ccording to the Federal Trade Commission also known as FTC, the ride-sharing company Lyft agreed this Friday to pay a $2.1 million Lyft penalty after it was
investigated in a misleading driver ads campaign about how Lyft drivers are paid.
The ridesharing company has conducted a driver ads campaign in which they stated that Lyft drivers are able to make “specific hourly amounts” in just one shared ride and claim various earnings of up to $33 per hour for those Lyft drivers in Atlanta.
It seems that these earnings were not based on the average amount of money that drivers make, but on what the top Lyft drivers are making in a day. Also, the Federal Trade Commission states that in some of the cases, Lyft decided to include the tip to make the earnings seem bigger.
So, the FTC stated that such approaches managed to inflate the real driver’s earnings by 30% and now the ride-sharing company must provide some actual potential earnings based on the real income of Lyft drivers. Also, in these incomes, tips are forbidden to be included to avoid any misleadings.
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“It is illegal to lure workers with misleading claims about how much they will earn on the job. The FTC will keep using all its tools to hold businesses accountable when they violate the law and exploit American workers.”, FTC chair Lina M.Khan stated.
Also, Lyft has advertised various earnings guarantees, including one that promised $975 for completing 45 share rides over the weekend. However, this misled the Lyft drivers into believing that they would receive that amount as a bonus in addition to their earnings when in reality, that amount represented a conditional minimum pay guarantee for completing several share rides. Now, the FTC is requiring Lyft to clarify these details.
Not long ago, Lyft announced that they are working to develop a “service animal opt-in feature” to accommodate those passengers with service animals. It remains to be seen whether Lyft will further develop this feature after they agree to pay the $2.1 million Lyft penalty.
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