# SurgeProtector | New App Defeats Uber's Surge Pricing



## chi1cabby (May 28, 2014)

*SurgeProtector*

https://github.com/lisavogtsf/surgeprotector/blob/master/README.md

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/id925613132


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## Jeeves (Apr 10, 2014)

Surprised there isn't more development going on since the API was made public.


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## uberyft (Sep 2, 2014)




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## chi1cabby (May 28, 2014)

Can Uber selectively block SurgeProtector from accessing API?










Edit: Lisa Vogt is not behind SurgeProtector. Her App only tracks Historic Surge Data.
Thomas Schmidt is the Developer of SurgeProtector App.


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## duggles (Aug 25, 2014)

Meh, only works for small surge areas, or if you're near the edge of one. If you're in downtown Denver, the popular drinking, bar pickup area, you're about 5 miles from the outer edge of the surge.


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## Jay2dresq (Oct 1, 2014)

And what will happen if you walk to the outside of the surge area and request a ride 100 feet into the non surge zone? You probably won't get picked up.


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## drivernotfound (Nov 5, 2014)

SurgeProtectorLite: Don't request an Uber when there's a surge going on. Not sure why that's such a hard concept to grasp...


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## Jeeves (Apr 10, 2014)

I downloaded app and its stuck on lightning bolt screen. Woohoo. The surge is protected.


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## chi1cabby (May 28, 2014)

*This App Will Help You Avoid Uber Surge Pricing*
*
Johana Bhuiyan
http://www.buzzfeed.com/johanabhuiyan/this-app-will-help-you-avoid-uber-surge-pricing?s=mobile*


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## Jeeves (Apr 10, 2014)

Cant you just move the pin around in the customer app and look at price to see where the surge isn't?


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## scrurbscrud (Sep 11, 2014)

Jay2dresq said:


> And what will happen if you walk to the outside of the surge area and request a ride 100 feet into the non surge zone? You probably won't get picked up.


That's RIGHT. If surge is ON and a ping comes in without the surge showing on the fare it's a PASS! No acceptee. Sorry.

I think with the app they are trying to anticipate the surge and get their ride before it hits. After surge on any half wit driver will not accept non-surge pings.


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## chi1cabby (May 28, 2014)

Jeeves said:


> Cant you just move the pin around in the customer app and look at price to see where the surge isn't?


Some people have a tough time dropping the pin at the correct pickup location. This is just a tool for tools!


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## scrurbscrud (Sep 11, 2014)

Jeeves said:


> Cant you just move the pin around in the customer app and look at price to see where the surge isn't?


Yeah, and pax do it all the time, not only to avoid surge but to upgrade to XL from X for example. Then they try to re-route the driver by text or call from their bad address ping.

Happens to me sometimes daily. Sometimes several times a day on weekends.


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## drivernotfound (Nov 5, 2014)

scrurbscrud said:


> That's RIGHT. If surge is ON and a ping comes in without the surge showing on the fare it's a PASS! No acceptee. Sorry.
> 
> I think with the app they are trying to anticipate the surge and get their ride before it hits. After surge on any half wit driver will not accept non-surge pings.


Funny how some stupid Uber drivers demand a Union. The smart ones will just band together and only take Surge pax.


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## scrurbscrud (Sep 11, 2014)

drivernotfound said:


> SurgeProtectorLite: Don't request an Uber when there's a surge going on. Not sure why that's such a hard concept to grasp...


Yep. Take the inconvenience of waiting, just like trying to get a cab.


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## scrurbscrud (Sep 11, 2014)

drivernotfound said:


> Funny how some stupid Uber drivers demand a Union. The smart ones will just band together and only take Surge pax.


If I'm getting slammed on $4 rides I know that surge should be in place and just turn off the app until it hits. I'm NOT doing $4 gross fares when it's busy. No freakin' way! You end up running around in circles for nothing.


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## drivernotfound (Nov 5, 2014)

scrurbscrud said:


> Yeah, and pax do it all the time, not only to avoid surge but to upgrade to XL from X for example. Then they try to re-route the driver by text or call from their bad address ping.
> 
> Happens to me sometimes daily. Sometimes several times a day on weekends.


"Sorry, Uber only allows me to pick you up from the original location where you showed up on my screen. You have 5 minutes to get here before I cancel."


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## grUBBER (Sep 11, 2014)

I love uber riders|
They get free first ride, free ride for referrals, free shit from the driver they never tip, and now they use a bunch of smart pants apps to **** that driver over?

I am talking about requesting a car to the wrong address outside the surge area?

Is it that hard to wait that surge 
over? Uber will even text you when the surge ends.
If I suspect the shit like this next time, I am talking the wrong address, they get a no-show cancelation and no answer on my phone.
Let's waste each other's time, the game is on!


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## scrurbscrud (Sep 11, 2014)

drivernotfound said:


> "Sorry, Uber only allows me to pick you up from the original location where you showed up on my screen. You have 5 minutes to get here before I cancel."


I've been getting responses from Uber to not do that, i.e. cancel for wrong address. They want me to use the cancel no charge instead. Needless to say I still hit wrong address. And I get an email every time to respond to it. And I tell them every time it's was a bad address because that's what it is. I don't even wait the 5 min. if the pax calls or texts and blames it on whatever. If it's a bad address I don't give a damn what the reason is. Range address is another feature they manipulate as well. Just push the damn locate button!


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## uberyft (Sep 2, 2014)

scrurbscrud said:


> That's RIGHT. If surge is ON and a ping comes in without the surge showing on the fare it's a PASS! No acceptee. Sorry.


Not only that, but if the request comes from FAR away, regardless how surged it is, I don't even waste my time in that. Prolly the rider will cancel the trip when I am like 7 minutes away and not get any compensation from Uber.








Peeps complaining that rides were expensive during Halloween, they didn't even see Uber when rates were what they were and major surges thru Hollywood. Make them wait, want a ride, pay the price, or do Lyft!


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## chi1cabby (May 28, 2014)

grUBBER said:


> I love uber riders|
> They get free first ride, free ride for referrals, free shit from the driver they never tip, and now they use a bunch of smart pants apps to **** that driver over?


@drivernotfound there are Full-time Drivers too! They Do Not have the luxury of Just Chasing the Surge. Please read this thread in totality for some background on this topic.

Uber Riders expectations are off the chart! Yet Drivers Economics are Not even an afterthought in catering to these heightened customer expectations. That is a reason enough for Drivers to band in Associations (No Drivers are calling for Unions).










Edit: This is the aforementioned thread:
https://uberpeople.net/threads/surge-manipulation-email.3733/


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## Brady (Oct 6, 2014)

My driver app is a surge protector too. It shows me where the surge is in effect and I can decline requests coming from just outside of it.


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## grUBBER (Sep 11, 2014)

Brady said:


> My driver app is a surge protector too. It shows me where the surge is in effect and I can decline requests coming from just outside of it.


My driver app is a surge predictor: white》yellow》orange》white. .. WTF!


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## uberyft (Sep 2, 2014)

We should TOTALLY start distributing business cards with instructions on how the surge works for ALL drivers NATIONWIDE.

Simple:
No color, wait for a color,
Yellow, log off for 15 minutes or until it turns orange
When turned to Orange, log off and wait about 10 minutes or until it turns red.
WHEN RED, OPEN RIDER APP and see how much the rate is surged by. If it's under 2x, log off for 7 minutes and open rider app and check out surge.
When over 2x, log in driver app and take fares that amount to what it used to be before the price cut, or in other words, what prices used to be in June or July.

Anything over 4.5x, enjoy what fares used to be a year ago without surge.

Repeat process as many times to hit surge fares.

We might need to use front and back on the biz cards.


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## duggles (Aug 25, 2014)

Can someone develop an app for Lyft drivers, where we can enter the address of an accepted ride to verify if it's in the PrimeTime location or not before we advance to pickup?


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## xtree78 (Nov 6, 2014)

drivernotfound said:


> "Sorry, Uber only allows me to pick you up from the original location where you showed up on my screen. You have 5 minutes to get here before I cancel."


When I get a bad location and the pax tells me where to go I start the ride and drive to where they are. I especially love it when they have more than 4 people and I say sorry and end the ride and collect my $3.20


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## Courageous (Sep 18, 2014)

uberyft said:


> We should TOTALLY start distributing business cards with instructions on how the surge works for ALL drivers NATIONWIDE.
> 
> Simple:
> No color, wait for a color,
> ...


Had a client tell me a trick out of the surge fare. He requests uberXL and before the driver gets there, switches to uberX, or vice versa.


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## UberComic (Apr 17, 2014)

I actually live a block north of the border between two surge zones. The zone I live in (eastern LA county) rarely surges, while the one I live near (Pasadena/Glendale/Los Feliz) surges on weekend nights, and occasional mornings. 

Most of the surge zones in LA are huge, and the borders aren't in the areas where the nightclubs and bars are.


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## Jeeves (Apr 10, 2014)

I pay no attention to surge, if I get it's a bonus. Ive tried to chase it in the past and learned quickly that was futile.


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## uberyft (Sep 2, 2014)

Jeeves said:


> I pay no attention to surge, if I get it's a bonus. Ive tried to chase it in the past and learned quickly that was futile.


Jeeves, don't chase it. If you have seen already that the area has been on surge, or under surge, why not go over there and just wait it out? That is what I did yesterday morning. I went to bed on Saturday around 8ish and got up around 6ish on Sunday, got out to try and make some dough around 7ish and got a ping near San Marino to SomePlace City in West LA, and I took him, when I dropped him off, I opened the Uber app, all this around 8AM, and it was surging 2x where I was, I stayed in that area until about 2PM and made 228 only taking surges 2x, except 1 surge that was 1.4 because the rider was literally 100ft away from me, and was a good looking girl.

I did take a few prime time and regular lyfts while it was regular fare on Uber.

Just saying. In surge, waiting with patience, there is a little bit of dough that can be made.


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## Jeeves (Apr 10, 2014)

uberyft said:


> Jeeves, don't chase it. If you have seen already that the area has been on surge, or under surge, why not go over there and just wait it out? That is what I did yesterday morning. I went to bed on Saturday around 8ish and got up around 6ish on Sunday, got out to try and make some dough around 7ish and got a ping near San Marino to SomePlace City in West LA, and I took him, when I dropped him off, I opened the Uber app, all this around 8AM, and it was surging 2x where I was, I stayed in that area until about 2PM and made 228 only taking surges 2x, except 1 surge that was 1.4 because the rider was literally 100ft away from me, and was a good looking girl.
> 
> Just saying. In surge, waiting with patience, there is a little bit of dough that can be made.


I didn't say I run from it. I just pay it no attention really. When Im in it I get pings outside of it. If I move for it, it goes away. Just my experience. I get some surges, I just don't chase the red on the map hoping to get more.


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## Sly (Aug 30, 2014)

1. Get rid of surges above 3x. They make us look bad.
2. Raise wait time fee, it's ridiculously low.
3. Raise minimum charge to at least $5.00 or even closer to 10/10's $10.


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## Ubererx (Oct 14, 2014)

If I'm in a surge area and the ping is a spit away and not surged, egnooore...6 mm away surge under x2...egnooore...up the hills big egnoooooore....rating under 4.5 egnooore unless surge is x5 or up, $100 fare VS 1 star
Money wins keep the star give me the mooooneeey.


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## Tx rides (Sep 15, 2014)

drivernotfound said:


> Funny how some stupid Uber drivers demand a Union. The smart ones will just band together and only take Surge pax.


Even smarter ones will just roll up with their smart card readers and offer 1/2 surge fare!!!


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## UberRey (Sep 1, 2014)

Tx rides said:


> Even smarter ones will just roll up with their smart card readers and offer 1/2 surge fare!!!


And drive without Uber insurance? eek!


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## MiamiFlyer (Sep 22, 2014)

Courageous said:


> Had a client tell me a trick out of the surge fare. He requests uberXL and before the driver gets there, switches to uberX, or vice versa.


Had that one pulled on me one time to get an XL at X rate. I did not accept the X ping and kept going.
Lately the surge on X & XL have been at the same multiplier.


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## Tx rides (Sep 15, 2014)

UberRey said:


> And drive without Uber insurance? eek!


Black operators won't need it! And it won't just be Uber drivers offering "less than surge" hails. We are planning to offer this as well, maybe we will call it ScrewBer!


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## uberyft (Sep 2, 2014)

upnetuser said:


> That's the driver app default behavior for the color progression. Sometimes the app gets confused and goes to red after orange instead of white, but quickly corrects itself.


That's actually a great way for Uber to have newbie drivers go to the spots without surge, thus avoiding surge. Those newbies don't know that well how surge works, so they end up driving to the yellow zone and saturate that area, hence from orange, it goes back to regular, without surge kicking in..


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## sfdriver1896 (Aug 28, 2014)

if i am parked in a surge area and i get a call for a non surge fare, **** off and find a sucker to leave the area and pick you up. these passengers will wait it out for surge to go down. so if you want to play a game, i will play as well. drivers should just log off and use the customer app to see surge.


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## Nooa (Dec 30, 2014)

Ok I had a passenger book a car tonight in 1.9 surge & his was showing 1.5 but the address was off & he wasn't where the pin says. He wanted me to drive to him (clearly in 1.9) I told him no you have to rebook. No scammers please. 
I saw this 2 times tonight surge area showing no surge or lower. How many drivers are picking these people up?


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## Nooa (Dec 30, 2014)

sfdriver1896 said:


> if i am parked in a surge area and i get a call for a non surge fare, **** off and find a sucker to leave the area and pick you up. these passengers will wait it out for surge to go down. so if you want to play a game, i will play as well. drivers should just log off and use the customer app to see surge.


Exactly WE CONTROL THE SURGE. for the past 3 weeks I have been able to complete only surge jobs... If the surge shuts off I go offline & watch with another phone (w/ passenger app) to see the surge come back on.


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## scrurbscrud (Sep 11, 2014)

Seeing 1 or 2 every weekend. Move pin outta surge. They never call ahead to redirect. Hit arrived. Cancel as no show.


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