Uber Opt-in Sms

How Uber Drivers Can Officially Opt Out of UberPool

It is no secret that Uberpool doesn't make financial sense in most markets for Uber drivers. Uberpool rates in most markets are at least 10% lower than regular UberX rates and once you compound that with more riders, you will start to lose more and more money. I have a deeper analysis of Uberpool in the next few weeks but for the most part, drivers lose money over UberX. I specifically skip Uberpool rides based on principle.

Passengers are paying less for the same service and that really irritates me. I don't really care whether or not they get matched with a rider. It is still essentially the same service. What makes my day is that someone on Uberpool is late for something. I also do my best to drive a bit slower or not run yellow lights so it makes them a bit more late. This passenger will be much less likely to use it in the future. If this happens enough, there will be much less Uberpool requests. I heard of one driver who specifically took the backroads with Uberpool, rather than driving about 20 miles on the highway so that there would be a much higher chance that she gets a match. That is very smart on the driver's part because getting a match increases their earnings (you don't really make more money by not having a match).

I actually heard of one driver in Boston doing this about six months ago. It took him about three months to do it, with about 10 emails during that time to finally get an upper level Uber manager to manually remove Uberpool requests from his account. I thought that it would be almost impossible for most drivers to do until I got a few reader emails reporting that they were able to remove it from their accounts. If you are really interested in getting Uberpool removed from your account, it would be best to try to do it in person.

How to Contact Support About Removing Uberpool

Because Uber removed their email support, it is now a bit harder to request support from Uber. Here is the way to do it:

Go to your Uber Partner App
Go to the Account tab on the bottom
Click on Help on the top
Click on Account
Click on "I have another account question."
This will bring up the open text box. Type in that you want to be opted out of Uberpool. (To clarify, you no longer want to receive Uberpool requests anymore).

screenshot_20161102-140415 screenshot_20161102-140444 uber app support help red screenshot_20161103-014907

Here is the proof from one reader about how they opted out of UberPool:

uber uberpool opt out

How Long Does It Take?

One reader said it only took one email, others it took a few. It will vary on which agent you get and it may depend on the market you are in. Some markets may be more willing to remove Uberpool than others. I've seen an email in the Los Angeles market stating that it wasn't possible to opt out in Los Angeles. Its definitely a "your miles may vary" type of experience. Expect that it will take at least 3-5 emails repeating the same thing before someone will remove Uberpool from your Uber Partner account. Some are more helpful than others so if you don't get the response you want, reply to the same email and hopefully you get someone else. Just make it clear that you no longer want to receive Uberpool requests. I would add in that you won't be accepting any Uberpool requests going forward anyway and that eliminating Uberpool requests from your account will help Uberpool riders get a ride faster.

Why is Uber Allowing Partners to Opt Out of UberPool?

I believe that Uber is seeing a longer acceptance time for Uberpool requests, so they are now allowing more drivers to opt out of it. I remember seeing this girl at 7:30am in the middle of downtown. There are literally 5 cars on each street surrounding her on the passenger application. I received an Uberpool request from just across the street from me but I ignored it. After about five minutes, I see a girl walk out from the hotel. Another 10 minutes go by but she is on the phone almost the entire time. It takes about 10 minutes from when I saw her get out to get her ride. I am very sure that it was the same UberPool request. Almost all the drivers near her ignored it. I presume that it is mostly full time drivers out at 7:30am in downtown and almost all of them know the protocol for Uberpool: they ignore it. This was very eye opening for me. This was the first time I saw drivers acting together against something that is clearly not beneficial to them.

This was even more shocking because Uberpool rates are actually very reasonable in Seattle. The base rate is $1.35 (same as UberX), $1.37 per mile (this is actually higher than UberX, and $0.12 per minute (half of UberX). This rate is much better relative to many other markets. The mileage is actually higher than UberX, which is pretty surprising.

Despite the rates being competitive to UberX, many drivers that morning in Seattle ignored the Uberpool request.

A Word of Warning:

NOTE: I think that after drivers read this post, many drivers will request to opt out of Uberpool. I am not sure how many drivers Uber is allowing to opt out of Uberpool but this may increase it beyond what they expect. I believe that Uber may limit the number of drivers who opt out of Uberpool so make sure to do it as soon as you can and be persistent!

However, if enough drivers ignore Uberpool request, it has the same effect as opting out.

Hopefully this is helpful to drivers.

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