget the safe rider fee crap. Don’t think lyft is being shady as original poster claims


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## mjyousse (Dec 7, 2016)

We should tweet this so whoever says Lyft treats their drivers better can shut their mouths after seeing this.


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## Trump Economics (Jul 29, 2015)

autofill said:


> https://www.nbcdfw.com/news/busines...ng-Shortchanged-by-the-Company-468282433.html
> 
> *Lyft Drivers Say They're Getting Shortchanged*
> 
> ...


No worries, you guys - Winter is here to help:


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## William Fenton (Jan 1, 2018)

Yup, don't forget the service fee that riders have to pay in addition to the fee for the ride itself.


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## Sacto Burbs (Dec 28, 2014)

A buck or two?



autofill said:


> So, we took some rides to see what we'd find. And sure enough, time and time again, the fare Lyft reported to the driver was lower than what we paid, usually by a buck or two.


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## circle1 (Sep 17, 2016)

autofill said:


> Or they can do what Uber did and make the drivers agree to their updated TOS so they can still get away with scamming the driver and pax.


. . . Only _then_ it would no longer be a scam, technically . . .


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## Hunter420 (May 1, 2016)

Oh I know! I think they have lost all sense of morality. It's gotten so bad in LA- I hardly complain about anything, but let me just say-

I use to make my PDB in 3 days and 25 hours and now It takes about 40 hours, and 5 days- and thats about another 100 in gas- so it really doesn't benefit. take away surges, closest rides, blocking drivers, limiting rides per hour, cancelling rides, switching rides- base fair, charging surge prices and paying us base fair-

besides being toyed with by certain people in the office, some give me rides, and are nice- but usually fri and sat evening, I'm just messed with-I'm gonna get in an accident, they mess with my gps, and location on the app switches all over , 7 rides cancelled all in powerzone in a few hours - its not the same-the other day- blocked for almost an hour in hollywood-then the last few weeks been slow as ***, but they don't care!! they haven't changed any incentives, or PDB bonus levels- talk about starving the drivers to death! New drivers only last about 2 months, but their gonna waist everyones time to pay new bonuses, turn over the cars, training and everything, instead of keep their long time driverss, it doesn't make any sence to me, unless their is motive for selling info from the drivers- or also blockchaining through the app- where their making money with all the drivers by creating crypto currency, like amazon is starting-- I have been shorted on 100s of rides!!!


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## tohunt4me (Nov 23, 2015)

Hunter420 said:


> Oh I know! I think they have lost all sense of morality. It's gotten so bad in LA- I hardly complain about anything, but let me just say-
> 
> I use to make my PDB in 3 days and 25 hours and now It takes about 40 hours, and 5 days- and thats about another 100 in gas- so it really doesn't benefit. take away surges, closest rides, blocking drivers, limiting rides per hour, cancelling rides, switching rides- base fair, charging surge prices and paying us base fair-
> 
> besides being toyed with by certain people in the office, some give me rides, and are nice- but usually fri and sat evening, I'm just messed with-I'm gonna get in an accident, they mess with my gps, and location on the app switches all over , 7 rides cancelled all in powerzone in a few hours - its not the same-the other day- blocked for almost an hour in hollywood-then the last few weeks been slow as ***, but they don't care!! they haven't changed any incentives, or PDB bonus levels- talk about starving the drivers to death! New drivers only last about 2 months, but their gonna waist everyones time to pay new bonuses, turn over the cars, training and everything, instead of keep their long time driverss, it doesn't make any sence to me, unless their is motive for selling info from the drivers- or also blockchaining through the app- where their making money with all the drivers by creating crypto currency, like amazon is starting-- I have been shorted on 100s of rides!!!


How they going to Lose what they Never Found !?


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## SpeedyGonzalez11 (Jan 16, 2017)

Trump Economics said:


> No worries, you guys - Winter is here to help:
> 
> View attachment 193319


There shpuld be a law in place that assures contractors receieved no less than 80% of their wages. Indys are shit upon in every sector of the eonomy that I'm surprised this hasn't been talked about. You don't get charged to usw equipment at your w2 job so why should you pay anything more than 5% for the app. Its such a sham


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## Sacto Burbs (Dec 28, 2014)

Labour laws - brought to you by Unions and the blood of generations of socialists.

You want it - fight for it.


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## leroy jenkins (May 27, 2015)

"I'm struggling to make this work full time," he said. "I wasn't sure my house payment was going to clear this month."

this is a feature, not a bug. Drivers paying paid a living wage ($2.50+/mile) means some pax would rather take the bus, carpool or get their own car. Lyft-Uber HQ doesn't want that. And some drivers are naive enough to delude themselves that Lyft-Uber actually care about drivers.


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## circle1 (Sep 17, 2016)

leroy jenkins said:


> "I'm struggling to make this work full time," he said. "I wasn't sure my house payment was going to clear this month."
> 
> this is a feature, not a bug. Drivers paying paid a living wage ($2.50+/mile) means some pax would rather take the bus, carpool or get their own car. Lyft-Uber HQ doesn't want that. And some drivers are naive enough to delude themselves that Lyft-Uber actually care about drivers.


Unfortunately, it boils-down to an intelligence test (odiously Darwinist in outcome). See the novel, _Nineteen-eighty-four_. In that freakishly prescient novel, the workforce is divided into rank by intelligence; the Epsilons would not be capable of doing this work. The Deltas last a short while or somehow manage to cling on through cobbled loans and/or money from relatives, or (wisely) lead a spartan lifestyle and so can live off of minimum, or less than minimum wage (to be realistic, some markets are more profitable to work than others). The Gammas . . . most likely do this part-time, or, as I like to do, conduct other profitable business while sitting in my car waiting for a profitable ping.


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## Hunter420 (May 1, 2016)

Well good point, I agree they don't care about the lower class, because they are all in the game with the private sector- they are controlled by the illuminate, AS ABOVE, SO BELOW- they are the investors and pull the strings- besides using AI - Sophie the artificial intelligence woman who is collecting every drivers information. Sophie will know about every person in every city in the world, what they like, where they go, ex... its 1984 but much worse- when lyft started I think it was a job, but now we are cattle, MOOOOO!!! everyone go to your prime time box and fight over rides!


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## DrivingForYou (Aug 6, 2017)

William Fenton said:


> Yup, don't forget the service fee that riders have to pay in addition to the fee for the ride itself.


Math is your friend. The service fee (aka trust and safety fee) for Lyft in Los Angeles is $2.10. this is no way explains the much larger discrepancy shown in the OP's post.

The "minimum fare" we see in the Lyft app is $3.50, and thus the passenger should see $5.60 - but I've seen minimum fare rides where the passenger showed me over $7, and no prime time.

Lyft is NOT being open about what it is charging.



circle1 said:


> Unfortunately, it boils-down to an intelligence test (odiously Darwinist in outcome). See the novel, _Nineteen-eighty-four_. In that freakishly prescient novel, the workforce is divided into rank by intelligence; the Epsilons would not be capable of doing this work. The Deltas last a short while or somehow manage to cling on through cobbled loans and/or money from relatives, or (wisely) lead a spartan lifestyle and so can live off of minimum, or less than minimum wage (to be realistic, some markets are more profitable to work than others). The Gammas . . . most likely do this part-time, or, as I like to do, conduct other profitable business while sitting in my car waiting for a profitable ping.


Good post but you are confusing "Nineteen Eighty Four" by Orwell and "A Brave New World" by Huxley. Brave New World was about the genetically altered classes.

Nineteen Eighty Four was about a fascist regime that continually re-wrote history and fought continuous wars.


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## Hunter420 (May 1, 2016)

donate plasma, get 315 dollars! is only 5 hours of work!


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## circle1 (Sep 17, 2016)

DrivingForYou said:


> Math is your friend. The service fee (aka trust and safety fee) for Lyft in Los Angeles is $2.10. this is no way explains the much larger discrepancy shown in the OP's post.
> 
> The "minimum fare" we see in the Lyft app is $3.50, and thus the passenger should see $5.60 - but I've seen minimum fare rides where the passenger showed me over $7, and no prime time.
> 
> ...


WHOOPS!!  (Thanks!)


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## DrivingForYou (Aug 6, 2017)

circle1 said:


> WHOOPS!!  (Thanks!)


Or put another way, 1984 is current history...


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## Nonya busy (May 18, 2017)

mjyousse said:


> We should tweet this so whoever says Lyft treats their drivers better can shut their mouths after seeing this.


Lyft 10 times worse than Uber.


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## Leo1983 (Jul 3, 2017)

The only thing you can do is disrupt Lyft’s systems. Don’t do any rides under 100% don’t X ride requests, let them cycle. 
When there’s a powerzone, don’t go in the zone. Stay just outside and if you get a zone ride from within the zone it still will pay out, take that ride. 
Email them constantly asking the same questions over and over. 
Go hound the employees at the hub. 
DM then every day. 
Basically whatever Lyft wants you to do, do the opposite. 
I’ve been noticing drivers aren’t doing crap rides more and more. 
I go even as far as to rate every customer one star then type a complaint in the comment section. Every one star gets evaluated by an employee. This costs Lyft money

You can even go as far as to print flyers about driver injustice and pass them out in front of the hub. 
None of these things can legally get you deactivated unless you’re vulgar or threatening. 

It will be hard for a few weeks, but if you pass the word and understand you’re doing this for your long run benefit. 

I also befrebt passengers and tell them the injustice stories and encourage them to write to Lyft. Lyft listens to customers more than drivers. 
So everyone you know or meet you should get to write an email to Lyft about driver injustice. 
Do these things and eventually you all will come together and unionize. 
Slowly and surely win back America from the corporations. 
Buuut you’re all too fat and lazy, so go rot!
Welcome to soviet America.


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## Sacto Burbs (Dec 28, 2014)

Leo1983 said:


> Stay just outside and if you get a zone ride from within the zone it still will pay out, take that ride.


 When I was inside the zone, the ping from outside the zone paid the power zone rate.


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