The GIG Economy Podcast

Uber Scandal: Fake Assault Claims? | DoorDash Driver Reveals 12-Hour Earnings | Wag Bankruptcy | Ep 263

The Gig Economy Podcast

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The gig economy continues to evolve with new features, challenges, and opportunities for drivers navigating rideshare and delivery platforms. We discuss market-specific strategies and ways to adapt when conditions change.

NEWS LINKS EP 263

• Lyft introduces "favorite driver" feature, but only for scheduled rides, limiting its usefulness for most drivers
• DoorDash driver experiment: accepting every order for 12 hours yields $215 for 221 miles
• WAG pet service files for bankruptcy after being valued at $650 million
• Two Waymo autonomous vehicles crash into each other at Phoenix airport
• Driver shares $505 "unicorn" ride for approximately 100-mile trip
• Former nursing home employee charged with stealing $2,688 from patient through Uber Eats
• Octopus tablets offer a passive income opportunity for rideshare drivers
• Importance of pivoting between different gig apps as market conditions change
• Every market is different - what works for one driver may not work for another

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Speaker 1:

Welcome to the Gig Economy Podcast. We are on episode. What are we on tonight? Day 263 tonight, and I think we got all the right buttons pushed and all the streams going tonight, so I think we're good. Welcome everybody to the show. We appreciate you tuning in. You can go to thegigeconomyshowcom to learn all about the podcast, learn about what's going on with the show, look at past episodes.

Speaker 1:

We want to be sure and thank our Patreon members. That is, samson from Grand Rapids, bud Dickman from North Carolina, omar from Detroit, delivery Cats from Michigan, frank from Philly, tom from Chicago, detroit, delivery cats from Michigan, frank from Philly, tom from Chicago, jim from Connecticut, miguel from GR, linda from Tampa, jerry Gillette from Bowling Green and faith from Las Vegas. Thank you very much for being a patron. Uh, we appreciate it. It helps us, um, pay for the things we need to do for the show. Um, if you want to join the patron, we have two tiers. We have a $ dollar tier and a seven dollar tier. Uh, seven dollar tier, you get extra show. Uh, pretty much after every show, we will do like an after show just for patreon members. Um and uh, as you can all tell, tonight, uh, it is gabe and I. Tonight. Jason is absent again, another well-deserved night away. Not sure what he's doing tonight exactly.

Speaker 1:

No, he's becoming a part-timer, he is becoming a part-timer, but that's okay, because that gives me a chance to learn more about the back end of this stuff and not make the rookie mistakes that I made last time. So yeah, we're good. So yeah, so join us on. On patreon, we have a seven day free trial. You can try it out for a week and um see how you like it. If you don't like it, you don't get charged, but we think you're gonna like it. I don't know why you wouldn't um.

Speaker 2:

We also have a telegram group that gabe's gonna tell you about so, uh, the telegram, telegram group, uh, there's a link, usually in the description of these videos. I know Josh is now joined. It's where we just chit-chat if we have questions about one of the apps or we have something funny or something crazy that happened that we want to share. It gives you a way to connect with other drivers.

Speaker 1:

Usually, Faith and I do the daytime and then Larry when he drives, does that night, yeah, but there's nobody else out there. This is me talking to myself so, uh, it's nice.

Speaker 2:

You don't feel alone because you can kind of get into the swing of things, or you're not really talking to anybody except for your riders, or, if you do, you know deliveries. Um, so it's just nice. Uh, we've had people join from all over the us and even new zealand yeah, a couple new people this past week.

Speaker 1:

Uh, we're, we're adding a few here the last few weeks, which is great, because we we'd love to get back like you used to be in in the golden day. We used to be on there and just, uh, you wake up. If you weren't working one night, you'd work up the next day. There might be 500 messages, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2:

We need uh, we need John to be able to do his weekly recap.

Speaker 1:

I know he, he is standing fast on refusing to do that, even even faith asking to do it, and, uh, he has not caved in yet, but we're going to keep hammering on him to do at least one.

Speaker 2:

I feel like if we were busier in the chat he would definitely.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, it might be hard to do Cause, yeah, back in the end there was so much to choose from, like I'm I'm sure it was tough to whittle down all the all the funny things that are were said in that telegram group. And you know, sometimes we go off the rails and sometimes we're talking about relevant stuff to gig economy, but a lot of times we're not, a lot of times we're just talking about life.

Speaker 2:

We're talking shit to each other.

Speaker 1:

Talking shit to each other. For sure, that is 100% guaranteed that that's going to happen in the group. If you're in there, we'll try not to run you off. We'll try to let you ease in a little bit before we tease you.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I'm still waiting for you, babasoo. Yeah, exactly, tease you, but uh, yeah, I'm still waiting for you.

Speaker 1:

I'll pursue. Yeah, exactly, it's a great place to get to know people. That's how I got to know the people, um uh, here up in gr and the people you know running the podcast, and got to be friends with them. And we do usually do a get together, our picnic every year. We've had people come in from all the country for that. That's always a lot of fun as well. We're talking about going to Clearwater maybe next year, so I'm looking forward to that, gabe.

Speaker 2:

It'll be a good time I love that area, man.

Speaker 1:

I love that area down there. It's beautiful, really nice beaches. So stories from the road. Do you have any stories, anything funny or interesting or unusual from this week?

Speaker 2:

No, I still haven't given any rides. I'm holding out for the college kids.

Speaker 1:

They're coming, they're coming.

Speaker 2:

They are, they are, they're slowly trickling in. I think move-in weekend actually is this weekend. I've been doing a lot of DoorDash, uh, some catering. Yeah, that's been interesting. Um, I had one today.

Speaker 2:

It was like 55 meals oh, okay not, you know, like some catering, it's the pans and stuff. No, it was 55 individual meals, um, and I had to set that up and it was a second level business, uh, no elevator. So I'm like up the stairs, uh, and got it set up and uh I was like, oh, do you guys, you know, have a big party or something? She's like every wednesday is free lunch day so everyone comes in. Other than that, they all work from home. Usually I'm in once a week to get the free lunch.

Speaker 1:

I was like, okay, I guess whatever it takes to get them in there.

Speaker 2:

Oh, I learned something today, like I got this amazing Best Buy offer and it was like $31.75 for one item best buy like quick 14 miles, it was 14 miles away, but it was all highway, okay, um.

Speaker 2:

So I grabbed it and I went in and of course you know it wasn't there. And so I'm like, oh, this is why you know doordash is paying so much, because somebody probably dropped it. It wasn't there. So I asked the guy that I know there if they had any back. He comes back with it and he says you'd be surprised how many people walk in that are door dashers and they don't see something, they don't ask anyone and they just leave. And I'm like, yeah, I know, because I've gotten some crazy offers because I walked in and I asked they bring it to me and then I'm out the door. So I'm like they can keep dropping it. If they don't see the stuff, that's fine, you know. So that that's been interesting to see. Oh, it looks like.

Speaker 1:

Susan's enjoying. I think that's.

Speaker 2:

Bubba Sue maybe.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

So yeah, just that. And then I got screwed on an Amazon route. They waited. I thought I was was gonna get a freebie. I got a freebie one day and I'm waiting. I'm watching, you know, the screen that says to wait and I'm like please come on at 15 minutes of waiting. They popped it up and it was so Flint and it was a 50-minute drive to my first stop.

Speaker 3:

Okay.

Speaker 2:

And when I finished I had an hour drive back home. But I will tell you what. In Flint I know Cops don't care what you do. I don't think I hit my brake pedal at all. I parked in front of the house, all yellows, all slightly. We'll call it orange as faith says orange lights. Uh, I made sure that I got through them all um, and you don't really stop. It's like detroit you don't stop at the stop signs, or you, you kind of roll yeah, that's like st louis is like that.

Speaker 1:

It blows my mind when I go up there. I'm so unused to it and like I'm sitting at stoplights and people just like pull around you all the time and just go right through the lights and it's so strange to me so so it worked out to my benefit.

Speaker 2:

It sucked that it was so far away yeah but I, I learned that, um, even if they make you wait, they're gonna, they're gonna push that whole time, um, but I had a prior engagement, so, so I needed to hustle Okay, so it worked, but other than that.

Speaker 1:

I don't have anything interesting. Okay, yeah, I don't have really anything unusual either, Just like you. The students are coming back here right now. A lot of them are moving in. Some of the sorority fraternity people are coming early, Some of the athletes come in early, but I think the main move-in is going on, I believe this weekend I'm not sure what date school starts, I still need to find that out but I will probably be out tomorrow night, Thursday, Thursday, and then probably out again either Friday or well, probably Saturday. Usually Saturday nights seem to be busier here. I was supposed to go somewhere this weekend and plans fell through. Well, probably Saturday.

Speaker 2:

Usually Saturday nights seem to be busier here. So yeah, I was supposed to go somewhere this weekend and plans fell through, so I might come out this weekend and hustle with you. If you're out, okay, I might do some rides.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, shoot me a telegram and let me know if you're heading out one night. Like I said, I'll probably be out some during the day, saturday, and then probably Saturday night as well, and I'd say definitely tomorrow night. But yeah, nothing, you know, just doing daytime rides. There's not as much of a chance, it seems, to get some crazy stories during the day, although I've had a few that happened during the day over the years.

Speaker 2:

Honestly, the only thing I think I deal with is people that shouldn't be driving, that are on the road.

Speaker 3:

Um, there's a lot of that pretty I?

Speaker 2:

I hate to say this, but may was what? Nine years for me, right, may was nine years and I don't know. Over 30,000 rides, cause, of course, I took time off, you know, for a couple years. Here and there um, I don't miss it, like sometimes I do. I get the itch, but not enough of an itch that makes me want to go do the ride, you know, because I tried it a couple nights here and it was okay until the last night, and I think it was the night before last year's picnic yeah um, I was feeling okay and then I was like, oh, I'm gonna rest.

Speaker 2:

And then I went out. No, I wasn't. It was before we I was supposed to go and then I got we thought maybe I was sick yeah, I got an allergy so the the night before or the night before that, anyways, I took a kid and he ended up throwing up in his backpack, so that was the last time I drove a night, so over a year ago.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, that's crazy, I know it's. You know I've always. You know, the ride share has been in my main gig the whole eight years I've been doing it. I enjoy it with my connection that I've made with my passengers here. I really like it. But I swear this upfront pricing it may be the death of the ride share career, just it's so frustrating. You get these two you know 285, three dollar, three and a quarter rides popping up and you're like I'm not moving my wheels for this.

Speaker 2:

Well, like even airport rides, you know, I'd make $30.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, we used to make 95.

Speaker 2:

And now they're popping up for 15.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, they're popping up for 50 here and it used to be 95. And it's like I don't know who's taking them. I guess it's newer people who don't know what it used to be. That is aggravating. And the thing that really aggravates me with Lyft and I talked about this with Jason last week and it happened to me a couple of times last weekend when I was driving their trip radar will pop up and it'll show your ride and you click to match on it and it'll go match in progress and then it will go away and then two, three minutes later it'll pop up same person, same ride, less money less money and I'm like f that I am not taking that.

Speaker 1:

Anytime I see that ride and you offer it to me again for less money, I'm I don't care, I'm not taking it on principle it's not doing it, and there's another guy in our local facebook group. He was complaining about that last night too uber.

Speaker 2:

Uber's doing the same thing. You know how it pops up and on the ride radar and I'll even. Well, even if it's an uber eats, it'll pop up and I was like it's kind of tempting, yeah, and I'm like no, so I watched it go and then a minute later it popped up and it was like a dollar 70 less.

Speaker 1:

And I was just like yeah, and on Lyft it's always it's one. It's higher price on the radar but then when you get the direct ping it's less, it's a couple of dollars less and it's like you know, lyft does the estimate per hour. Like it was 20 something an hour when it first was on the radar and then they offered to me for like it was 17 an hour and I'm like I was, I was pissed, it's like I'm not doing this. Yeah, sketchy, sketchy, sketchy, all right. So, yeah, nothing, nothing too crazy for each other. So we'll move on to uh, gig economy in the news it's in the uh. The first first story that we're talking about tonight is Uber. Uber is they have so many lawsuits right now it's on here, I forget how many they said it was. It says they have nationwide federal litigation over 2,450 lawsuits alleging driver misconduct where people accuse drivers of sexually assaulting them, things like that. And Uber is saying that it's found over 100 cases where passengers who filed those lawsuits and claimed that the driver sexually assaulted or harassed them, these passengers had offered bogus or doctored up receipts. These passengers had offered bogus or doctored up receipts and said so, they showed some that said, um, we had, they had some receipts that that uh, let me find it here on the um. You know one. One person submitted two receipts for the for a single ride. Two different plaintiffs submitted the different versions of the same receipt. Um, there's been. Some of them have math errors or bogus charges that Uber doesn't even put on there. Some of them, the people had actually had female drivers and they've Photoshopped it to make it look like a male name for their drivers. They were timestamped differently, they used a different format that Uber does not use, and to me this is disappointing on so many levels. First of all, the fact that Uber has that many cases against it and we know that it happens. We know for sure.

Speaker 1:

I know a guy I don't know if he's still driving. I haven't heard anything about him in a long time here locally in Bowling Green, but I would hear people tell stories about him like all the time. Like I had a girl in my car one day and she was complaining about him. I was like I'm pretty sure I can guess the name of the guy you're talking about and she's like, yeah, that's him. And she's like, yeah, we just went, I seen him. He stopped through. You know, the drive through real quick for me. She's like it wasn't busy. I won't do it if it's busy. She's like I was asking me to swing through. He's like oh yeah, I'll do that, and you know, for a blow job. And I was like are you serious? I hope you reported him. She's like nah, I didn't him. They're just going to think I'm trying to get him.

Speaker 2:

You know my competition out, but if you report him, maybe something will happen like how many right I can, I can't even count on both of my hands. How many times I've heard a crazy story and then I've asked did you?

Speaker 3:

say something to uber?

Speaker 2:

did you report them?

Speaker 1:

and the answer is always no, yeah they all almost always say no, I, I don't, I don't understand it. I, you know, I understand not wanting to get involved, but gosh, it's so easy to just report. It's not like you're having to go down to the police station and file a report or anything like that. It's much easier than that to just file a claim or a customer support ticket through the app and tell them what's happening, because if they see this happening over and over again with the same driver. Maybe something will get done.

Speaker 2:

Or how many times do people make false claims? Right, and then the driver is kicked off for 24 hours.

Speaker 1:

And that's the flip side that this story talks about. You have people that are making bogus claims and they're making it so bad for the people who actually have been assaulted. They're making everybody doubt, Just like people not involved in Uber. People make false claims on stuff like this. It's so frustrating and maddening that people would do that just to try and make a few bucks would do that just to try and make a few bucks.

Speaker 2:

I you know. I will say that I've gotten in. You know, months ago, when I was taking rides, I was getting more. Of you know this ride is recorded. So, like the sound, right um, which I think is a great thing, because then you can't be blamed for saying something that you didn't say. Yeah, um, I almost wish they would do that on every ride. That it clicks on and is active during the ride, yeah, and then, once the ride is done, it shuts off.

Speaker 1:

Um, because other than that, they don't need to have access to my phone, and you know all the other gigs that I'm doing, sure, and, and I don't know if the reason they don't do that is because, uh, they run into things where, if somebody is on the phone, uh, on you know speakerphone or something, and then they run into maybe legal trouble because neither one of the parties on there has given consent or you know, I'm sure there's some issues that they run into. But I would be fine with that, um, because I mean, we all have dash cameras, but if something, if nothing really seemed out of place, that video is going to get overwritten eventually and you know, somebody comes back a month later. I'm not, you know not gonna have that video, right, yeah. So, yeah, I'm definitely looking, constantly looking for a good dash cam that stores it in the cloud.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, well, I'm surprised there isn't one yet.

Speaker 1:

I'm sure there may be a good one out there. I haven't researched it in a little bit. I've always been happy with our Vantrus, but you know if there's something else out there that will do that and works well, um, I'm all for they just kind of I know jason tested one that had the you know the lte in it and didn't seem to go real smooth and you definitely want to have a recording. The last thing you want is for something to happen, and you're happen and not work at all.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, bubba Sue just said DisplayRide is cloud-based.

Speaker 1:

DisplayRide. That's the one that Steve talks about. Roger Rodeo, I think he talks about them a lot. I don't know how much it is a month, but yeah, something I definitely will look into for sure. Okay, moving on the next one. I think Gabe, this is. I think this one is for you.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, the picture. Yes, so Lyft is starting where you can favorite your drivers only on scheduled rides. So if you do scheduled rides and you've given somebody a ride and they favorited you, the likely chance of you getting them again is high. They haven't made it available so that it can be active at all times, but I think it's a start. You know, I other, you know other apps do it. You know like, look at shipped. They have preferred shoppers. I think it would be nice, um, and it would kind of. I feel like it's the right step to go towards cleaning up maybe your drivers, um, as far as like. Oh, this was an awful experience. If you get enough of those where people are like no never again will I ride with this person.

Speaker 2:

maybe then it will prompt them, because I can't even tell you how many times you know you hear stories of I wish I could get you again.

Speaker 3:

Yes.

Speaker 2:

And I'm like well, the algorithm, you know, if you five star me, I five star you and I'm available and I'm close. I should get you again. I've had it happen a couple of times, but I can't promise anything. So it you again. I've had it happen a couple times, but I can't promise anything, um, so it would be really nice to get those. Um, but I think it's. It's a good setup, especially if you do scheduled uh, and you prefer to have something set up where you're just doing scheduled rides all day long and you have your preferreds um.

Speaker 1:

It's a good thing so the uh icons on, I guess what is the hearts Favorited drivers and what's the other one on there?

Speaker 2:

Early access.

Speaker 1:

Early access Okay.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

Okay, I was not sure. Yeah, when they announced being able to have favorite drivers, I got really excited, just because Larry, you can't have all of the college.

Speaker 1:

Okay, like there's no way, cause I get it, I got. I can't. You know, like you said, you know, when you're a good driver and, uh, you know you treat your customers right, you will get asked that they're like, how can I get you again? I've had, you know, hundreds of people ask and I used to hand out my cards all the time. Um, hundreds of people ask and I used to hand out my cards all the time. Um, it doesn't work great, I don't really love doing that because you can. If somebody, if they'll no message, you're like, hey, we're going out at nine o'clock, then you gotta stop accepting rides about 8, 30 and you know it kind of throws your whole night off and then you go buy them and you're like, okay, I'm about to turn my app on go ahead and put the.

Speaker 1:

You know another I can pop in, yep it can, you know, I have to do it two or three times, you know, put in their exact destination, things like that. Um, and you know, and that also leads to a lot of people going, I'll just pay you, y'all here, let me just venmo you. You know those venmo, you want to venmo your money, and so then you get into the whole cash ride thing and that's just a whole nother can of worms. So, yeah, so I'm hoping, like I said, I feel like this is a step in the right direction. I hope eventually that they do it, um, that if you have favorited drivers, that they can do it on the fly. It doesn't have to be a scheduled ride, because college kids don't ever schedule a ride so it doesn't mean a lot of good.

Speaker 1:

Uh, nobody schedules rides around here, because you don't have to.

Speaker 2:

And, honestly, there are a lot here, but they're for medical appointments, so they're not not a regular thing, right, right, um, uh, there's some people that do use it for work, you know, a couple of times a week, so they do schedule, um, or it's business people making sure that they have a ride to the airport.

Speaker 1:

Sure.

Speaker 2:

You know, and the likelihood of them coming back is maybe once or twice a year. Right, Then do you all again, so I don't think anyone would really benefit from having a favorite.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

Unless it's the same medical company that schedules all of them and they just have guests, blah blah blah, guests, blah, blah blah. Then maybe that might work. Yeah, that might help. But who's going to? Who's going to want to be favorited for?

Speaker 1:

a medical ride Cause they don't tip. Yeah, they don't tip and you know, a lot of times you know somebody might need help, you know, getting in and out of the car we might have to help walk them through the door. The person just tips you in cash, which slimmed a chance that happens.

Speaker 2:

Face calls that suck, those suck. When's the last time you gave a ride, Faith?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, but I do hope that they implement this on all rides. But I can start handing out my cards again. I stopped handing my cards out because I had my website address on there Lifting with Larrycom and I let it lapse, unfortunately, and lost it and it somebody bought it up and it was a like a Japanese porn site for two years and I didn't even know it till this.

Speaker 1:

Dude like two two times I had passion to get my car and like, hey, man, passengers get my car. And like, hey man, you're, you know your website like it's like a porn site now and I'm like what? I pulled it up and I was like, oh my I've got, I've got like 500 co-eds walking around with my website on their car and if they pull it up, they're gonna see jeff, this jeff can you imagine all those college kids coming back and they're like let's get a hold of larry.

Speaker 1:

Yeah and yeah, so I put a tracker on it and so as soon as it became available, it emailed me and I bought it right back, so it's mine again now.

Speaker 2:

Okay, okay. Well, it's good to know you got rid of the porn site. I did, and now I can start.

Speaker 1:

I can start handing my cards out again.

Speaker 2:

Oh, can you imagine if somebody didn't say anything and you would have just kept hanging? I know, and you would have just kept hanging. I know, I don't.

Speaker 1:

And I don't. Yeah, yeah, the first, and you know, look, it was a guy that told me about it, in which, which I appreciated him telling me about. I was like, man, thank you for letting me know that. I did not know that. He's like, I didn't figure you did. And I was like, yeah, it lapsed a few weeks ago and somebody else bought it up and, yeah, instantly turned it into that.

Speaker 2:

So you know? You know what all I'm gonna say is lifting with like I could see that as a porn site. Like, when you think about it, there's ways to construe.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, we, we, yeah, we discussed that last week, you there's things that you can think of, but we're not gonna go down. That's a, that's, that's, that's on, at least on the on the Patreon. You got to wait for the Patreon for that. You got to pay for that, no goodness, all right, the next story we're going to talk about. This is a video. There's a DoorDash.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, doordash who's delivering?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, he's delivering and does it. He says a 12-hour shift. He decided he just wanted to see what he made if he accepted every order.

Speaker 3:

So, uh, here's what he has to say I just accepted every single door dash order for 12 hours straight, started around 8 am and ended around9 15 pm on a monday in the virginia area. I was dashing for about 12 hours and 10 minutes. I was active for 9 hours and 56 minutes. I put 221 miles on my 2009 Subaru Forester. My earnings, before taxes, wear and tear, gas, insurance etc. Was $215. My biggest tip was $14.25 from a Food Lion grocery order and my smallest tip was $3 from a Starbucks order, and I took 30-minute breaks between 10.30 am and 11 am and 3.45 pm and 4.15 p pm. I'm tired as hell and my car needs to tune up badly now oh, so did that?

Speaker 1:

did that? Surprise you? Well, what his amount that he made uh are yeah, there's no way yeah, that it's not worth it for that that's too much, that too much. That's a lot of miles and, uh, a lot of hours a lot of hours for, uh, not a high amount. Yeah, yeah, I mean he was active and I think for 10 hours total is what he said His active time was. So, yeah, he was making like 21 bucks an hour maybe.

Speaker 2:

Um, but you know, um maybe um, but you know um, you got to subtract out the gas and everything.

Speaker 1:

Uh, they put in the gas and the wear and tear and all that. So, yeah, that's uh, yeah, that's a lot, that's a lot, uh, goodness. So just want to go back in the comments. We were talking about the dash cam, um, so yeah, um, um. Josh says $10 a month for display ride, which is not bad.

Speaker 2:

Does it use your own phone?

Speaker 1:

No, it uses a camera.

Speaker 2:

I think, I think.

Speaker 1:

I think they send you a camera.

Speaker 2:

Gotcha Okay.

Speaker 1:

And then Pete's Adventure has cloud. Yeah, they do. I haven't tested theirs out yet, pete, um, I keep hoping they'll send me one. They've. They've sent me two free cameras just for doing reviews, and I keep nudging them like, hey, I'd really like to test out one of your cloud cameras, but they haven't. They haven't. Haven't sent me one yet, um, but, yeah, get back to the door dash. Uh, man, 12 hours of food delivery to me would be brutal, just because I'm not a food delivery person. I've done 12 hour ride share lots of times.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, even now, like I've been doing a lot of door dash, but I I know I there's no way I could take every order.

Speaker 1:

I don't think so either. I mean like there's no way I could take every order. I don't think so either. I mean, like you know, faith's talking about, if he, if he has a YouTube channel and did it for content, maybe it is, yeah, maybe that that may be what he was doing it for. I don't know. Um, I don't know why else you'd want to do it, unless you know you're just, I can see somebody just being curious. So you know, at one time I'm going to go out, I'm going to take every order and just see, see what happens, you know, see.

Speaker 2:

I should do that. I should do that one one day, just you know one couple of days Cause I wasn't planning on working. I should just go out and take every door dash order just to see, Although I although it would be so hard for me because I don't think I could do it like I'd be like fine, but those ones that pop up for 225 like oh yeah, that'd be rough man, that would be the lowest tip was three dollars. Yeah, I wonder, like you didn't get no tip. No, I was wondering.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, surely he got no tip orders. Yeah, that't because I know we get them here Plenty, if you took them. Yeah, I wasn't sure if he meant that was the ones that tipped, that was the lowest.

Speaker 3:

Right.

Speaker 1:

Out of 12 hours. I can't believe that everybody tipped. I can't If he was taking every order. Order. That's hard to believe there's no way, yeah I don't think so. I don't think so. But hey, you do that I'll, I'll accept every, every ride. Share if you. If you do that, I'll accept every ride. Sure, right I?

Speaker 2:

I gotta think. I gotta think about this, because I I have trained myself. I see a certain dollar amount, automatically it's. I have trained myself, I see a certain dollar amount, automatically it's.

Speaker 1:

I'll tell you what I'll really. I'll really go, I'll do. I'll do the same thing. I'll do Rural Dash I, but I don't think I couldn't. They won't let me stay on for 12 hours, cause I can only go on when you know. When they let me on, it won't.

Speaker 2:

Maybe, maybe we need to start small.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, okay, like we'll say, okay, a couple hours. We have to take every order that's sent to us. Okay, saturday, when I go out, however long I can get on, for you know, um, I'll, I'll take every door dash order and see, okay, and see and try to you know track how much, how long, how many miles I put on. Uh, you know how much uh time I'm actually online or active, whatever they call it. Um, yeah, but obviously you can schedule your dash, um man, I don't, I guess they still do that here. I don't even know.

Speaker 2:

I haven't scheduled a dash in about five years, probably all I have to say is I'm you know I'm bad when it comes to saying this because, look I, I got faith to do doordash and uber eats over the last couple days and she ended up taking thai food to strippers in vegas.

Speaker 1:

So like I mean, it's worth it.

Speaker 2:

There's content right there these ideas that I have aren't always the greatest.

Speaker 1:

What could be better?

Speaker 2:

than that, true? Oh, I can do the earn by time. I have earned by time here.

Speaker 1:

There you go. Yeah, she's disgusted, that's true. That is a good point. There you go. We're getting all sorts of great ideas here.

Speaker 2:

Okay, we'll do that Saturday.

Speaker 1:

We're 35 minutes in. We're only on story number four that We'll do that Saturday. We're 35 minutes in.

Speaker 2:

We're only on story number four, that's all right.

Speaker 1:

That's all good man, all right. So this is a video of another Door Dasher.

Speaker 2:

I can't believe he did this this is another.

Speaker 1:

We've had pretty much the same thing before. We say it all the time. That's why I don't order from Door Dash.

Speaker 2:

So here we go I love how oh he drops it he's worried about the ground he starts trying to clean it up with his and those were some big licks oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, puts it down and then drops it again and goes back in for it I can't stand.

Speaker 1:

I guess I mean that's just, uh, this and I go to cook out a fair amount and get sweet tea. I don't eat as much there, um, as he used to, but I'll go in there, especially when I'm out working, gig work at night. Instead of getting soda, I'll go in and get half sweet, half unsweet tea. Gabe, it's three times now. I've had to. I've had to tell them to get me another cup, Cause. Here's what happens these people, I wish I had a cup here to show you. But they have a big stack of cups right here next to the cash register. They ring up your order. The guy grabs his cup, flips it over, grabs it with this hand, puts his hand inside the cup, holding it like that, and hands it to me. And I'm like dude, give me another cup. He's like what's the matter? It's like what's the matter? It's like you stuck your whole hand on the inside of my cup. I don't want to drink after your nasty hands. I don't know where they've been and this is somebody licking.

Speaker 2:

Licking your cup is even so much worse I, I am, I am super picky when I pick up stuff like I know that these companies have been sent stickers to put on top of stuff.

Speaker 2:

I had one from what was it? It's a cheesesteak place. And he hands me a shake and it was, and I'm like, do you have a lid with a cover? And he's like, yeah, why? And I'm like, like, cover it like. But that's me Like I'm always thinking of if I ordered this, what would I want? Um, so I just oh, I don't know my cord's falling down. At least it wants me to use this damn mic, and so I had to rig it it's all good, it's um, I guess I know bubba sue said that's fake.

Speaker 2:

I don't know. I you'd be amazed.

Speaker 1:

You know, even if this one's fake, there's probably a handful we've played at least two of those other ones before of the same thing where somebody will lick the cup, you know, on the outside, on the rim outside, lick it because it's melting, or or or something like that. So, yeah, I think it happens way more than people want to think about. Oh man, that's so disgusting. Okay, so our next, our next story uh, this comes actually comes from um the our, my local Bowling Green Uber and Lyft group.

Speaker 1:

I'm so jealous I know, I know uber and lyft group. I'm so jealous, I know, I know I. I posted this in our uh in our chat for the show and dave thought I got this ride and I was like I wish I got this ride and because you, you didn't respond, you posted it and then you didn't see anything.

Speaker 1:

And I'm like oh shit, yes I would have loved to get this ride. So there he is, I posted up and I don't. We're trying. I don't know what happened. I asked her if this was an xl or you know some comfort or something special, and she's like no, it was just a regular ride. And so smith's grove is, um, is about 17 miles north of bowling green. It's where our buckies is at, where they built the buckies at, uh, so it's going from here, it's going toward louisville. So from there to Louisville airport is like it's less than two hours.

Speaker 2:

It's an hour and a half. Yeah, I looked it up.

Speaker 1:

It's an uh, yeah, it's about a hundred miles, uh, approximately, maybe a little less. So I have no idea why this paid so uh, for our audio listeners. This is a ride, about a hundred mile ride and it paid $505 and 15 cents. That's what she made and she said the uh, the passenger, um, paid a little over $800. So I'm assuming this was maybe a business. You know somebody on a business trip, but I don't know. I don't know what they would be doing at Bucky's or in Smith's Grove, cause Smith's Grove is a tiny, tiny, tiny little town Like that's where they always put these Bucky's in these little towns.

Speaker 2:

I. I would imagine that if a regular pain passenger had there's no like $800 for an hour and a half ride you can fly to California for way less than that.

Speaker 1:

I don't, I don't understand it, but you know I thought that was yours, I was so.

Speaker 2:

I was so excited for you I was, I was in that chat I was like larry's got a banger.

Speaker 1:

I would have loved to do. Yeah, I don't know. I don't remember what I was doing when I saw that and, uh, I think I was messaging her and asking her was this a comfort ride or was this something special? This is, you know, lux ride. What's going on?

Speaker 2:

Why. It's interesting, though that gosh, I don't know. Like we were talking about beforehand, like I've had one where I should have got paid like $38 and I got $147 for a ride and there was no surge pricing or anything attached to it. It popped up and I like screenshotted it, hit it and was like okay, and I took it and I thought maybe a glitch, and when I dropped her off I would get the you know 38 and then I got 117 and I was just like what?

Speaker 1:

yeah, and I know it used to be a thing. Lift like 300 was the max you could make on a ride. I know that used to be a thing. I don't know when that stopped and I don't know why they had it.

Speaker 1:

I guess it was just to keep somebody from running up One of these stories like we had in the day where some guy ordered a ride when he was passed out drunk and it was back to his home and five you know five hours away or somewhere, and he passes out and wakes up and he's ran up at you know $1,200 Uber bill or something like that that's a unicorn right there though.

Speaker 1:

Oh yeah, yeah, that's what she posted. Yeah, holy unicorn Batman, that's what her post was. So shout out to Carly here in Bowling Green, I, here in Bowling Green. I told her I was like, man, I am so happy to see you got this. I love it. I love seeing fellow drivers get these great rides. That's fantastic. It makes my heart smile. So, yeah, props to her for sure. All right, gabe, what's our next?

Speaker 2:

quarter here. So San Francisco Tech Company, once worth $650 million, filed for bankruptcy. So company WAG is filing for bankruptcy. You know they did a couple of business transactions where they wanted to have a certain amount of money on hand and now they've dropped below that and I believe their loans or something is coming due, and so they're trying to if everything gets approved by the judge, they're trying to restructure all of their stuff. They're going to keep certain things still active and working stuff. They're going to keep certain things still active and working. But if a judge approves WAG's restructuring plan, it will take the company off the public markets and into the private hands of a company called Retriever. So if they end up doing it and it looks like since March of 2020, as a result of COVID, their monthly revenues have declined rapidly, which just makes me sad. I use WAG.

Speaker 1:

Okay, yeah, so tell people you don't know what WAG is. It's another gig that I think Jason maybe had tried it. I know he did a similar one if it wasn't this one.

Speaker 2:

So they have where somebody can either walk your dog you can do short walks or long walks um, you can schedule for somebody to come in and let your dog out if you're gone. Um, I've used, uh, where I've had somebody come and house it, uh, and watch coda, um, and it was quite the experience my first time I will say that and I think you can buy pet insurance through it. Even they give you that option. So it's another way for a gig app for people who, you know, maybe want to do a couple walks a day to earn extra cash, or they want to stop in and let somebody's dog out or check on their cats. Um, it's, it's great. I think rover's another one too, uh, that people use, and apparently I need to look up retriever yeah, that's another one I haven't heard of.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, there's a lot of them out there but they.

Speaker 2:

So basically, they had a plan to get a third party deal to get more money, and they did not. That fell through. Because what happened? It failed and it fell through, and then their debt obligations are set to mature this month, so they're in a dire crisis, basically.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, sounds like it. Well, we always hate to see gig apps go away. We, you know, we always talk about having lots of tools in your tool belt. You always want to have lots of stuff available, be signed up for lots of stuff, in case one of them just just either shuts down, like this, or they decide just randomly to kick you off for some reason or ban you, and we see it happen all the time.

Speaker 1:

So, yeah, it's always sad to see another you know, a gig going away that that some people are using to make some money.

Speaker 2:

It makes you. It makes you wonder, though, why all these companies keep crashing and burning like they do, like, I feel like they get so excited about like, and they grow way too fast over estimate, and then they're like okay, we need to hire, we need to spend on this, and then they don't baby it, they don't treat it like it's their baby and then let it grow slowly, yeah.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, you wonder if sometimes you know some people are in it just for a cash grab and you know, get it to a certain point and sell as quick as I can and make their money and cash out. But yeah, you do see, these companies that grow way too fast and and you know, they think it's always going to be like that. I'm listening to a podcast now called business Wars and this season's all about AOL and you know I had the height of their heyday when they bought Time Warner and they were on the top of the world and thought they'd never you know never go away. And they were headquartered right in the area where my wife lived in Virginia and we drove by the offices several times when I was up there. She's like, see all those empty buildings. That was all AOL and now there's big empty buildings up there. So yeah, even the big, you know the mighty will fall if they don't do things right.

Speaker 2:

Wow, I just read this. So on Monday a company stock traded for around 12 cents a share.

Speaker 1:

Oh wow, that's not good. Okay, I don't have the stinger to play that Jason has, but it's time for Waymo in the news. Another Waymo ride gone a little bit wrong. Here you go.

Speaker 3:

Waymo's just crashed here at the Phoenix airport.

Speaker 1:

AI technology not working.

Speaker 2:

Arizona license plate. Both are Arizona license plates, look.

Speaker 1:

You see that guys.

Speaker 3:

They crashed. Look at that. And then it says our team is aware of the interruption of the ride. That's what it says on the inside. That's what it says on the inside.

Speaker 1:

Ramos just crashed here on July 30th. And this needs to be posted everywhere, okay, so yeah, this guy's getting a little carried away.

Speaker 2:

This needs to be posted everywhere, like it's in the world.

Speaker 1:

Well, you know he's an Uber or Lyft driver? Yeah, apparently, because, I mean, we see crashes all the time and we think nothing of it because it's people and that's what happened. So, for the audio listeners, this was two, two waymo cars. One of them, uh, looks like was coming at an angle and hit the other one in the passenger side door. Um, it wasn't, you know, it wasn like, it didn't look like they were. It was a high speed accident.

Speaker 2:

It looked like it was pretty fast, though, on that one for that corner to be yeah Like not, not a like, not like a.

Speaker 1:

You would see on like a head on or something. They're both joining generally the same direction. But yeah, I mean, it definitely wasn't a bump, it wasn't a fender bender, it was. It was definitely more than that and we make such a big deal of it because it is autonomous. We think nothing of it when we see people wreck because we're used to that Humans.

Speaker 2:

Humans make errors.

Speaker 1:

That's right and we expect these cars to not do that. I'm still waiting for hoping they start offering rides in Nashville, because I've read that they'll do testing in some cities but they're not planning on doing rides there. They're just testing in those cities. So I hope that's not the case in Nashville. I hope that they're going to start offering rides and I'll run down there. I'll definitely look and see, because I'm driving my daughter and a friend of hers they're going to see the weekend is going to be a concert at Nissan stadium next Tuesday and they asked me if I would be their Uber driver for the night, cause they like to partake in some adult beverages.

Speaker 2:

I don't know how you're going to drive down there. It was crazy walking down there.

Speaker 1:

I'm not taking them all the way to. Yeah, they're going to walk a little bit. I'm all getting as close until it gets really bad and I'm like, all right, y'all can walk from here and this is where I'll pick you up afterwards I, I should check because there's a may mobility is really big here.

Speaker 2:

There's um, there's two locations and I see the cars all the time driving around. Okay, so I should, really I should pay attention more to it. I had a friend who actually um, she kind of rode in the car. Yeah, you know how you see they just ride along, right. I should ask her kind of where, where they're going with that well, that'd be cool.

Speaker 1:

But yeah, hopefully one of us soon will be able to, uh, actually actually take a ride in. One of us soon will be able to actually take a ride in one of these autonomous cars. I want to talk about the Octopus tablet. This is a tablet. It's made by a company called Octopus. It's owned by T-Mobile. If you sign up with them, if you're a ride share driver, they will send you this free tablet. They do all the programming. They sell ads on there as well. They actually pay you a little bit every month to have this in your car and once you set it up, they send you the holder that goes on the back of your seat. You plug it in and put it up and then you really don't have to do anything with it. They're so good about updating the programming. It's always current. Whatever big news is going on, a big sporting event whether it's Kentucky Derby or Wimbledon or the NFL Finals, whatever it is, they always have updated programming. They do the same thing with holidays. Whatever's coming up. They have trivia games on there. They have Netflix, they have movie trailers on there, all sorts of stuff. The passengers love it.

Speaker 1:

And just saturday I wasn't out for long. I was out for a couple hours, but I reached a point and I got home that night and you know you get an email says, hey, you're qualified for your 25 octopus payout. So full-time drivers, you can really make between 75 and 100 a month and it's just easy money because really, once you set it up, you don't have to do anything and you don't have to worry about the equipment. If it gets stolen, if it breaks, if the charging cable breaks or it's not working anymore. You just email them and say, hey, this is what happened and they'll send you a replacement free. You never have to pay anything with them.

Speaker 1:

So we love Octopus. The passengers love it. It's a lot of fun. When it's three in the morning you got three drunk people back there yelling at each other. They're playing trivia. They're like I told you that was the wrong answer, you idiot. That's. It's entertainment for you as a driver for sure. Uh, so check it out. Octopus tablet. All right, what do we got next? So this is, hopefully, if we go out and do food delivery, gabe, this is what we're going to see this week.

Speaker 2:

This is so fake.

Speaker 1:

There's no way. So this is a DoorDash heat map. If you've ever dashed, you're familiar with this. This says it's in Morgantown, West Virginia, and it says very busy, $56 in order. So I don't know what that is supposed to. Is it supposed to say you can make up to that much?

Speaker 2:

That means that it's an extra $56 per order.

Speaker 1:

Okay, plus 56. So yeah.

Speaker 2:

It wouldn't make any money.

Speaker 1:

That, yeah, that's that. Unless, that's a glitch too. What's going on with all these apps this week? Glitching with all these these numbers. Yeah, peak pay, I would do 12 hours. If 56 plus and and and order, I will do 12 hours.

Speaker 2:

Oh, yeah, I plus and an order, I will do 12 hours.

Speaker 1:

Oh yeah, if I'd be like give me all the non-college kids doubled. Give me I can. Yeah, don't give anybody else anywhere.

Speaker 2:

I will do all the orders I think the most I've ever seen on peak pay was five in grand rapids really and it was a snowstorm really.

Speaker 1:

I think I've seen maybe eight here. I think Okay, but that's been. That was probably like COVID times.

Speaker 2:

Like 50. Do you know how much money? They would do per order.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, 56. That's yeah. I don't know.

Speaker 2:

There's no way. Yeah, okay, this story, next story. Actually, this is my son sent me a.

Speaker 1:

Know, there's no way. Yeah, oh, okay, this story, next story. Actually, this is my son sent me a story. He it's funny, the one losing. And my son, dakota, lives in St Louis. He'll see stuff like this and he'll send it to me. He's like hey, if y'all talked about this, y'all talked about this is a real.

Speaker 2:

This guy's a real. Just pos, I tell you what. Oh? Is this a nursing home? Yeah, oh, yeah. So, uh, a former employee at a nursing home is accused of stealing over two thousand dollars from a patient on uber eats. Um, britney bain was charged for stealing from the patient between September 15th of 2023 to November 21st 2023 at a nursing home, and it's what happened. The patient's son shares ownership of the bank account and discovered it, and it was a total of $2,688 from Uber eats and Uber X that they ended up stealing, and that's it's crazy. So she used a credit card.

Speaker 1:

Yeah and yeah she. They tried to claim that they were doing it while they were taking care of the people. But the first order was like the day they quit and all the orders after that and how much was it? They said total, like $2,688. That's a couple meals, that's not one or two.

Speaker 2:

I don't understand how it went on that long for that amount of money.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, that's a good question.

Speaker 2:

You know if, if your, your parent, is in a nursing home, obviously, uh, they're not spending that much. So, like I don't know, I watch every penny. But like how, how does it go on that long? 71 purchases, yeah, is what is the total yeah, that's a lot. And they're. What are they? They're getting charged with one count of fraud fraudulent use of a credit card or debit card in stealing $7,500 or more. Yeah.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I mean, yeah, some people I'm sure it happens, they just not, you know, especially someone's in a nursing home. They may not be capable of even checking their account anymore. They may have, like a child, you know, know, one of their children that's looking over the account, but they may not check it real close.

Speaker 2:

Yeah but the son shares ownership I don't know if my mom was in a nursing home and we were, you better believe I'd be on top of that right and and and we would.

Speaker 1:

But you know some people, especially if they're like, if they know, okay, look, these are the bills that, uh, are that know things that come out of this every month and it's, you know, not, maybe not much is being coming out of their account. I can see somebody not checking it every month, you know, just thinking everything's fine. But luckily he did check it, you know, and did see this was going on. Luckily he did check it and did see this was going on and this person got arrested because man stealing from people in nursing homes, man, that's just so low, I mean that's so low.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, well, so she was using it before she quit, so she stopped working in October. It's so crazy. Yeah, this makes me sad. She used it to get Uber to go from home to work. Yeah.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, she was living it up. Yeah, she was just living it up. Yeah, yeah. She said she uses a credit card to purchase food, but only for the patient. She said cause it's? And she said that every fraudulent purchase except for one was made after she stopped working at the nursing home. Wait she made one while she was there and all the rest of them was after she quit.

Speaker 2:

So 70, that's what I'm saying. So one was beforehand right. 70 purchases in one month, so over two. That's what like why. That's what I don't understand is how did that much money within a 30-day span Well?

Speaker 1:

it says between September and November. Right, but she's two months.

Speaker 2:

Right, but it said that one was done while she was working. She quit in October, so from October to November there was 70 purchases over $2,000.

Speaker 1:

Living on the hog, that's all I mean. What else can you say? They're living it up, they're taking Ubers to the restaurant or somewhere.

Speaker 2:

We're getting filet mignon tonight.

Speaker 1:

You know it, Uber eat that stuff right on over. Oh my goodness, oh yeah.

Speaker 2:

Okay, well, maybe. Yeah, faith just said the son never even noticed until he got the statement a month later.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I can see that, but yeah, yeah if you know, just depends on when it fell in the billing cycle. So yeah, that is crazy. So yeah, people just don't steal from old people. I mean seriously, just go get a job. There's so many jobs. Just go go work a little bit, earn some money. Don't be stealing from old people who've worked all their life to save money and now you're going to steal it for your stupid Uber Eats. That's sad.

Speaker 2:

Oh goodness. Desperate times people.

Speaker 1:

Desperate times, desperate measures. I guess I hope I'm never that desperate. All right, All right. You got any words of wisdom tonight? Game?

Speaker 2:

I don't know. Uh, actually, you know what? There's been quite a few people that have come into the telegram group that are always like saying you know what about this gig and this gig or this gig, or what's the best gigs to do? Um, and I like faith and I both. Today we answered and you know every market is different.

Speaker 1:

It is 100%.

Speaker 2:

What works for one driver doesn't always work for other drivers. You know you can't compare. You can ask people about how much you know, or what their goal is, or what they shoot for, or what shouldn't I do or what should I avoid, but it's really hard to and I feel bad because I want to be like oh, this you know, and I get excited talking about gig work, but every market is different.

Speaker 2:

you know, and every gig is changing with how the economy has been. You know this. Usually Wednesdays are crappy days. Here. They're slower days. I had a phenomenal morning where I was just like, whoa, okay, you know, so it's. It's always changing. Don't get frustrated. Find something that works for you and keep trying, like trial and error. Yeah, you know, that's it. That's the best advice that I can give Trial and error. Move around, don't sit in the same spot if something doesn't work for you and don't be afraid to try other gigs, because you never know what is going on with that gig, because you never know what is going on with that gig?

Speaker 1:

Yep For sure. Well, those are good words of wisdom, especially for people just getting into the economy. We don't ever claim to be experts, but we've done this for a while and we've seen a thing or two, yeah yeah, we've seen a lot.

Speaker 2:

We remember the good old days when it was hand over foot or whatever Making money, yeah Making money and you get excited about it.

Speaker 1:

Those thousand dollar ride, share nights.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and it is. It's all trial and error and it's a matter of having a diverse portfolio. Faith and I use this a lot you got to pivot. You have to. If you want to do gig work full time, you have to be able to pivot.

Speaker 1:

Because they change constantly.

Speaker 2:

Even through the day, you know where something falls through and you don't get a good order or you're like oh. I just shot this order. I'm going to get a great tip and then they don't tip. Like you have to be able to pivot to be successful.

Speaker 1:

Definitely, definitely. Well, we want to thank everybody, as always, for listening to the show. We appreciate y'all so much and thanks for everybody who who chatted tonight. We always enjoy the conversation and the tips and advice that come in through the uh listeners of the show, and as always uh, don't put up with anybody's bullshit.

Speaker 2:

And don't be a dick.

Speaker 1:

And we'll see you on the road Night, everybody Night. This podcast is produced and edited by hey Guys Media Group. Want to start a podcast? Check out HeyGuysMediaGroupcom. Bye.

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