If you are banned from returning merchandise to Amazon, Home Depot, CVS, Sephora, Dick’s, JCPenney, Victoria’s Secret or Best Buy you are likely banned from doing returns by all of them.
They are all using a third party called The Retail Equation.
A good example of banks doing this in the UK is CIFAS, member companies of CIFAS can submit a black mark against an individual, which may in turn cause their other bank accounts to be closed, even if the black mark was in error.
If you’ve ever had an account closed, you’ll discover the bank will refuse to tell you why. So if you aren’t aware of CIFAS, things can be pretty confusing.
Near zero repercussions for the bank that wrongly adds anyone to the database (potentially a 3 figure sum awarded by the financial ombudsman, again if the person is aware of the financial ombudsman).
I’m frankly surprised they’ve been able to continue to exist. Only with GDPR coming in have they given you the option to check if you are on the list without having to write a physical letter.
A noble effort, but I'm certainly concerned about the use of a background check company. This is anecdotal, but I've missed out on a job before due to misreporting from a background check company. The amount of hoops I had to go through to prevent the mistake from happening again took years - and of course, the opportunity for that job was long gone by then.
Really, the only proper way to do a background check is via your local law enforcement. These companies should not be relied on. Ever. Even if they're right a majority of time, the cases where they're wrong are too damaging to be considered trivial.
FWIW, I used to work for a background check company and they operated exceedingly ethically. If there was a hit, for example, they would reach out to the given agencies and confirm that it was actually that exact person before reporting the results.
Far as I understood it, that was exceptionally rare in the industry. Not sure how prolific their customer base was or if they're still active.
Sad truth is that law enforcement also cannot be blindly relied on for background checks. Clerical errors happen everywhere, and law enforcement is even less accountable than some random company.
I wonder if they'll start sharing data on banned passengers. I think this is a much more interesting and nuanced social issue.
A recent viral video this week showed a woman assaulting an Uber driver, she livestreamed on IG to try to justify her actions and in the process said that she would only be using Lyft, then lyft tweeted that they pre-emptively banned her.
If FAANG joined together to make a shared blocked users list, they could effectively make a digital caste system subject to little current government oversight.
Honestly I think FAANG know better than to try to do something like that. They are already getting closer to regulatory action to limit their influence and some politicians want to see them be broken up.
And that's just in the US, if they pull something like that in the EU it's almost certain there would be new laws put in place to inflict heavy fines.
Cancel culture ensures we basically have that already... How many times has an undesirable been unpersoned from Twitter, Facebook and YouTube within hours?
The No-Fly List[1] has been a two decades long quagmire that has put thousands of people into a situation where they're banned from travelling despite doing nothing wrong.
Despite the unethical and immoral behavior of Uber executive leadership, from the outside, Uber seems to have a better safety profile than Lyft. They added safety features to the app, such as emergency service requests, long before Lyft did. Both companies probably did it in response to sexual assaults that both companies enabled, but Uber took quicker action.
I've seen some truly horrifying behavior from Lyft in terms of safety that makes me cautious of wanting to use the app, despite liking Lyft's public presence better. I suspect it's in the interest of growth and gaining market share to have things like lax-er driver background checks so they get more drivers. In the end it ends up hurting them a lot more, and can lead to terrible things for riders.
Do you remember the time Wells Fargo set such high sales targets for its employees that unless they committed fraud, they could not meet it; and then fired those who did not commit fraud and thus fell short of sales targets; and then many of those fired employees found out that they have been essentially blacklisted throughout the entire banking industry, because Wells Fargo had added negative remarks about them to their U5 to justify the firing instead of telling the truth that they were fired because they refused to commit fraud? I sure remember.
The problem with these sorts of backchannel data sharing is that unlike things like credit reports, individuals have little to no access to see what is in their file and dispute it.
If only there were a commercial passenger permitting system that already existed, ensuring that drivers who should not be carrying passengers were denied operating license regardless of the business they work with.
(For those not familiar, we do already have this in the US, but Uber/Lyft wanted their drivers not to be commercially-licensed, so now they have to reimplement the DMV.)
This is obviously a good thing from a safety standpoint, but I worry we are increasingly becoming a one strike society. Where one instance of bad behavior locks you out of significant parts of the infrastructure. Moreoever this happens in a "court" with no documented laws/appeals process.
There's a reason we have "innocent until proven guilty" and lots of interlocking checks and balances in the legal system to prevent the mob from lynching people.
Nowadays they can lynch your social life and employment options over a drunken tweet.
Why is this necessary? If people are convicted of sexual assault, it's on the public record. Otherwise, even though some accusations that are not brought to court may have merit, Uber or Lyft should not be the ones to arbitrate on that.
Honestly, I don't think this goes far enough. If you're misbehaving enough to get banned from Uber, you probably shouldn't be holding any other gig work poisition either! This should protect customer safety, by ensuring that once someone is proven problematic, they can simply be removed as a gig laborer, no matter how that looks. Perhaps this could be expanded to traditional employment, as well. This should protect companies from bad employee behavior permanently, and improve society thereby.
Uber and Lyft aren't big fans of having drivers accused of sexual assault or theft. I'm sure you could come up with a nefarious take, but it's really just a way of filtering out bad actors before they hurt riders.
jasode|5 years ago
- competitor banks share information about people who bounce checks
- competitor insurance companies share data about customers with fraudulent claims
- competitor casinos share photos of card counters
Probably many others I can't think of.
EDIT to reply: thanks for the customers' returns example. I found a story explaining the shared database: https://www.elliott.org/case-dismissed-2/the-retail-equation...
tehwebguy|5 years ago
They are all using a third party called The Retail Equation.
us0r|5 years ago
I'm pretty sure it's any claim. If you want to see something scary request your lexis nexus consumer report.
mikeodds|5 years ago
If you’ve ever had an account closed, you’ll discover the bank will refuse to tell you why. So if you aren’t aware of CIFAS, things can be pretty confusing.
Near zero repercussions for the bank that wrongly adds anyone to the database (potentially a 3 figure sum awarded by the financial ombudsman, again if the person is aware of the financial ombudsman).
I’m frankly surprised they’ve been able to continue to exist. Only with GDPR coming in have they given you the option to check if you are on the list without having to write a physical letter.
Examples of them screwing up:
https://www.theguardian.com/money/2020/oct/31/mortgage-fraud...
https://www.msbsolicitors.co.uk/cifas-fraud-markers-the-prob...
seany|5 years ago
z3c0|5 years ago
Really, the only proper way to do a background check is via your local law enforcement. These companies should not be relied on. Ever. Even if they're right a majority of time, the cases where they're wrong are too damaging to be considered trivial.
ceejayoz|5 years ago
What in the history of policing makes you think they're immune to similar mistakes?
covidthrow|5 years ago
Far as I understood it, that was exceptionally rare in the industry. Not sure how prolific their customer base was or if they're still active.
justapassenger|5 years ago
cwkoss|5 years ago
A recent viral video this week showed a woman assaulting an Uber driver, she livestreamed on IG to try to justify her actions and in the process said that she would only be using Lyft, then lyft tweeted that they pre-emptively banned her.
If FAANG joined together to make a shared blocked users list, they could effectively make a digital caste system subject to little current government oversight.
smt88|5 years ago
You mean like credit scores?
belval|5 years ago
And that's just in the US, if they pull something like that in the EU it's almost certain there would be new laws put in place to inflict heavy fines.
throwaway53453|5 years ago
frakt0x90|5 years ago
_jal|5 years ago
What safeguards are there so that a grouchy driver or engineer can't use it to mess with their ex? For instance.
simple_phrases|5 years ago
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Fly_List#Vulnerabilities
pochamago|5 years ago
stevebmark|5 years ago
I've seen some truly horrifying behavior from Lyft in terms of safety that makes me cautious of wanting to use the app, despite liking Lyft's public presence better. I suspect it's in the interest of growth and gaining market share to have things like lax-er driver background checks so they get more drivers. In the end it ends up hurting them a lot more, and can lead to terrible things for riders.
bhupy|5 years ago
Interestingly, literally every C-level exec at Uber from the Travis Kalanick era has been replaced. Uber is the "Ship of Theseus" of companies.
smnrchrds|5 years ago
The problem with these sorts of backchannel data sharing is that unlike things like credit reports, individuals have little to no access to see what is in their file and dispute it.
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/04/business/dealbook/wells-f...
worker767424|5 years ago
simplecto|5 years ago
There is some atrocious behavior out there in both the passenger and driver seats.
ceejayoz|5 years ago
https://twitter.com/lyft/status/1369390197503361030
floatingatoll|5 years ago
(For those not familiar, we do already have this in the US, but Uber/Lyft wanted their drivers not to be commercially-licensed, so now they have to reimplement the DMV.)
redditmigrant|5 years ago
NaturalPhallacy|5 years ago
There's a reason we have "innocent until proven guilty" and lots of interlocking checks and balances in the legal system to prevent the mob from lynching people.
Nowadays they can lynch your social life and employment options over a drunken tweet.
How do we fix this?
incrudible|5 years ago
https://www.theroot.com/uber-bans-passenger-for-life-after-s...
unknown|5 years ago
[deleted]
freeone3000|5 years ago
chmod775|5 years ago
It's already hard to get a job as a felon in the US, and hasn't that worked out great!
In case it's not obvious: Just no. It's been tried. It's a horrible idea.
pishpash|5 years ago
ape4|5 years ago
unknown|5 years ago
[deleted]
bluntfang|5 years ago
bpodgursky|5 years ago