There is a popular rumor in where Uber is stealing surge jobs from their drivers also known as “Fake Surge”. Driver Matty ran a test to see if it may or may not be true, the results are below:
Driver Matty was driving home from Manchester Airport and there was a red surge in Birchwood, Warrington, the job was heading towards Liverpool so he accepted the job. The job was in the center of the red surge but didn’t show the surge indicator. The job was approximately 5 miles away going around 11 miles and the offer was £14 to the driver. The passenger told the driver how cheap it was and he only paid £14 for the journey, so Uber took no commission and there was no surge price for the passenger or driver.
Yet the map was showing a red surge, and this happens quite a lot, Driver Matty spoke to a lot of other drivers and explained what happened and we predict that the colour on the Uber driver app map doesn’t always accurately show surge it may be premature or delayed, some drivers said that they sometimes get a surge job when there is no surge colour showing on the map.
So the question of whether Uber is stealing surge jobs from their drivers is incorrect but more than likely the colour of the map isn’t always in line with the surge pricing algorithm.
