It seems that whenever we hear about Uber in the media these days it’s never about good news, and is always pertaining to something on the negative front. As they say though, any publicity is good publicity right? Not necessarily, and not always as they’re now being sued for unlawful termination. Uber for those who are unaware is a startup car sharing service that sprung up over the past year or two that offers people rides(sort of like a taxi service)which they can order through the use of an app on their smartphone. The rides include a range of different vehicle types suited to the specific outing or needs of the rider at the time. In the past six months, Uber has had allegations of assault, and using unfair business practices against competing rival Lyft with trying to poach drivers and jam up their business by calling in fake rides.
While Uber still provides a fairly useful service, and hard to beat prices for rides when you compare them against local taxi services, one ex-Uber driver is now suing Uber over the unlawful termination he received recently due to findings in his credit report. The lawsuit was filed on Monday in San Francisco by an individual named Abdul Mohamed, claiming that Uber had violated the Fair Credit Reporting Act. The problem is more about the way that Uber went about the firing process, as the lawsuit states that they failed to give Abdul any sort of notice or warning about the impending decision which would have given him a chance to respond to any allegations.
According to the lawsuit, Uber allegedly terminated Abdul partially because the consumer reporter used to check his credit report made an indication that he had a minor criminal record. Also according to the lawsuit, a company called Hirease was used to do the credit reporting, but Uber never mentioned to them to give Abdul any notice of the allegations which is supposed to be a measure taken in situations like this. Abdul’s case is also allegedly not the only one, as the lawsuit brought by Abdul also claims there were cases of Uber failing to provide the same information to drivers in Massachusetts and in other parts of California who were also fired.