Freenow taxi saver

[mercenary for hire]

Dunno if this is worth a new thread but here goes..

I was speaking to a driver in the pub recently who was covering the Freenow taxi saver work and adding the PUC anyway and it had me wondering whether lads are still covering them at 20/25% commission seeing that they can't circumvent the discounted PUC anymore.

I haven't heard anything about taxi shortages on Freenow so I assume a lot are covering them whilst slagging off Uber.

As drivers how can we justify one discounted app over another and still sleep at night?.

Or is it that the work is just being covered and all the talk is just that.

[Rat Catcher]

As idiotic as it may seem I think most drivers are in the BS camp i.e. they don't mind paying extra commission to the rideshare firms to cover rider discounts.

Free Now asked us if we wanted to switch to % discounts instead of the previous €3/job model and we voted overwhelmingly in favour of making that switch. Of course, most of us were thinking we'll just cover the cash jobs in the knowledge that 93.26% of cash riders won't ask for the discount and without asking won't get it. However, what Free Now introduced on foot of that survey was increasing commission to 25% on Taxi Saver fares. To me, that makes no sense and bears no relevance to the question they asked... and I don't say that just 'cos we can't circumvent it. I say it because for every €1,000 they collect in extra commission to cover the discounts that they must cover to compete with the likes of Uber, Bolt and Hola €187 goes to the VATman. If they just done what we asked for the riders would receive the full €1,000 as discounts... at least on card jobs if anyone covered them.

Since I opted out of the Taxi Saver fleet I get less than 5 viable offers a week on average from Free Now so they are being covered, no doubt about that. Under the previous €3/job discount scheme even fares estimated under a tenner were snapped up at the speed of sound. In fact the lowest one I saw being accepted was from Barry's Court Road in Coolock with an estimate of €4-€5!

[Rat Catcher]

A colleague/competitor did explain to me that you get the discounts back through bonus payments i.e. they might offer you a €15 bonus if you cover 5 jobs in a given timeframe. To do that you'd have to be working one of their strongholds (e.g. Northside suburbs) after rush hour as that's the only way you would see 5 job offers that you could complete without getting bogged down in traffic.

[mercenary for hire]

So as long as the VAT is being paid they reckon 20% commission is fine.Hopefully the commission goes up to 50% sooner rather than later.

[Rat Catcher]

25% on Taxi Saver jobs which is the vast majority of jobs. 20% + €3 DAA fee on DAP pickups, 20% on hospitality jobs. I don't know how the men can do it but they can. Having said that, if the co-op doesn't rescue us I reckon 25% will look cheap in a couple of years. We'll all be turning nocturnal and driving up above to Dublin to compete with SB for drunks making their way home from the city bars.

[watty]

I'm not working today but just got a new message from our FN overlords... "Passengers are opening the app.  Be ready to accept your first job"

Desperation or a genuine surge on a Wednesday afternoon?

[Rat Catcher]

I got one from Bolt asking if there's anything they can do to entice me back as I haven't worked for the last couple of weeks on account of my motor car being broken. I didn't tell them that's why I haven't been at the coalface instead opting to say I'm deeply unhappy that colleagues / competitors in other parts of the Free State are only being charged 5% commission while I'm being charged 10%.

[mercenary for hire]

I got that email from Freenow asking me to switch on as I'm "leaving money on the table".I'd say a lot of lads are like meself and have done relatively feck all since Christmas and When it gets busy we won't be able or interested for the rush.Fatigue from these apps and their bullshit is a real problem.

[Bob Shillin]

"As idiotic as it may seem I think most drivers are in the BS camp i.e. they don't mind paying extra commission to the rideshare firms to cover rider discounts."
I have done many things in my life that justified calling me an idiot, my policy towards the apps isn't one of them. Using them is not idiotic, as until there is an alternative, (one of which I have recently subscribed to), I have no option but to use apps to pay my bills.  I don't know what you mean by paying "extra" commission. I pay the commission that they charge us all. I don't do fixed fares, taxi savers, or airport pickups as, currently it is the road to one app possibly achieving dominance, and then increaseing fares, and commission.

[Rat Catcher]

I'm not calling you an idiot by any means. I just don't see the logic behind your suggesting that there's no need for controls on what licensed dispatch operators may charge drivers. NTA imposes maximum fares on us as licensed drivers so why shouldn't it impose maximum rates on dispatch operators?

The idea that forcing drivers all over the country to charge all passengers what is currently the maximum permissible rate will create some sort of eutopia is nonsense. In that scenario drivers from outside of the big cities would be forced into the cities to compensate for their loss of trade. Furthermore, without controls on what rideshare platforms can charge drivers they will continue to offer riders substantial discounts and finance it through increased commission - Free Now is already charging 25% on the vast majority of it's fares to finance rider discounts. So, for every €1,000 they allow in discounts drivers will be paying at least €1,500 taking VAT and a reasonable profit margin into account.

I understand why drivers won't delete Uber at present. That's simply because Uber is putting money in our pockets by paying us more than it charges riders. As that can't and won't last, in a no pain no gain sort of way, I would favour a ban on below cost selling. Yes, it would cost us a lot of money in the short-term but you have to remember that Uber, Bolt, Hola et al will recoup every penny of the discounts they allow with substantial interest in the fullness of time.

To date, all the drivers unions have to show for their protests, threats, shouting and roaring, banging fists on Ministers tables, etc... is taking €5,000,000 out of drivers pockets through cuts to EV subsidies. One fears that could be but the tip of the iceberg.

[watty]

I'm not calling you an idiot by any means. I just don't see the logic behind your suggesting that there's no need for controls on what licensed dispatch operators may charge drivers. NTA imposes maximum fares on us as licensed drivers so why shouldn't it impose maximum rates on dispatch operators?

<snip>

Taking the idea to its extreme.  You could get a dispatcher (& a few willing drivers) setting up a stall on weekend nights on Dame St and charge a card-only €50 'arrangement fee' on top of the metered fare to extremely drunk passengers/tourists.  The charge would be hidden in the small print so legal and the passenger probably wouldn't find out until they sobered up the next morning.  Would the NTA be ok with that?

[Bob Shillin]

I'm not calling you an idiot by any means. I just don't see the logic behind your suggesting that there's no need for controls on what licensed dispatch operators may charge drivers. NTA imposes maximum fares on us as licensed drivers so why shouldn't it impose maximum rates on dispatch operators?

<snip>

Taking the idea to its extreme.  You could get a dispatcher (& a few willing drivers) setting up a stall on weekend nights on Dame St and charge a card-only €50 'arrangement fee' on top of the metered fare to extremely drunk passengers/tourists.  The charge would be hidden in the small print so legal and the passenger probably wouldn't find out until they sobered up the next morning.  Would the NTA be ok with that?

A despatch operator's licence would be required for that, at least the organising driver, and would be unlikely given in those unacceptable circumstances.

When I said that I don't care what the Apps charge us I qualified it by hoping that by boycotting their market domination tactics, and by maintaining competition between them would delay increases in competition, and now hopefully a new coop will assist us to that end.
While I'm aware that the apps require an NTA despatch licence, as drivers require a PSV licence, our well established common costs allow the NTA a good basis to assess, and set fares to the public, whereas assessing a cost structure proposed by the apps would be too much work for the NTA. As JM said, an NTA app would have been a good idea before the latest Coop startup.
The apps however are private service providers to PSV licencees, and their cost/profit structures would prove very difficult for the NTA to assess, and impose limits. The NTA always have/had the excuse that we don't have to use the apps, we can work the streets, albeit that that ship has sailed.

[Rat Catcher]

I'm not sure how extreme that is, Watty... apart from the stall bit. In the virtual world Free Now charges substantial surge fees and it does so when there's no shortage of supply. We all read the reports of the rock star who they done up like a kipper and more recently someone sent me a report of another celebrity who apparently intends to make an issue out of a similar experience with the same firm. I think in his case c.70% of what he was charged was put down to technology fees or such like.

The problem with surge charging is perception. It's easy for Free Now, Uber et al to create the impression that there's a shortage in supply when there's no such shortage so, essentially, they can make riders pay more regardless of supply levels at any given time. They can then use variable rates of commission to pay drivers as little as is necessary to get the job covered. That's another good reason for NTA to impose limits on rates of commission so if they charge more the driver gets the lions share of the extra charge.

[Rat Catcher]

I was exaggerating in the case mentioned above. I found the report on my phone. It was a man called Larry Bass who apparently is an Irish TV star and the technology fee was only 50% of the fare.

https://www.facebook.com/100049093064084/posts/meet-larry-bassrecently-mr-bass-took-a-taxi-journey-with-free-now-during-which-5/1427341732245582/

[watty]

-- "A despatch operator's licence would be required for that"
-- "apart from the stall bit."

I'm just thinking out loud over my cornflakes about the absurdity of the current rules, not actually planning on doing it.  You could maybe set up your dispatch HQ in a shed in your back garden (RC would have the space) and have a lad with placard or leaflets on Dame St organising things?  As long as the mark passenger clicks OK on the app, it's all legal?

I mean, who hasn't paid stupid money for a drunken ride on a bicycle thingy down Grafton St at 2am some weekend morning just because...  (or so my friend told me  )