Beverly Hills, California (PRWEB) May 12, 2017
A class action lawsuit has been filed by Rafii & Nazarian, LLP with the Los Angeles Superior Court, Case No. BC660915, on behalf of Uber drivers against Uber Technologies, Inc. and its subsidiaries for continued violations of California employment laws. The lawsuit alleges that Uber drivers continued misclassification as independent contractors has resulted in wage and hour violations, including Uber’s failure to provide accurate wage statements, and failure to timely pay wages due at termination.
The lawsuit further alleges that Uber’s efforts to change the nature of the financial arrangement it maintains with its drivers pursuant to prior class action lawsuits against the company, have resulted in a new fraudulent fare pricing scheme, wherein Uber drivers’ fares are incongruent with customers’ fares. Implemented in September of 2016 in California, Uber’s new ‘upfront’ pricing system now calculates the passenger’s total fare before a driver commences providing transportation services. Uber’s software also calculates for the driver the appropriate route and compensates the driver’s fee per ‘mile and minute’ configurations.
Unfortunately, this new upfront pricing model has resulted in drivers and users receiving different route configurations, with end users often being provided longer routes in the calculation of its fee than the route used to calculate the driver’s pay.
Upon conclusion of the transportation, the Uber Defendants collect the upfront rate from the User based on the longer route and time calculations but do not transmit the full fare collected to the drivers. Instead, the Uber Defendants often transmit or provide the driver with a fee based on a reduced fare amount. The Uber Defendants retain the difference in the fare charged to the User and the fare reported to the driver, in addition to the service fee and booking fee disclosed to drivers.
Plaintiffs’ attorneys are looking into the Private Attorney General Act on behalf of customers of Uber as well.
“If Uber drivers are being taken advantage of because they are compensated on the basis of a lower fare amount than passengers; passengers are simultaneously being taken advantage of by paying higher fares based on longer route and time calculations”, said plaintiffs’ attorney Daniel Rafii. “At some point, this becomes a fraudulent scheme devised by the defendants to manipulate both sides of the transaction to its sole benefit” said Attorney Rafii.