jikWhen Is Taking A Yellow Cab Cheaper Than Using Uber?de

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(photographybynatalia)

Anyone who’s ever found themselves facing Uber’s surge rates has probably grumbled something along the lines of, “Well, at least cabs don’t charge more when it’s busy.” Which is true in most places with taxis licensed by the city where they operate. But what about other times when surge isn’t in effect — which service provides a cheaper ride?

Researchers at the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom took on this question using data mined from New York City’s Yellow Taxi fares, which are set by the city, reports the MIT Technology Review. This, compared to Uber fares, which are determined by Uber depending on the service you’re using, the time the trip takes and sometimes by the distance traveled.

The question is, despite the ease and popularity of using Uber, is it cheaper than conventional cabs? To find out, researcher Cecilia Mascolo at the University of Cambridge and a few others compared Uber’s prices with Yellow Taxi fares in NYC [PDF].

Using data obtained through a freedom of information request associated with NYC Yellow Taxi trips in 2013 and compared that to what Uber said it would charge for the same journeys.

The cab data covers hundreds of millions of trips, and includes the location of every pickup and drop off and the fare paid for each journey. Uber then suggested a maximum and minimum fare for those same trips using its cheapest service, UberX, and researchers took an average to come up with a figure to compare with cab fares.

So which is cheaper — at least in NYC — a cab or an Uber? It depends on how far you’re going, researchers say.

“Uber appears more expensive for prices below 35 dollars and begins to become cheaper only after that threshold,” say Mascolo and her team.

This works out nicely for Uber, the researchers explain, because humans usually take a lot more short trips and relatively fewer long trips.

“This observation therefore suggests that Uber’s economical model exploits this trend of human mobility in order to maximize revenue,” the researchers say.

While the Yellow Taxi data comes from 2013 and the Uber data is from 2014, taxi prices are set by NYC and haven’t changed since 2012, so the comparison should be a fairly good one.

However, researchers didn’t take Uber’s surge pricing model into effect. They argue that it’s still a useful comparison, despite that.

“We argue that the process of comparing two different companies that provide the same service in the same geographic area is of value to commuters,” they say.

The team developed an app called OpenStreetCab that is designed to help users compare Uber prices with cab prices, a tool that only works in New York so far.

http://ift.tt/19sHU2X

Data Mining Reveals When a Yellow Taxi Is Cheaper Than Uber

by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist

jikFacebook Launches Payments System For Messenger App Usersde

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Facebook is dipping its toe into the pool of mobile payments, announcing this week that it’s launching a system that will allow users of its mobile Messenger app to send money to friends.

Joining the effort to turn our phones into wallets, Facebook says the new free payments feature will be rolling out in the coming months in the United Sates.

To send money to a friend, users start a conversation in Messenger, then tap a “$” icon to enter the amount they want to send. After tapping “Pay,” first-time users of the payments feature will be prompted to add a debit card for the initial payment, and will then have the option to assign a PIN for an extra layer of security.

Receiving money works much the same way — you’ll simply have to accept the payment after adding a debit card to accept funds from your friends.

Money is transferred right away, Facebook notes, but much like other payment systems, it could take a few days for the funds to appear in your account, depending on your bank.

For those worried about the myriad security dangers out there that come with using mobile payments, Facebook says in the announcement that as a payments processor for gamers and advertisers since 2007, it has processed more than one million transaction a day on the site, which is Facebook’s way of saying it knows what it’s doing, it seems.

“Incorporating security best practices into our payments business has always been a top priority,” Facebook says. “We use secure systems that encrypt the connection between you and Facebook as well as your card information when you ask us to store it for you.”

The company says it uses layers of software and hardware protection to keep payment systems in a secured environment, with an anti-fraud team monitoring the system for suspicious activity.

The optional PIN can be used as an extra layer of security, Facebook notes, as well as Touch ID on iOS devices and the option of two-factor authentication available to all Facebook users.

Send Money to Friends in Messenger [Facebook]

by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist

jikRadioShack Franchisees Don’t Want Surprises In Corporate Bankruptcyde

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(Phillip Pessar)

While RadioShack has declared bankruptcy and plans to liquidate, closing or maybe continuing to exist in a co-branded venture with Sprint. However, there are about 700 RadioShack stores that are doing okay. These stores are dealers and franchisees, stores that carry RadioShack merchandise and perhaps their brand, but might sell other merchandise too. The bankruptcy of RadioShack has some terrible effects on these merchants, and they’re working together to make sure that they aren’t hurt as parts of RadioShack are sold off.

If you don’t happen to live in or visit one of the towns where these stores exist, you may have never heard of these franchise and dealer stores before. The Consumerist staff hadn’t. They were part of a strategy RadioShack had at its peak of using existing retailers to get their merchandise into towns that were too small to support a full RadioShack store by making franchise or dealer agreements with existing retail businesses. A general store could have a corner of gadgets, and everyone benefited. This has worked pretty well until now, with the number of dealer and franchise stores falling mostly because the small merchants who ran them are closing their stores.

RadioShack franchisees’ most pressing problem is that the chain is no longer allowing them to buy their inventory of RadioShack products on credit. Normally this wouldn’t be a problem, but on a monthly basis, the franchisees accept returns from corporate-owned stores, chargebacks, gift cards, service plan claims, and other credits. Now RadioShack wants payment before shipping merchandise to franchisees. That wouldn’t be a problem if they could guarantee that the money that RadioShack owes them won’t become debts that are part of the bankruptcy.

In a motion they filed in RadioShack’s bankruptcy case, the Boston-based bankruptcy attorney representing the dealers explains the problems that they’re dealing with:

Even though RadioShack has been financially deteriorating for a long time now, many of the [dealer and franchise stores] have had RadioShack stores for decades and have done their best to enhance RadioShack’s reputation, For at least the past year, however, availability of product to the [dealer and franchise stores] has not been balanced or plentiful and relatively few goods have been delivered to the [dealer and franchise stores] after RadioShack filed for bankruptcy.

“We, as independent businessowners, can’t just wait for the final shoe to drop and then scramble like crazy to figure out what to do next,” one store owner told the Boston Globe earlier this month.

Could some franchise stores take this opportunity to find other electronics suppliers and cut ties with the RadioShack brand? They might.

RadioShack franchisees band together amid bankruptcy [Boston Globe]

by Laura Northrup via Consumerist

jikDriver In 2010 Fatal Megabus Crash Dies After Brain Injury, Strokede

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(Doug Kerr)

You may remember the fatal 2010 crash of a Megabus in Syracuse, NY, where the double-decker bus missed its turn struck a low railroad overpass, killing four passengers. After four and a half years and multiple wrongful death lawsuits against the bus company, the aftermath of this accident became even sadder: the driver who crashed the bus has died.

John Tomaszewski was a construction worker who lost his business in the recession, and took a job driving the discount inter-city buses to support his wife and three small children. He didn’t thrive in the job, and his wife had urged him to quit before the accident.

After the accident, he struggled with guilt and never went back to work as a bus driver. He was charged with criminally negligent homicide in the county where the accident took place, and a judge (it was a bench trial without a jury) found him not guilty in 2012. Later that year, he suffered from a stroke. He lost his ability to speak or walk two years ago, and his health deteriorated since then.

Driver in Syracuse Megabus crash, whose wrong turn killed 4, has died [Post-Standard]

by Laura Northrup via Consumerist

jikBud Light Deletes Tweet Suggesting You Randomly Pinch People For St. Patrick’s Dayde

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Today is the day some people celebrate the legacy of St. Patrick by wearing green, wearing shamrock antennae, and — if you’re a drunken, mannerless troglodyte — randomly walk around pinching people who didn’t wear green.

The whole pinching thing is an unfortunate “tradition” that many critics say is just another form of drunken harassment against women. It’s the kind of behavior that probably shouldn’t be encouraged by a multibillion-dollar beverage company with a lot to lose if it’s sued for suggesting that people get drunk and pinch people on the street.

And yet some marketing automaton in the social media cloning center at Anheuser-Busch InBev got the great idea this morning to post a Tweet declaring “On #StPatricksDay you can pinch people who don’t wear green. You can also pinch people who aren’t #UpForWhatever.”

Bud Light’s Tweet and use of the #upforwhatever hashtag resulted in some folks creating their own hashtags in response, like #upforlitigation and #UpForThingsIExplicitlyConsentTo

Amazingly, it took two hours for Bud Light to realize that maybe it wasn’t a good idea to tell 127,000 Twitter followers that it’s alright to pinch people because it’s March 17.

In response to the backlash, Bud Light issued a statement saying it never meant to encourage that drunk a-holes assault women in public.

“We understand some people misunderstood our St. Patrick’s Day post and apologize to anyone who was offended,” reads the statement to Mashable. “We would never condone disrespectful behavior and our intention was only to playfully celebrate the holiday.”

by Chris Morran via Consumerist

jikCard Skimmers Still Found On Bank Lobby Card Readersde

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Alert Consumerist readers know to check ATM card readers for signs of skimmer attachments, PIN pad capture devices, and video cameras to avoid having ATM skimmer crooks drain your bank account. Yet these nefarious devices aren’t just found on cash machines and payment kiosks: some banks use magnetic card readers to protect ATM access after hours, and these can hold skimmers, too.

Four years ago, we shared with you the news that some creative ATM scamsters had placed skimmers on the card readers next to bank doors. Yes, someone else is still at it: here’s a brilliant system that features a card reader that fits over the existing card reader next to the door. Krebs on Security, global repository of skimmer lore, showed off the latest model found on a door.

(Krebs on Security)

Here’s the card reader on the door. Looks legit enough, doesn’t it? Yet here’s the back of that device, sticky tape on the back and all.

Once they’ve captured your card number from the door, you might have a false sense of security inside the bank lobby. Nope: the other essential part of a skimmer scheme, the video camera capturing bank customers’ PINs, is mounted on the ATM itself.

There’s one easy way to avoid scams like this one, including invisible skimmers hidden inside slot. Most of these card readers mounted inside the door don’t check whether the card is one from the bank or not. You can use any card with a magnetic stripe: it could be a store loyalty card or an expired credit card.

Door Skimmer + Hidden Camera = Profit [Krebs on Security]

by Laura Northrup via Consumerist

jikNYC Officials: Unlicensed Driver Posed As Super Shuttle Driver At Airport, Charged Travelers Wildly Inflated Faresde

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(ChrisGoldNY)

In an example of exactly how important it is to research new cities and how transportation works there before you travel, officials in New York say a man without a livery cab license posed as a Super Shuttle driver and lured travelers going through the John F. Kennedy International Airport hugely inflated fares.

According to Queens District Attorney Richard Brown in a statement, [PDF] the man has been charged with criminal possession of forged documents and other charges for allegedly luring fares in a dishonest manner at JFK last weekend.

The D.A.’s office said that the suspect would approach potential customers and tell them that he was a Super Shuttle driver, and that the Air Train — which shuttles people from the airport to other terminals as well as public transit — was down, and offered to take them to the nearest transit station or elsewhere.

Officials say they found a rate book as well as receipt books and other materials in the van with the Super Shuttle logo.

According to the New York Post, he’d then allegedly charge tourists upwards of $400 or more for destinations like the Upper West Side of Manhattan, for example, as well as exorbitant fees for rides to the other boroughs and local AirT rain stations. And that didn’t include fees for tolls or the tip.

Sources tell the NYP it’s believed he might have pulled this trick before.

“It is important that travelers visiting New York City are provided with a safe and welcoming atmosphere at our airports. Unregulated taxis and unscrupulous drivers – who are not properly licensed and do not carry appropriate insurance – put riders at risk,” D.A. Brown says in the statement.

by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist