{"id":29012,"date":"2025-07-29T03:17:11","date_gmt":"2025-07-29T03:17:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/29012\/"},"modified":"2025-07-29T03:17:11","modified_gmt":"2025-07-29T03:17:11","slug":"uber-drivers-creating-artificial-surge-prices","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/29012\/","title":{"rendered":"Uber drivers creating artificial surge prices"},"content":{"rendered":"

Uber passengers could be paying up to three times the cost of their trip because of drivers manipulating the system.<\/p>\n

Multiple Uber drivers have told triple j hack that customers are being slugged with surge pricing when there are cars available in the vicinity.<\/p>\n

Bill*, who has been driving an Uber on the Gold Coast for more than 10 years, said it was an “old trick”.<\/p>\n

“It mainly happens at airports and pick-ups after football games where there’s specific areas of pick-up zones,” he told triple j hack.<\/p>\n

“A bunch of drivers, if they’re the only ones there, they’ll all say, ‘Let’s just all hold out for a little while,’ and then the surge pricing goes up.<\/p>\n

“It certainly doesn’t go as high as what it used to. I think it maxes out at only three times the fare now.”<\/p>\n

\"Person<\/p>\n

Bill* says Uber drivers are being forced to do “dodgy things” to make a living.\u00a0 (ABC News: Malcolm Sutton)<\/p>\n

Bill said Uber drivers had a certain amount of time to accept a trip request. However he some drivers purposefully allowed the request to expire.<\/p>\n

“At the airport, there’s a queuing system, it’s first in, first out,” he said.<\/p>\n

“But if [an Uber driver] doesn’t accept the trip, it will go to the next driver, and then if he doesn’t accept the trip, then so on and so on.<\/p>\n

“All of a sudden, the app will determine that there’s not enough drivers in the area, so the price will start to surge in that specific area.”<\/p>\n

Union aware drivers gaming system<\/p>\n

The national secretary of the Transport Workers’ Union, Michael Kaine, told triple j hack he was aware of Uber drivers gaming the system, but he said it was for a valid reason.<\/p>\n

“Drivers are innovative, they will band together, they will manipulate the system to try and push the prices up,” he said.<\/p>\n

“Because when the prices are up, the drivers get a fairer cut.<\/p>\n

“A cut that allows them to pay for their fuel, to pay for their insurance, to pay for the running of the vehicle, to pay for their workers’ compensation.<\/p>\n

“Things that Uber expect them to bear but they’re not providing them the rates to bear them.”<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Michael Kaine says Uber drivers are innovative and will do “whatever they can” to make a living.\u00a0 (ABC Radio Brisbane: Kenji Sato)<\/p>\n

Last year, the government created legislation that introduced powers for the Fair Work Commission to set minimum standards for gig economy workers, including rideshare drivers.<\/a><\/p>\n

These new laws mean the Fair Work Commission can set a base rate of pay, something which would mean rideshare drivers would get the same pay, no matter which app they worked for.<\/p>\n

Mr Kaine said “those rights are just in the process of being built” and Uber drivers should be paid more in the meantime.<\/p>\n

“They shouldn’t have to be trying to manipulate the system just to make a living for themselves and their families,” he said.<\/p>\n

“Every Australian worker deserves reasonable pay.”Loading…<\/p>\n

In a statement, an Uber spokesperson said the company had community guidelines which set out what “behaviour isn’t appropriate and what will cause a user to lose access to their Uber account”.<\/p>\n

“Fraudulent activities such as deliberately increasing time and distance of a trip, accepting trip, order or delivery requests without the intention to complete, may result in loss of access to the Uber apps,” the statement said.<\/p>\n

“We work to inform driver partners and riders about those standards and take action to hold them accountable for their behaviour.”<\/p>\n

The company also said that up-front pricing that allowed riders to see an estimated cost of their journey before booking a car would help improve transparency, “giving riders the option to decide how they get around, in a way that best suits their needs, timing, and budget”.<\/p>\n

‘A bit of bulls***’\"Two<\/p>\n

Alex (left) and John say that it is not fair Uber drivers are gaming the system. (triple j hack: Rachel Rasker)<\/p>\n

For 18-year-old Uber customers Alex and John, drivers on the platform often manipulate the system.<\/p>\n

“That’s a bit of bullshit, to be honest with you,” Alex said.<\/p>\n

“I mean, I definitely think they [Uber drivers] should be getting paid more.<\/p>\n

“[But] I don’t know about putting it on the customers, as opposed to the company, but I understand the struggle.”<\/p>\n

John put forward an alternative solution for drivers.<\/p>\n

“I’d almost rather they ask for a tip than just artificially pump the prices,” he said.<\/p>\n

“Because that’s what it is.”<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Neev says it is “not good enough” that some Uber drivers are passing an extra costs onto customers.\u00a0 (triple j hack: Rachel Rasker)<\/p>\n

Another Uber user, Neev, said the “worst” surge price she had faced was after a concert.<\/p>\n

“We were looking at $50 to $60 for an Uber for like a five-minute drive,” she said.<\/p>\n

“I think that’s horrendous.<\/p>\n

“The Uber drivers are just wanting to charge people more for what is a pretty simple trip.”<\/p>\n

Neev said she understood Uber was taking a percentage of drivers’ pay.<\/p>\n

“To drive the car, fuel the car, maintain the car, when they’re really not earning that much from it to begin with,” she said.<\/p>\n

“But I don’t necessarily think that the customer should be fronting the price of that.”<\/p>\n

‘Doing dodgy things’<\/p>\n

Back on the Gold Coast, Bill wants to see Uber pay its drivers more.<\/p>\n

“I mean, the exact same thing happened to the taxi industry in Australia \u2014 the government just kept taking more and more,” he told hack.<\/p>\n

“It forced the drivers to just become more and more untrustworthy and creative with doing dodgy things to scrape the last dollar from the rider.<\/p>\n

“It’s the same thing with Uber, they’re taking more, they’re charging less.”<\/p>\n

* Names have been changed to protect their identities.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

It is unclear how many Uber drivers are manipulating the system to create surge prices.\u00a0 (ABC News: Morgan Timms)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Uber passengers could be paying up to three times the cost of their trip because of drivers manipulating…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":29013,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[64,63,99,2610,27595,27596,27597,16861,11523],"class_list":{"0":"post-29012","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-business","11":"tag-cost-of-living","12":"tag-gig-economy","13":"tag-rideshare-drivers","14":"tag-surge-price","15":"tag-transport","16":"tag-uber"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29012","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29012"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29012\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29013"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29012"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29012"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29012"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}