Letter To Editor : TfL Card Scam.....from Noel Oats.

My first question, is the fact TFL are imposing credit card fees on the drivers legal?
 
I am a driver and an independent business. 

How can it be that an outside organisation ( TFL)
can pick and choose  a financial product for me without contacting me directly prior to any 
changes. I have not been given any chance to reject these amendments by TFL  which surly is my right as with any other financial product I could be offered.  Neither have I been given a cooling off period to consider these amendments.

Are TFL licensed to give financial advice by the Financial Services Authority ( FSA) ?
I have not been given a chance to seek alternative financial advice which is my right by law.
I have received none of the standard health warnings that come with this financial product.
In my opinion TFL have absolutely no right to pick and choose  a credit card system for me.
As long as I am able to accept credit/debit cards, that should be enough.
 
When a customer makes a booking for a hotel reservation in one of the  thousands of hotels in the City using a credit or debit card.
They do so in the full knowledge that there may be a booking fee charged by the hotel. This fee is paid by the customer and not the hotel.
 
Its the same if you purchase items from your corner shop using a card. The retailer may add a small charge for the transaction.
Again the customer pays and not the retailer.
 
Why are London taxi drivers being asked to pay for these card transactions, when no other small business  has to?

 
This can not be legal? 
 
Someone with some financial and legal experience needs to look into this urgently. Its a scam.
 

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Action for Cabbies...They think it's all over......it's not yet

First of all, let's get one thing straight.

Action for cabbies are not fighting the CC mandate. 
Although it may not be totally legal for TfL to mandate drivers having to accept card payments, most don't see this as detrimental to the trade, and no one really wants to step forward and challenge. 

Action for Cabbies (A4C) want to take on two issues that many drivers are complaining about and not one org or union, has stepped forward to challenge.

1. A4C believe that the driver should not be responsible for the CC translation service charge. Card companies have now shown there is no need to charge the customer 10%. A service charge of 3.95% to the customer is a workable figure with the proposed increase in business.

2. A4C can see no solid reason, why drivers should go to the added expense of having to purchase extra equipment, to facilitate machines being fitted in rear, to carry on providing the service they've been providing quite adequately, some for many years. 
With no complaints from customers. It should be up to the driver which system he/she wants to install. 

None of these new requirements have been place on the Private Hire industry.

As with everything they do, TfL have messed up big time with this and our biggest representative group (the LTDA)-without consulting their members- say they will not challenge any part of the new requirements. In Steve MCs own words, it's a done deal.  

Some smaller groups said they would challenge the service charge, but the preposed conditions have now been implemented and so far there's been no challenger from any org or union. 

So it's now up to you.
If you do not agree with the issues A4C want to use the residual money to fight, you have till the 5th April to withdraw your pledge.

Just send an email to Support@crowdfunder.co.uk requesting to withdraw and adding the email you used when making the original pledge.

If you agree and want the group to fight on, than just leave your money in.

If you've withdrawn your pledge but have changed your mind, you can still pledge here :>Click Here<

If enough money is left in the pot, then A4C will take these issues forward. 

The balls in your court 

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Dads Defending Daughters Say...... LET'S TAKE THE FIGHT TO THEM.

     TIME TO STAND UP AND BE COUNTED 

Like most of you, I have heard about this impending Demo to close LAP for twenty four hours.
And like most of you, I welcome it.
If you intend to Demo, get Union cover. I have joined the RMT.
Why the RMT? Because they seem to share our sense of urgency.

Street Demos by the UCG have galvanised the Pro20. But unfortunately, apart from that, they have achieved very little success or media coverage.
Sitting silently, listening to the toothless GLA discuss our demise, has not helped our cause either.
We have lobbied en masse and on a daily basis, to no avail.
We have written to and emailed our MPs, with little to no response.
Before the school holidays last year, we were promised by Tom Watson and Unite the Union that something positive will be happening. Well eight months later the only positives I can see are all on the opposition's scoreboard.

The LTDA have lured us into this mess. I lay this, perilous situation we now find ourselves, firmly at the door of Taxi House.
Anyone who is still a member of that culpable association needs their apathetic heads examined.

Opponents of upping the ante, say that it will be a Public Relations disaster.
Which public is that?
The public who waves his phone at scabs, whilst you roast on a rank?
Or the public who buy your Big Issue, as you stand outside Novikov, watching scabs doing your job, as you wish you did more?

There have been calls to block every bridge from Tower to Wandsworth, and bring London to a standstill.
Boris has already done this with his CSH Blitzkrieg. Who would notice the difference?
Anyhow why stop London, when you can stop the World? Let's see the BBC refuse to cover that event.

Yes we will get bad press. At the moment we are getting no press.
Before Dads Defending Daughters turned up on the last Demo, with placards and banners, people would approach us asking why we were there.
Let's face facts, no one knows about our plight.
And moreover, very few care about our plight.
How many of us, not directly connected, gave much attention to the Miners or the Print Workers?
But we do care about the Firemen and the Steelworkers. Why? Because we have empathy, born from a common injustice.

You cannot sit on your hands, hoping everything will turn out rosy, while the Mayfair Mob, Shoreditch Mob, Flash Demo and the LCDC/UCG do all your bidding.
There comes a time when you have to play your part, and become part of the solution and not the problem.
You are either with us or against us. There is no just cause for abstention.


Uber cannot compete with Licensed London Taxis. They are just a plastic Addison Lee.
But they are competing, and driving us out of business, in an extreme form of professional genocide. Uber have achieved this, due to the incestuous personal and professional relationship they have with your Prime Minister, Chancellor and Mayor. Aided by many MPs, on both sides of the House, who place profit before public safety.
Uber are backed by massive corporations who wish to purloin our livelihood.
And still some of you want us to carry on regardless, head in the sand, hoping it will all just go away.

It is time to man up. And stand up to these bullies.
Let's be able to tell our Grandchildren, 'I was there. I fought for my rights. I was part of that Movement.'
Win or lose, I promise you, you will be saying those words with pride.
If we are going down, let's go down in history!

Lenny Etheridge 

See Dads Defending Daughters Blog. >CLICK HERE<

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British Transport Police halt plans to axe sexual offences unit

Plans by the British Transport Police (BTP) to axe their sexual offences unit have been halted.

The British Transport Police are to carry out an urgent review into plans to close their sexual offences unit.

It said it has “listened carefully to the views being expressed” to scrap the unit, and will be conducting an “urgent review of the implications of this decision”.

The BTP had planned to close the unit and move its officers into what it called its “wider crime investigation plans” -such as bicycle theft. 

“We acknowledge that this may unintentionally have caused concern,” said BTP assistant chief constable Mark Newton, adding: 

This concern undermines everything we are trying to achieve. 

"That is why we have decided to halt any proposed changes to the sexual offences unit whilst we carry out an urgent review of the implications of this decision, to see whether it remains valid in light of the feedback we have received".

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Steel, Trump, Farage, Corbyn, Sanders and the Feeder Park...by I'm Spartacus

How is any of this related?

What's happening to the steel industry is exactly what's happening to us- In town and at LAP, unfair competition from someone who does not have to follow the same rules (safety, environment,no human rights, sustainable pricing).

Governments of the political class seeming powerless or more likely unwilling to support anything that does not ensure the 1% of society, leaves us further and further behind.

The reaction is that people are looking to anyone (listed above and there are more all over the world) who offers a different perspective, subsequently the cards will fall where they will.

We the cab trade are up against a licensing authority who are fully signed up to the agenda in paragraph one, seemingly aided and abetted by some of our trade orgs who agree all this without even consulting their members (fixed CC terminals and not insisting on a supplier charge cap come to mind). Expect full page adverts from the fixed terminal suppliers to appear in their trade rags!

Now we have the trade at the airport being undermined by the airport operator after many years of service by us, again the agenda is king.

There will be grumbling and protests by the committed, whilst their 'comrades' do three or four rides on Code Red (remember the gate money issue?).

So it's a big deal, we ain't got much to lose, so when that referendum comes round, just ask yourself what do the 1% want us to do and predict doomsday if we don't, just do the opposite.

They then might just start to think.

I'm Spartacus

Editorial Comment:

Amazingly, we are now hearing shouts of "let's blockade, let's get ever driver to donate £100  bosh blah blah"

You really couldn't make it up. 

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Uber Surge-Pricing Antitrust Suit Green-Lighted by Judge

Uber Technologies Inc.’s “genius” just backfired on the company and its co-founder Travis Kalanick.

U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff in Manhattan on Thursday denied Kalanick’s bid to dismiss a proposed class-action lawsuit claiming the technology in Uber’s popular ride-hailing app is used to illegally coordinate high surge-pricing fares.

Rakoff rejected Kalanick’s assertion that a conspiracy involving hundreds of thousands of drivers was “wildly implausible” and “physically impossible,” an argument the executive made in filings since the suit was filed in December.

“The capacity to orchestrate such an agreement is the ‘genius’ of Mr. Kalanick and his company, which, through the magic of smartphone technology, can invite hundreds of thousands of drivers in far-flung locations to agree to Uber’s terms,” the judge said.

The ruling allows Spencer Meyer, a customer in Connecticut, to move forward with his claim that Uber’s pricing algorithm violates antitrust laws used to protect consumers from price manipulation.

Meyer’s lawsuit seeks damages on behalf of millions of U.S. riders who rely on the world’s largest ride-hailing company, and opens a new line of legal attacks on sharing-economy businesses. Uber faces other lawsuits and regulatory challenges over its business model, including demands by its drivers to be classified as employees instead of independent contractors.

Fundamentally Flawed

Uber argues the conspiracy described in the New York complaint and ruling would be physically impossible under the antitrust law, and that if Uber lost at trial then thousands of drivers would be forced to pay damages. The company also contends the case is fundamentally flawed because Kalanick would have to personally compete with Uber drivers for rides in order for the type of conspiracy alleged in the case to be true.

“These claims are unwarranted and have no basis in fact. In just five years since its founding, Uber has increased competition, lowered prices, and improved service,” Uber said in an e-mailed statement. 

New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman and other regulators have also complained about Uber’s pricing algorithm, which ensures standard fares under normal conditions. In certain situations, such as heavy traffic, bad weather or on holidays, the fares rise sometimes to many times the normal rate in a practice known as surge pricing. The company pledged to limit the increases in emergencies under an agreement with Schneiderman in 2014.

Price Fixer

Meyer alleged in his complaint that Kalanick designed the company “to be a price fixer” because its drivers “do not compete” but rather charge fares set by the algorithm. Uber takes a cut of the fares. The business plan amounts to an antitrust scheme because the drivers, despite charging the same prices, are supposedly independent service providers, according to Meyer.

“Kalanick has long insisted that Uber is not a transportation company and that it does not employ drivers,” Meyer’s lawyers said in his complaint. “Instead, Uber is a technology company, whose chief product is a smartphone app.”

Rakoff said Meyer has plausibly alleged a conspiracy and the case should go to trial.

‘Disguise Itself’

“The fact that Uber goes to such lengths to portray itself -- one might even say disguise itself -- as the mere purveyor of an ‘app’ cannot shield it from the consequences of its operating as much more,” the judge said.

At this point in the case, the plaintiff doesn’t need to present “direct, ‘smoking gun’ evidence of a conspiracy,” Rakoff said.

Evan Rawley, a professor at Columbia Business School, still sees the risk to Uber as remote.

“One always has to worry about lawsuits, but this one is so far-fetched that I wouldn’t lose much sleep over it if I were Uber,” Rawley said. “However, if the plaintiff won, it would indeed be potentially costly to Uber since it would interfere with how the core of their business operates.”

Andrew Schmidt, Meyer’s lawyer, didn’t immediately respond to voicemail and e-mail messages seeking comment on the ruling.

Drivers’ Trial

Uber is set for a trial in June in San Francisco federal court in a case brought by drivers seeking to collect pay and benefits as employees. A victory for the drivers may upend Uber’s business model and cut into its more than $60 billion valuation.

The ride-hailing service launched in 2010, has grown rapidly and now has a presence in 65 countries.

Uber and its competitors are able to keep down their costs by using contractors rather than employees. Typically, contractors pay their own expenses and aren’t protected by minimum wage and overtime laws. Companies don’t pay for their unemployment insurance, workers compensation or Social Security.

The case is Meyer v. Kalanick, 1:15-cv-09796, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York (Manhattan).

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Just when you thought it could not get any worse for struggling London Cabbies.

UBER are now to be given access to their own feeder park by HAL.

At today's meeting, the London Taxi trade airport representative groups, were notified that UBER is to be given a feeder rank at Heathrow.

The London Taxi representatives walked out of the meeting at this point.

It seems Uber are being allowed the feeder park to stop them parking around Heathrow, defecating and uniting in peoples 

From Rio de Janeiro, Brazil:

This comes on the very day that Taxi drivers in Rio de Janeiro Brazil, blocked their major airport. 

Roads around the airport were gridlocked. Cars, buses and coaches couldn't move. Passengers had no alternative other than to wait out the blockade or walk back to town.

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