People I Never Expected to Cite, Better Business Bureau Edition

Generally, I find the BBB to be kind of useless.

There is an inherent conflict because the organization rates its dues paying members, and there have been repeated instances where being a dues paying members have been cut slack by virtue of this status.

Still, I have to note that the BBB just gave the Uber car service an "F":

Uber, the smartphone-based hail-a-ride service, often claims it is cheaper than a ride in a taxi. It looks as if some Uber customers do not agree.

The company received an “F” rating from the Better Business Bureau on Thursday, the lowest possible rating given by the organization.

The grade is based on, among other criteria, more than 90 Uber customer complaints filed with the Better Business Bureau over the last three years, most of them centering on Uber’s so-called surge pricing.

Customers still feel misinformed about how they are charged for their rides, according to complaints at the bureau’s website, and say they are not able to receive adequate customer service when they try to complain about their fares.

With its surge pricing, Uber’s temporarily increases fare prices anywhere from one and a half to 10 times the normal cost of taking an Uber ride, based on the demand for drivers. When many people in a particular area request Uber at the same time, for example, the price of rides in that area goes up.

“I never knew about surcharges until after the fact and was unaware, confused and uninformed,” one customer wrote on the bureau’s site.

Uber has a long, tricky history of its surge pricing. When Manhattan was hit by Hurricane Sandy in 2012, for example, many people complained that Uber was using a natural disaster to price gouge its customers.

Yes, it is price gouging, and yes, Uber's structure and behavior, as well as the Objectivist statements of it founder, indicates that it has a contempt for both its employees contractors and its customers.

Not surprising.  Much of the philosophical underpinning of Objectivism blaming the victim.