Uber to pay out 272 million in class action
Jules66
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Who knows how much, it's about 35k an operator, hoping legal fees will eat into only half of that but it may be much more. Also some will go to the taxi app people and I don't know if it's an even spread between taxis and hirecar drivers as taxis lost a lot more.
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According to ABC news
The class action was started by Maurice Blackburn Lawyers in 2019 on behalf of more than 8000 taxi and hire car owners.
Five years of legal fees will be in the tens of millions.
It still has to worked out how the remainder of the settlement is going to be split amongst taxi and hire car owners. I suppose it might be split according to how many licences were held by each claimant.
Every industry has been affected by the rise of the internet and wide spread smart phone use.
Back in the 1980's, the creation of outer suburban shopping plazas killed off suburban shopping strips like Chapel Street Prahran, Bridge Street Richmond and Barkly Street Footscray.
Now those shopping plazas are in decline due to online shopping.
Jeff Kennett claimed he cleaned up the taxi industry after he visited New York 30 years ago and saw all their cabs were yellow and introduced the same colour here for all our cabs. But it was only a paint job.
The cost of taxi plates should never have been allowed to reach the ridulous cost of $500,000. That cost had to be recovered from very high fares.
The taxi industry became like a bloated dying whale and they were killed off by the shark like tactics of Uber!
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$500,000 to zero was a pretty hard hit especially if you had multiple licenses. Some small time guys lost nearly everything. Think they were paid back $50k for the first and $25k for the second, whilst losing most of their income stream. As you said it was the governments fault for introducing such a stupid ponzi scheme.
The class action was only for the time between Uber X starting and Uber becoming legal. The government has already compensated people for loss of future income and hardship from the legalization date moving forward. So I'm not sure if the case includes loss of money for licenses.
The class action was only for the time between Uber X starting and Uber becoming legal. The government has already compensated people for loss of future income and hardship from the legalization date moving forward. So I'm not sure if the case includes loss of money for licenses.
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The media reporting provides little details on who will get the compensation- plate owners, operators or even drivers (doubt that). Predictably raised the ‘who will pay more?’ Questions though.
The State Government paid plate owners $100k for their first plate and $50k for up to three further plates when ridesharing was legalised from late 2016.
You’re right Tommy, the taxi industry was so bloated, rent with internal monopoly exploitation (cab charge, access to phone bookings) and out of touch with customers they were absolutely vulnerable to anything that came along.
Uber happened to be the illegal disruptors but they knew the public the world over would welcome the competition and initially better service and governments would be crazy to keep spending taxpayers funds to stamp out something rapidly gaining popularity.
As to the market value plate holders have lost, by the time plates reached stratospheric levels (one changed hands in 2009 for $509k) it was in a market like a stock exchange with maybe 100 plates being sold by owners each year. My understanding is the government had no role in setting the values, but obviously did influence the market by the number of new plates issued.
im now interested if this will mean anything for us as Uber Drivers. Let’s see what spin comes through the App.
The State Government paid plate owners $100k for their first plate and $50k for up to three further plates when ridesharing was legalised from late 2016.
You’re right Tommy, the taxi industry was so bloated, rent with internal monopoly exploitation (cab charge, access to phone bookings) and out of touch with customers they were absolutely vulnerable to anything that came along.
Uber happened to be the illegal disruptors but they knew the public the world over would welcome the competition and initially better service and governments would be crazy to keep spending taxpayers funds to stamp out something rapidly gaining popularity.
As to the market value plate holders have lost, by the time plates reached stratospheric levels (one changed hands in 2009 for $509k) it was in a market like a stock exchange with maybe 100 plates being sold by owners each year. My understanding is the government had no role in setting the values, but obviously did influence the market by the number of new plates issued.
im now interested if this will mean anything for us as Uber Drivers. Let’s see what spin comes through the App.
Looooollll 😂😂😂😂
Hit hard... Yea right - only those that got tricked into buying the plates 2-3 yrs before uber suffered.. The rest made millions of their plates and now they cry for money... Get real taxi drivers enabled uber to be so successful through their crap customer service and attitude due to the monopoly... They didn't declare most of their incomes to avoid paying tax while made millions.
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Most of the old boys that didn't even own plates and just leased it often have 3-4 house and yeah didn't declare income.
Ones that bought the plates were literally printing money everyday.
It true that the market was free for a takeover as the taxi industry became very lazy and corrupt both in the gov and the owners/drivers.
Even now most drivers in taxi games are illegals as in don't even hold a driver license or is an international student working more than 20 hours per week. It kinda like working 20 hours per day in reality. As soon as DOT come they run off.
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Thought you would be watching 4 corners?, oh probably hasn't started yet. Think you will like it.
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But I agree with you. But at the end of the day this was the governments fault. They managed ot and they need to be responsible. In pyramid scheme lots of scum make money only people holding the parcel at the end loose everything, the smart ones would have seen Uber coming.
The problem was a license had no real value. It only had value because the government said it did.
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It exactly the reason why NSW and WA gave back license plate owners for what they originally sold it for which was around 300k each as a state buy back. NSW had the taxi council etc lobbying efforts and WA had a bunch of angry taxi drivers protesting in front of government buildings. It didn't make people "whole" as a lot did still pay half a million per plate but the only people that were really impacted was the ones that bought plates within the few years RS came along.
VIC had an appalling buy back scheme but then again the taxi drivers didn't really push too much which probably because majority of the owners were a bunch of thieving crooks living in mansions without paying a dime in tax and didn't want the gov looking too closely at how they got it. That my speculation.
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One guy kind of leverage himself bought 5 plates for 2 mil when Uber entered the market and killed it here. So he wasn't able to make any of the money just working to repay the bank loans etc. However when the gov finally did the buy back he got a bit under 1.5 million and transferred the money out of Australia then left Australia since he only had a PR here and pretty much went F U. So that guy literally made money off the whole thing. He got the last laugh running away from the money and not paying the bank back. Fellow living like an absolute king in India with a number of wives now and have zero plans of coming back to Australia.
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