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Comment by ravenstine | Hacker News Reader

I was going to reply with a reply about this being "statistically bound to happen", until I read this:

> If we wanted to be compensated we had to agree not to tell anyone what happened, we could not leave any negative reviews, we could not make posts on social media, we could not hold Wag or the walker responsible, and only then would Wag reimburse us for Winnie’s cremation. When we responded that we would not sign the agreement, we were told that the agreement would remain available in case we changed our minds. The next day, we received an email stating that the agreement was now “null and void.”

What assholes. (Wag) All these gig economy apps are super shady.

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I feel like part of why they're shady is because some of the people that partake in them are shady. It's relatively easy to get accepted to them (especially services like this).

From my experience, people signing up for these type of work range from generally ok (most Uber drivers) to absolutely desperate for money (living out of car, signs up for petsitting while owner is vacay).

It seems the lower the bar of entry in terms of capital, the shadier it is. Ie Uber at least requires you to have a car, which involves some kind of credit check which is embodied in the car procurement before it even hit Uber. Dog walking? Not so much.

Agreed! I was going to add that most uber drivers are okay (I've had one or two oddballs but nothing scary, just weird).

>From my experience, people signing up for these type of work range from generally ok (most Uber drivers) to absolutely desperate for money

Come on down to Miami, where it’s not unusual for the actual uber driver to be different than uber drivers profile.

You can’t really get more shady than exploiting undocumented immigrants who can’t get a DL, and having them illegally without a DL by driving under someone else’s uber account for a fraction.

There is no way I would get into the car. I personally avoid gig services for a number of reasons.

Seeing a mismatch? Yeah, never again.

That's no different than traditional taxi services. Getting a taxi license is time-consuming and expensive in most places (as sometimes you have to buy from an existing license-holder)

Taxi drivers will therefore try to maximise their investment, so they have people driving their car 24/7, on shifts.

That is significantly different than having People without drivers licenses driving (a criminal offense in most jurisdictions) the taxis and fraudulently misreprenting the drivers to the public (again typically a criminal offense).

There would be nothing wrong with having two uber drivers with two legitimate uber accounts splitting the car...not allowing an unlicensed person driver for uber under someone else’s account.

> From my experience, people signing up for these type of work range from generally ok (most Uber drivers)

I agree with your general point, but the vast majority of Uber drivers I've seen are worryingly dangerous drivers (even worse than most taxis). I would not be surprised if many are driving all day, and are exhausted while being in charge of another person's life.

Is this legal?

They promised to pay for everything, and did not disclose additional terms at that time.

In general you can freely promise to pay someone else's bill and then not do it at all. There's no contract if you're not getting anything in return. It does make you an asshole though.

Citation?

The way I learned it is: Any statement of intent, no matter in which form, is creating a contract that you are bound to abide.

You sound like you would argue that it obviously was not a contract but a joke because 'why would a company pay something without getting anything in return'. But that would not hold. Companies spend a lot on customer relationship management. So the customer here could safely assume that the companies 'return' was a happier - in this case: less angry - customer.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consideration

http://theexaminer.com/features/commentary/promise-make-gift...

https://dolanlawfirm.com/2017/01/oral-promise/

A happier customer is not valid consideration for a contract. That would turn every pending gift into a contract and that's not how the law works.

Asshats.

Lesson is to never use a service in which the compensation part is somehow conditioned.

I don't eveen think that agreering to 'not seek further compensation' is an acceptablee condition for getting compensation.

I'm really torn on this.. That's typical settlement stuff. They are of course free to go to court and leave all the negative reviews they like?

You should not be torn, nor should NDA's and prohibition on negative review be "typical settlement stuff"

That is a problem in society today, and why many of these companies get away with massive amounts of bad behavior. We has a society view it acceptable for these corporations to pay off their victims with hush money, instead of actually holding them accountable for their bad actions

Here Wag is not stepping up, doing their right thing, or making the victim whole. They are (or were attempting to) pay off their victim to silence them. That should not be viewed by anyone as ethically right

Shady is the gig economy business model, with a slice of no accoutability.

Wag are jerkoffs it seems, but it's still 'statistically likely to happen'.

Accidents happen in all things, so I think it should boil down mostly to whatever the reality is there.

... though Wag has shown some bad form obviously.

Given it's statistically bound to happen, Wag should have been able to anticipate this in a way that was not , if not the worst approach, arguably pretty close.

I'm not defending Wag in the least.

A cursory google indicates it's not even that uncommon. There appear to be quite a few "Wag killed my dog" stories going back a number of years.

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