Two Weeks into My Experience as an Uber Driver

It's Sunday, and that means my second week as  an Uber driver will come to an end tonight (Uber's weeks begin on Monday and end on Sunday).  This means that the money I've made since last Monday up until tonight will deposited Thursday morning - at least, this would normally be the case, but since it's Christmas Eve, I'm not sure if that will impact the timing.

So I have learned quite a bit about the Uber driver experience in that time, but I'd definitely like to touch on the rating system first.  It seems quite a few drivers view the rating system as erratic at best, and unfortunately, this has also been my experience.  For example, by the end of the night Friday, I had a score of 30 five star ratings out of 34 total ratings.  This was actually an improvement, as I had started the night off with a difference of 5 between ratings with five stars and ratings overall.  Apparently, someone changed their mind and went back (which, apparently, means riders can do this :/ ).  Yet somehow, my overall rating still dropped slightly.  

But when I woke up Saturday (yesterday) morning, my ratings had changed to 28/32.  The only logical explanation is that some riders apparently cancelled their rating.  Again, I had no idea this was possible, and honestly, it's a little irritating.  I only took 1 fare yesterday due to some other plans, so there wasn't much room for it to change.  Or so I thought.

When I checked the app this morning, my ratings changed to 30/36.  This is definitely worrisome, as it means that my five star ratings are now 6 behind my total number of ratings.  When I checked my score for the past 24 hours, it stated 0, meaning that the 1 passenger I had yesterday had not left me feedback.  So apparently, some people cancelled their ratings and others either changed them or just decided to leave me one less than five stars. I have no idea why, honestly.  In fact, I can only think of one incident I've had in all of my trips that would merit a lower rating, which I will explain later.  My overall score now stands at 4.74, which is alarming given that a lower rating means less trips and a rating under 4.5 disqualifies you as a driver.  

There has been some confusion as to whether riders are required to leave feedback for drivers and drivers are for riders.  The following screenshot, captured directly from the app, confirms that doing so is optional for them: 

Perhaps this wasn't always the case,  but it obviously is now.  It also confirms that they have "several days to leave feedback".  Once feedback has been left, riders can apparently change it by submitting a request.  They have several to do so, which is detrimental for some trips, especially on weekends when you're driving them to a bar to get wasted. Supposedly, trips with no rating have no impact on the overall score.  Additionally, it states that the score changes more frequently during the first 50 ratings. 

The policies seem to change pretty often according to feedback from other drivers, so who knows how long this will remain the case?

So now on to the Uber money.  Obviously, everyone's always wondering, "can you really make money through Uber?"  Thankfully, the answer is yes.  It can be hit or miss, but the app does show you which regions are experiencing a need for drivers (referred to as "surging).  You can observe this over the course of several days to determine which areas have the most demand and at what time.  Unsurprisingly, it tends to flair up during rush hour.  I've made as much as $18 in 25 minutes and as little at $7 in 20 minutes.  The key is to drive when surging demand increases the fare rates.  I could actually be doing quite well if I were more comfortable driving in downtown Atlanta.  However, I don't yet know it well enough to accept fares in the area (even though I drop them off there pretty frequently).  If I remained there to pick up riders rather than going back to my "comfort zone" first, I'd have a lot more trips.  And if the rating system weren't so erratic, I'd be more willing to take the risk.  But, sadly, I can't afford that right now.  Oddly enough, as I sit here typing this, I actually just received a text from Uber stating "You have good ratings!  Visit (a link) for more details."  Even so, I'd much rather get back in the 4.9 range before I take a chance like that.  Whether or not I can resist for that long has yet to be determined.

I'll definitely report more as I go into this third week, which just happens to be the week of Christmas.  Be sure to leave any questions about my Uber experience and I'll address them from a first-hand perspective.

Day 1 of my Uber Experience

So on the first day of my account's approval, I ended up with 4 Uber trips.  I started on a fifth, but it was cancelled - which wasn't as bad as it sounds,  which I will detail later.

I'll start with the app.  It's pretty intuitive and easy to use.  I have a window mount for my phone (which I highly recommend) and only need to tap the screen a few times for each trip.  Once you go "online" with the Uber app (in other words, when you're actively looking for trips, a map of your general area will appear.  If an area outside of your general location is experiencing an unusually high demand, the map will expand to show the region.  This means more money, but you have to get there in time to take advantage of it.  Today, I saw them come and go in a matter of minutes, though in the city limits of Atlanta, they were pretty consistent throughout rush hour.  I have to say, the layout and functionality of my app differ somewhat from the introduction video.  Unfortunately, I find this happens far too often in the IT industry.

When someone nearby requests a ride, a circular prompt appears over the app and you have about a minute to accept. The app shows some basic information (including, of course, the address) and offers a link to tap if you want navigation.  I typically use this because, well, it's less thinking on my part.  A clipboard icon in the corner offers their contact information.

My first trip was straightforward enough.  I was simply giving a woman a ride home from work.  When I arrived at her employer's location, my phone offered the link to begin the ride.  It's important to remember that you must slide this to activate it.  Simply clicking it will not work.  After that, it begins charging the client's account and offers directions to their destination.  After just 8 minutes, we arrived at her home. I slid the red button to end the trip and my account was immediately credited.  It offered a link to rate her, so I just hit 5 stars and went on my way.  Between driving to her work and dropping her off, the total time was about 15 minutes and it paid $3.  Which is a bit unusual since my next fare lasted 25 minutes and paid $9.  I guess there's still more for me to learn.

The next 2 were, oddly enough, to high school students.  I honestly didn't expect that to happen, and felt a little weirded out.  I'm not entirely sure how parents feel about a complete stranger with a basic background check giving their kids a ride home from school, but, hopefully, they do have to approve it to begin with.

And then came what was to be my 5th fair.  About halfway into the trip, I received a notification that it was cancelled.  Definitely not cool, until I learned that Uber pays a cancellation fee.  I drove for about 10 minutes and received $4.50.  Not bad at all, really.

So my impression of the Uber experience right now is that it can be hit or miss.  I spent a little under an hour actually driving on trips and made about $25 (including the cancellation).  It doesn't sound too bad, but that only includes the actual trip time.  I'm guessing that if I were in a surging area, it would add up quite well.  And I noticed that north Atlanta was surging for quite some time, so I just might have to camp out there during rush hour in the near future.

And so, my experience as an Uber Driver Begins

4 days (2 business days) after submitting my application, I have been approved as an Uber Partner.  Many have reported this process to take 2 weeks, so I'm feeling good about the relatively quick turnaround.

While waiting, I received several emails from Uber encouraging me to finish my application by submitting the remainder of my documents.  However, I had already sent all of them in, as confirmed by the app.  I'm not sure why it does this, but if it happens to you, it's probably okay to ignore.  

It's important to note that your car must be at most year 2005.  I don't know if this is the default year or if 10 is the set standard, so this may or may not change in less than a month.

Well, I need to get my car cleaned out and then I'm testing the app.  Hopefully, I'll have some good news to report later today.

The Start of my Experience as an Uber Driver

Well, today is the day that I began the process of becoming an Uber driver. I'd love to share my experience with those who are considering it for themselves or just curious about the life thereof.  I've already submitted all of the required documentation and am just waiting to receive approval.  The signup process is pretty involved, which is understandable.

As with everything, you have to create an account.   This obviously, requires you to agree with several legal pages provided by the company.  And of course, email address, password, blah blah blah.  However, I will note that your social security number is necessary to conduct a background check.  But the rest is obvious, so I'll move on.

Next, the pictures.  I had to take pictures of my license, insurance information, and vehicle registration.  It's definitely getting personal by now, but for good reasons.  They want to make sure that "Uber Partners" (as we're referred to) are safe, legal drivers.  After that, there's an intro video that

Once that's out of the way, I was sent a link to download the app (I started this using my mobile browser after a Google search).  It covers the functionality of the app, importance of obeying traffic laws, what to expect from a typical trip request.  It also offers some advice on garnering great feedback.  It lasts about 16 minutes.

Then comes the invitation to download the app.  Of course, I was doing all of this with my mobile browser, so I'm gonna guess here that this step is skipped if you downloaded the partner app first.  Once that's done, the next step involves yet another picture: your selfie.  I've always sucked at these, so mine took a bit longer than it probably should have.  And it still looked terrible :(

A couple of more things here and there, and I'm ready to go.  Well, except for the approval notification.  It's been about half an hour since I completed the Uber registration, so we'll see just how long this takes for my next post.  In the meantime, though, I do see an opportunity to sign up friends for a $25 referral fee.  This will definitely be an enhancement to my experience as an Uber driver.

Speaking of which, that's the basic rundown for the start of my experience as an Uber driver.  Be sure to check back often to see more updates on how this works out and whether or not I start pulling in "quit your job" money.