Uber offices raided in Paris by French due to controversy
UberPop service is known for connecting drivers with riders to offer budget taxi services.
French police investigated the Paris offices of the taxi app doing business as Uber as part of ongoing investigations to review its UberPOP peer-to-peer ride-sharing service. The investigation, comes after France’s interior ministry was determined to ban the app in January 2015.
The Uber service, connects non-professional drivers with users at a far lower price where as in France the minimum base rate is set at1€.
These services use non-professional drivers who are typically not licensed nor insured, which raises safety concerns. Some have poor local knowledge and potentially offer poor customer experience.
Uber officials called the raid a “disproportionate action carried out on a very fragile legal basis.
Uber says the firm is creating jobs and has pledged to create nearly 50,000 in Europe, and at leas1 million jobs for women by 2020 believing that competition will be good for the industry.
In October 2014 the firm was fined €100,000) by a Paris court for deceptive practices due to its advertising and promotion.
The Silicon Valley-based firm, partly owned by Google, has come under fire and has been subject to numerous legal challenges.
In December 2014, the app was temporarily suspended in Spain after a complaint. It was also banned in September 2014 in Germany after complaints. Further the company was suspended in Delhi, India, after a woman reported she was assaulted and raped by a driver last year.
The police raid on Uber’s Paris offices comes after an alleged incident in which Uber drivers were beaten up by rival drivers with hammers and other devices.
Uber continues to operate services in the Netherlands althought Dutch courts ruled drivers would be penalized up to €10,000 every time a driver was caught providing the service.
The company launched in 2009 and claims to operate in 55 countries in 250 cities. It is valued at approximately $40bn and has become a success cash flow in the business.
Photo by acanyi
