Instead, people like Li have figured out how to cash in on Uber‘s largesse without giving anyone a ride. He‘s part of a cottage industry that has developed so drivers can use modified smartphones and software to place fake bookings and trick Uber into paying out cash for phantom trips.
While there are no reliable estimates on how prevalent the scams are, interviews with Uber drivers, equipment vendors and reviews of postings on dedicated online forums suggest at least some of the $US1 billion that Uber has pledged to spend to expand the service in China this year is being siphoned off by fake bookings. The scams may be counted among the number of trips Uber claims in China, a figure the company said reached almost 1 million per day in a letter this month to shareholders.
„That number is definitely exaggerated,“ Zhang Xu, an analyst with researcher Analysys International, said of Uber‘s trip bookings. „It is well-known that Uber has the problem of false bookings.“