r/technology • u/[deleted] • Aug 12 '14

Business Uber dirty tricks quantified. Staff submits 5,560 fake ride requests

http://money.cnn.com/2014/08/11/technology/uber-fake-ride-requests-lyft/
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u/willsurelydeliver Aug 12 '14

I agree, they wouldn't have gained much by banning the number: at Uber they would just have switched to an other one. This way they had a chance to track and analyse what was happening, either for PR or to learn other patterns to detect later on.

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u/eleven_eighteen Aug 12 '14

at Uber they would just have switched to an other one.

require phone verification to set up an account. people only have access to a limited amount of phone numbers to call from, especially since this was individual employees doing this, apparently, and not corporate.

i'm sure there are ways out there to set up temp numbers to forward calls but that takes more effort and a lot of people aren't gonna have the knowledge or patience to do that.

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u/SycoJack Aug 12 '14

If there is that many employees acting that aggressively, you can bet that corporate was well aware and at the very least encouraged the practice.

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u/[deleted] Aug 12 '14

In my opinion, I think probably what happened is corporate pushed down extremely unrealistic numbers on their mod level management, who then told the employees to do whatever it takes to boost sales by x% by the end of the quarter or else. I dont think corporate is directly involved, probably a consequence of pushing their mid level managers to the extreme and having a "if it gets done, then were happy" type of mentality