They claim they paid cancellation fees. Gett claims the charges are pending. At this point it would be stupid of them to not let those charges through though.
I am a reporter as the username suggests and quite open about it. Every comment you have posted defends Uber and not just on this issue but others as well. What's yours?
Having worked for a few years doing what I do, I have learned that people don't make up amusing names for unethical practices and share them in humorous conversations with acquaintances unless it's the company culture.
Having said that, you are right. Company culture doesn't ALWAYS come as a directive from the top, even though other comments by Uber's founder in the past point in that direction. So I have edited my comment.
Another commenter below said he knows an Uber employee in Boston where they not only employ the same tactics with other competitors but also have names for it such as ShopLyfting and SideSwiping.
It looks like this is Uber's culture and not just a few employees in one office behaving unethically. The article also mentions that everyone from the General Manager down were involved in this. The GM is basically the head for a given city. That tells you how far up the chain the lack of ethics goes.
Wow. The fact that this is being done in other cities, with two other competitors, and that they have names for this tactic shows that this is a company wide pattern at Uber rather than something the entire Uber New York team just thought up one day.
It is hard for something this unethical, and almost certainly illegal, to happen at several major Uber offices against at least three different competitors, and have its own name -without it being the company culture.