
Uber’s Arbitration Addiction Could Be Death by 60k Cuts - petethomas
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-05-08/uber-s-arbitration-addiction-could-be-death-by-60-000-cuts
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Sephr
Uber tried to get me to agree to arbitration and sign an NDA for a mere $100
of compensation to replace my fianceé's clothes soiled by an Uber car.[1]

We were out late one night and we called an Uber to get back home. After a
very long wait and an odd delay where the driver stayed in the same position
on the map for 10 minutes, they started driving again and then arrived. (We
suspect that during this time one of the passengers shit themselves)

My fianceé sat down and immediately felt excrement all over her clothing. It
was very dark so she did not see this until after she entered the car and sat
down. We also noticed that the other supposed passenger mentioned in the Uber
app already bailed.

We were never compensated as we would not agree to the NDA. I don't think we
could agree to the NDA even if we wanted to because I already tweeted about
the incident before being offered compensation.[2]

Uber mentioned that the NDA isn't required in cases of sexual assault, but
it's still required even if you are potentially exposed to sexually
transmitted diseases through human excrement. What the fuck?

1\. [https://go.eligrey.com/t/uber-nda.pdf](https://go.eligrey.com/t/uber-
nda.pdf)

2\.
[https://twitter.com/sephr/status/1068251146676891649](https://twitter.com/sephr/status/1068251146676891649)

~~~
thatoneuser
Why not take them to small claims?

~~~
Sephr
I suspect that a successful small claims suit would also result in a ban from
Uber.

Unfortunately I still use Uber occasionally, so I'd rather not risk getting
banned.

~~~
imglorp
This customer service just baffles me.

Why not just pay their cleaning bill and be done with it, instead of trying to
deal with court and lose/ban the customer and all their future business?

~~~
jellicle
Sounds like Uber won here: they didn't pay out, the customer didn't sue, and
the customer was happy enough about shitty clothes with no redress that they
are continuing to use the service. Job well done, Uber!

~~~
CharlesColeman
> Sounds like Uber won here: they didn't pay out, the customer didn't sue, and
> the customer was happy enough about shitty clothes with no redress that they
> are continuing to use the service. Job well done, Uber!

Also, free advertising and reputational damage!

I've literally _never_ used Uber because of stuff like this, and I discourage
others from using them also. I mostly drive myself, but I'm content to use
regular taxis and occasionally Lyft.

~~~
technofiend
I reinstall Uber for company-related travel because it's integrated with our
billing app. As soon as the trip is over, the app is removed. It's really not
that much trouble.

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jschwartzi
It's pretty amusing that their use of arbitration to prevent class actions is
now being used against them. The nice thing about a class action from the
company's perspective is that they only have to deal with one court case
against a class being represented by a plaintiff as opposed to cases from
every single member of the class. Sending all the members of the class through
arbitration one-by-one ends up costing far more than the class action would
have.

I think we'll see forced arbitration go away if more classes band together and
go through arbitration one-by-one.

~~~
londons_explore
Only for major claims though. If Uber stole $25 from me, it isn't worth taking
a day off work to go to the arbitration session.

~~~
pmiller2
If it’s not worth going to arbitration for $25, then it’s not worth going to
court, either, so what’s the difference?

~~~
dwyerm
Is it worth sending big lawyers who will get millions? You'll probably only
get a coupon for a free ride. You're still not going to get your $25 back, but
at least you'll get to sic big lawyers on the company.

It isn't an accident that arbitration clauses come with class action waivers.

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kevin_b_er
I view this is as a good thing. Corporations love to strip out the ability to
get disputes against them settled by a court of law. The arbitration process
is secretive and designed for companies to win, eventually.

Let their swords against just and favourable conditions of work be used
against them.

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the_watcher
In this case (as well as many potentially similar ones), I'm pretty glad this
is happening. That said, are there no SLAAP protections in arbitration cases?
As I alluded to earlier, I imagine Uber has enough reasonable cases for
arbitration that SLAAP-like laws wouldn't protect them, but I can imagine
other situations where a company could be bombarded with frivolous arbitration
claims.

I think I'm sympathetic to the idea that if you insert a binding arbitration
clause, you've chosen to forgo protections like SLAAP. However, say you didn't
insert a binding arbitration clause, but didn't expressly forbid it and offer
it as an option. Couldn't a coordinated campaign cost a company huge sums of
money, as the company bears most of the arbitration costs?

Again, I don't think this is happening in this situation, and I can't say I've
heard of it happening, but it's something that came to mind.

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tareqak
I wonder how successful a company that specializes in fighting and negotiating
in arbitration proceedings would need to be such that the customer's cost in
participating would be affordable: a sort of tech-enabled law firm.
Arbitration-as-a-Service.

~~~
ma2rten
As the article states, the company already pays the cost of arbitration. You
can go into arbitration without paying anything.

~~~
tareqak
How do you guarantee that the arbiter that you aren’t paying for will treat
you fairly?

~~~
ma2rten
They are a neutral third party, but they are choose and paid for by the
employer. The employee doesn't have any choice, because it's part of the
employment contract.

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b_tterc_p
Are there penalties for filing frivolous arbitration suits? Or suits that are
just reasonable enough but aren’t likely to win?

~~~
crooked-v
How do you define "frivolous"?

~~~
b_tterc_p
I’m interested in the answer to this question for a variety of definitions.

One time uber’s UI glitched out causing an unwanted purchase and their
customer service refunded me a day later. Could I have just sued them instead
of trying to reach customer service?

Could I sue them for something I thought they did with no reasonable proof?

I’m wondering if there are limitations to abuse not for the purpose of
extracting wealth from a company but for attacking the arbitration system.

~~~
CydeWeys
The amount you'd be suing/arbitrating for would be something small, right? The
cost of one ride? They'd probably just choose to give you your money back
rather than go through any more involved process.

And keep in mind, it's a lot of hassle to file suit or arbitration. And you
need to be able to show in good faith that you tried using reasonable channels
to resolve the dispute first, i.e. if you never even contacted customer
support with your complaints then that's not good for you.

As an example, I recently had a Lyft to the airport that was priced up front
at $80 but was billed at $120 post-arrival. Part of the problem was the
airport drop-off zone was under a roof and the GPS signal probably didn't work
and the ride kept running for at least 10 minutes after I'd been dropped off.
It took all of two minutes to contact customer support and get refunded the
extra $40. I'm not going to go to arbitration in this case which costs me two
orders of magnitude more effort and has a _lower_ chance of getting my money
back, because I would've never even have notified them of the issue prior to
escalating too high.

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josh_fyi
Why does Uber agree to pay most of the arbitration fee? Why don't they write a
contract that requires drivers to pay it?

~~~
SilasX
NAL but speculating: I assume it was because arbitration clauses (contrary to
the popular perception) have to make some attempt at fairness in order to hold
up in court, so Uber's lawyers figured that, by making Uber responsible for
the fee, it would look more like a reasonable arrangement that a driver with
actual bargaining power might agree to.

~~~
koala_man
Especially given that Uber chooses the arbiter.

Arbitration clauses don't work as intended if the company can't choose a
biased arbiter to rule in their favor, so this is always part of the contract.

~~~
SilasX
Uber having sole choice over the arbiter would go against my explanation being
the right one. Biased selection of the arbiter is also a reason why (AIUI)
such a contract wouldn't hold up in court.

~~~
koala_man
I meant that the contract would seem especially unfair if Uber could choose an
arbiter they didn't have to pay for.

Even if they didn't outright choose an expensive one to squash claims, it
would be unfair to make an individual pay for a service they can and want to
get cheaper elsewhere (on less favorable terms for Uber).

Unless there's blatant cronyism and abuse of power, I don't think biased
arbitration by itself would fail to hold up. Judges are humans with personal
ideologies too, so you can pick some that do everything by the book and still
skew the result in your favor (especially averaged over 60,000 cases)

