News Story (California)
KPIX-TV (SF Bay Area)
February 29, 2016
READ THE FULL STORY HERE
Tags: Consumer Protection, Workers Rights
Organizations mentioned/involved: Bay Area Legal Aid (San Francisco)
DETAILS
She says Uber sent her to this Toyota dealership in San Francisco where she signed a lease with a company called BAMA. “It was kind of like a cattle call almost,” she said. Her lease seems a bargain compared to Breeze: Just under $650-a month for a larger model Prius. But once you add in extra insurance for commercial use of the car: “I am paying at least $1000 a month.
“As a consumer protection attorney this absolutely concerns me,” said Claire Johnson Raba with Bay Area Legal Aid. www.baylegal.org. She says she’s seeing a growing number of rideshare drivers coming in for help because because of problems with auto loans and leases offered to them by the companies. “This is one more debt, one more bill that they cannot pay, and this is a bill with some very serious consequences if it’s not paid,” she said.
She reviewed our drivers’ contracts and says the biggest problem is that they are commercial leases, that are not covered by consumer protection laws. “A commercial lease assumes that the two parties that entered into the contract are sophisticated parties, that they are businesses. That’s not what’s going on here,” she said.