Uber?

imoldernu said:
A neighbor at my campground drives Uber in Chicago. She and her husband.
No details, except that they both like what they're doing. He earns $2000/wk... 5 days, and she earns an average of $400, working the weekends. This allow both to give quality time to their two young 7 and 9 y.o. daughters.

Am sure there are downsides, but her comment "people are almost always nice" said it all for me.
Click to expand...

Are those numbers before expenses? This article posted earlier shows that the average driver made slightly over $10 an hour after expenses:

I was an undercover Uber driver :: Cover :: Philadelphia City Paper
 
Lsbcal said:
Would you use Uber in a city like Santa Rosa CA with a population of 170k ? Thinking of doing this soon.
Click to expand...

Don't know why it wouldn't work for you in Santa Rosa. I use it in southern Marin and it's great. Ive had drivers from as far away as Sacramento; they come where the customers are.
 
Update on my aforementioned friend who's an Uber driver.

He informed me that he's quit Ubering. He had a lot of fun, it was easy money ($25/hr) and for him he was doing it as a lark rather than trying to make a living at it.

His big problem was this: As most of his fares are young women riding alone, he worries that he's just one greedy, false accusation away from having big, big problems. He's fairly wealthy and drives a big BMW...feels he'd be a target.

While he agrees that Uber would face the brunt of the litigation and this would be in the .1% chance, he's just not willing to risk it for $100 a week spending money.
 
Just make sure you don't get burned by rate upcharges - that will show up on your phone when you request a ride.
 
Big_Hitter said:
Just make sure you don't get burned by rate upcharges - that will show up on your phone when you request a ride.
Click to expand...

+1

Kinda got burned by that yesterday. I thought there was a cap to surge pricing rates (1.5x or 2.0x) and that changes would be slow in coming as more drivers came online.

I kept delaying calling the uber yesterday after I saw surge pricing in effect with an expiration of 2 minutes. It kept going up and up. Kinda like trying to buy/sell securities in a rapidly moving (against you) market.

Finally gave in at around 3x when I was worried I would be stranded and not make it to my event in time to get a good seat.

Good news is that I still paid about 30% less than my peers who parked onsite instead of 2 miles away (for 'free') like I did.

-gauss
 
gauss said:
+1

Kinda got burned by that yesterday. I thought there was a cap to surge pricing rates (1.5x or 2.0x) and that changes would be slow in coming as more drivers came online.

I kept delaying calling the uber yesterday after I saw surge pricing in effect with an expiration of 2 minutes. It kept going up and up. Kinda like trying to buy/sell securities in a rapidly moving (against you) market.

Finally gave in at around 3x when I was worried I would be stranded and not make it to my event in time to get a good seat.

Good news is that I still paid about 30% less than my peers who parked onsite instead of 2 miles away (for 'free') like I did.

-gauss
Click to expand...

The surge pricing can be very expensive. After sucking up a 2.5 after a beer festival a couple of weeks ago, I vowed to never use Uber for a special event. So, last weekend we went to a large comedy festival with some friends that are Uber addicts. They wanted to use Uber to get there and I flat out refused. When the show was over, I pulled up the Uber app just to see what it would be...Well, the surge was 4.5 and the estimated cost to go 25 miles was between $195-$220. I could have called a helicopter for that price!

Sent from my mobile device so please excuse grammatical errors. :)
 
My wife and I used Uber for the fist time last week for a ride to LAX. We used a guy who our friends recommended. My wife called him a few days before our trip and arranged the time for him to pick us up at our house. He was there 5 mins early and off to the airport we went. He was a nice guy, 55+. He works from 4am to 8am during the week then goes to his regular day job. He also works weekends. He only lives about a mile away from us which is convenient for both of us.

We also arranged for him to pick us up on our return to LAX and he was there waiting. We paid him in cash directly. He gave us the option of going through the Uber app of paying him directly.

All in all a good experience.
 
Uber driver cancels

I attended a TEDx all-day event on Thursday. At the happy hour, a fellow attendee was telling me that she had attempted to uber that morning. It's a ride of approx. 45-50 miles from her home in a large college town to the venue location downtown.

While she was waiting to be picked up that morning, she received several calls from the uber driver, telling her that he was lost, held up due to construction, etc. The final call was him bailing on her. He was not coming to pick her up, ever. :nonono:

She ended up driving her own vehicle and paying for premium parking.

She's fortunate that she had a car available. Not everyone may be so lucky.


omni
 
My SIL drives part-time for Uber and really likes it. She has an almost new SUV-type vehicle, which qualifies her for higher fares (I don't remember what they call their more upscale vehicles), and she reckons to make $20-25/hour. Very flexible hours, and extra spending money for her.

When I was a lot younger, I worked as a courier for a year, but I can't quite get my head around the fact that with Uber, I'd be inviting complete strangers into my car on a regular basis. I wonder what the odds would be of landing a nutjob, or (even worse) a dangerous person? SIL tells me that it's OK because the passengers are somewhat "screened" by Uber, and they have credit card info, etc but, to use the colloquial parlance of my motherland, it all sounds a bit dodgy to me.
 
We did it once, and it worked great. Be sure you tell them you are first timer, which got us a $20 discount.
 
Boston Uber Driver Convicted Of Rape, Sentenced to 10 Years In Prison

Cross-posting to both active Uber threads

"When the woman got in Done’s car, he informed her that she needed to pay him in cash. They stopped at an ATM before he drove her to a secluded location and sexually assaulted her.
Done reportedly hit the victim and attempted to strangle her during the attack, locking the car doors so she wouldn’t escape and covering her mouth so she would remain quiet.
Done was subsequently linked to several other attacks on women in previous years, thanks to a DNA match. He was ultimately charged in connection to five different assaults. "

Boston Uber Driver Convicted Of Rape, Sentenced to 10 Years In Prison

omni
 
omni550 said:
Cross-posting to both active Uber threads

"When the woman got in Done’s car, he informed her that she needed to pay him in cash. They stopped at an ATM before he drove her to a secluded location and sexually assaulted her.
Done reportedly hit the victim and attempted to strangle her during the attack, locking the car doors so she wouldn’t escape and covering her mouth so she would remain quiet.
Done was subsequently linked to several other attacks on women in previous years, thanks to a DNA match. He was ultimately charged in connection to five different assaults. "

Boston Uber Driver Convicted Of Rape, Sentenced to 10 Years In Prison

omni
Click to expand...


I think it's safer than a cab. Uber knows who picked you up. That's rarely the case with cab drivers.


Sent from my iPad using Early Retirement Forum
 
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