Uber is Actively Trying to Sabotage Lyft, Ridesharing Competition

New report says Uber has ordered and cancelled thousands of Lyft rides, actively recruits Lyft drivers.

Uber and Lyft are both great ways to get around, sans-car or public transpo (especially for the bar-hopping crowd). But it now seems as though one is playing dirty pool with the other.

A new report by The Verge says that Uber is actively waging war against its rival, Lyft. The report includes a number of troubling assertions, from thousands of Lyft rides made — and cancelled — by Uber contractors, to “Brand Ambassadors” booking Lyft rides, only to use the ride as an Uber recruitment session.

Operation SLOG (Supplying Long-term Operations Growth) was supposed to be revealed by The Verge. When the editorial outlet asked for comment on the then-secret SLOG (and what an awful acronym that is), Uber reportedly stalled in order to publish a blog post of its own on the matter.

Much of SLOG appears to be standard recruitment fare — driver incentives, recruitment campaigns — but the “use a burner iPhone and Uber-supplied credit card” bit doesn’t seem to be in the literature.

You can dive into full report from The Verge here. As an active Uber user, the new details are hard to swallow…but I’m not sure if I’ll be ending my business with the company anytime soon.