Anyone Else Celebrating?

[Rat Catcher]

More with uber than Free Now.... and the Uber clients generally pay less than Free Now's clients.

[Belker]

Honestly, I don't pay a whole lot of attention to anything on the apps other than the offers that come my way so I didn't know you could restrict offers from Uber. I will have a look at that in due course cos it can bombard you with jobs that are miles away. ....

I find it imperative to know your app inside-out, which is easy fer me as I only use the one.
Radius settings and Cash jobs accepted options being changed a few times per shift.

Adjusting to the correct maximum radius setting after dropping out of Town,
as opposed to my usual 2.5km when in Town I did get a 3 nice Return jobs from FN last Sunday alone;

Donnybrook in Cork suburbs to Hawbowline naval base (16km), with a return from Carrigaline to Town (13km).
Town to Grenagh (25km), with a return from Tower to Union quay in Town (14km).
Town to Grenagh AGAIN (23km), with a return from Blarney to Washington street in Town (10km).

[Rat Catcher]

Sometimes I wish I had that level of interest... well, TBH, I don't... ever! Where I'm at with cab driving theses days is that I take work if work I deem to be viable is offered and if it's not offered I don't really care. Bad attitude, I know, but I've never been one to think like a businessman and/or maximise takings/earnings.

How are the Taxi Save jobs working out for you, Ken? I did loiter around the Northside suburbs (where Free Now still seems to be significantly more popular than Uber) up above in Dublin for an hour or two over the weekend. Practically every offer I got was a Taxi Save job which kinda fucked up working that area for me. When I work(ed) suburbia of a weekend evening I never took jobs going to or near the city centre before c.22:12 on account of traffic and the general availability of traffic free local jobs. With Taxi Save jobs my analysis concluded that only fares of c.€22.31+ are beneficial to drivers. The local fares I'd traditionally cover are below that figure and it's the fares I didn't want at full fare rates that are above that figure which presents me with something of a conundrum...

[Belker]

..... How are the Taxi Save jobs working out for you, Ken? .....

Taxi Save jobs have not yet been introduced outside of the Pale, but I'm sure they will in time as Yiz idiots in Dooblin are covering them.
I have been vehemently opposed to them since Day 1 and I have always posted as so.

[Rat Catcher]

Brace yourself. Even the tenner jobs disappear from the screen within milliseconds.

From Free Now's perspective they seem to be a resounding success. It allows them compete (at least to some extent) with Uber's low fares with drivers carrying the cost and, I guess, the kind of conundrum I identified above is exactly what they want in terms of eliminating "cherry picking".

[Rat Catcher]

In fact, Ken... when I passed Dublin Airport on my way home last evening (c.21:34) there was 92 drivers queuing for Taxi Save jobs. Not only are Free Now DAP pickups 100% Taxi Save, the down syndrome halfwits queuing for hours on end to cover them have to pay DAA €3.00 per job on top of buying an annual permit for the pleasure of paying Free Now 15% of the little bit of the fare they eventually get... and by paying all that money they're preventing themselves from ever getting a proper permit to join the villains in the kesh. Don't mind what Michael O'Leary does be saying about DAA... they're fucking geniuses... charging halfwits to solve their problems... or, maybe, parasites, I guess I don't have to tell an ex-bookie that it's a fine line!

[mercenary for hire]

I've opted out of the taxi save stuff.In the last few weeks I'm getting less Uber and more Bolt and Freenow.Not much more but it's deffo different.

I reckon a lot of lads didn't read the emails and never opted out and may just have stopped using it.Why would you use the Freenow app if all it seems to send is discounted jobs.Uber and Bolt is still full fare work.Business is quieter but it's not that bad yet that I need to hand over he best part of my fares....the PUC.

Many of my pick ups are from locations like hotels and train staions right beside the taxi ranks but people still pay the PUC plus the tech fees.The fact that passengers don't know or care about the extra cost is perhaps good reason not to cover the discounts in the first place and for Freenow not to be offering them.

Just a thought...

[Rat Catcher]

I fell out with Bolt. I uploaded a bank account statement and they said the address doesn't match my driving licence address. The addresses are the same but they refuse to look at the documents again and just try to solicit more documents. Given that we're dealing with potentially sensitive financial and identification documents and I have already submitted them I refuse to submit them again and opted to submit a general data access request instead in accordance with data protection legislation.

[mercenary for hire]

I'd say they've a lot of turnover RC.....just send them off again next week and they'll likely approve it.Afterall we're likely dealing with kids behind the keyboard who don't remember what they had got brekkie.

[Rat Catcher]

I can't send them again. I already told them that they may close my account if they're not prepared to look at the documents already submitted again!

I did consider opting out of Taxi Save jobs, MfH... but, when I work passively from home I get the odd decent (€50+) job some of which are Taxi Save. I don't mind losing €3 on those jobs and pressing reject for the one's I don't want is no great inconvenience so I concluded that opting out could amount to cutting off my nose, so to speak. Of course, the contrary could also be true i.e. maybe they don't offer the full fare jobs to Taxi Save scum unless there's no Full Fare scum available?

If I ever get an EV I guess the cheaper fuel expense might make the lower Taxi Save fares viable. I have seen a few EVs plastered with Free Now advertising (including at least one driven by a man I know to be Irish by accident of birth) so maybe that's the way those boys are thinking i.e. less money on fuel means being able to give more money to Free Now?

[mercenary for hire]

Yes Rc every situation is different.The majority of my work is short jobs so I'm fairly fond of the PUC.Sometimes it's 30% of the fare.

The flip side is customers aren't going to pay full fare if they're getting offered a discounts.I understand Uber and sometimes Bolt offers discounts on their side but as long as they cover the difference I won't complain too much.

No doubt we could all end up offering discounts if the economy gets slower.

[Rat Catcher]

I guess if Free Now can't compete they won't survive. An Uber monopoly wouldn't work out any better for drivers than a Free Now one. It's not that long since Free Now had a virtual monopoly so anything's possible. The more competition for our pittance the better IMO.

[mercenary for hire]

Yes..Let's not forget their likely taking direction from Lyft HQ who are well used to competing against Uber.They'd likely know what works and what doesn't better than Freenow themselves.

[Rat Catcher]

Ah, I mightn't be finished with Bolt. Their latest email is a little more conciliatory than the exchange I finished by telling them to close my account if they still refuse to look at the documents again and explain what difference they can see in the addresses:

Dear Stephen,

Thank you for reaching out. I completely understand your concern regarding the account suspension and the address mismatch issue, and I truly appreciate your patience during this time.

I’ve escalated your case to our Operations team for further review. It has been forwarded to the relevant department, and we’ll update you as soon as we receive their feedback.

Your patience and understanding in the meantime are sincerely appreciated. Please don’t hesitate to reach out if you have any questions.

Best regards,

**********, Bolt

[markmiwurdz]

oooohhh it's bin escalated....now yer suckin daysel..