lyft driver app can detect fake app location on my phone

When drivers see an Instant Offer, they have only a few minutes to accept the delivery or lose it to someone else.

Instant Offers are dispatched by an automated system that detects which drivers are nearby through their smartphones, according to two people familiar with the technology. Drivers are competing for fast-delivery Instant Offers, which require an immediate response and typically take between 15 and 45 minutes to complete. What’s happening at Whole Foods in the Chicago area is different. Bloomberg reported similar use of apps by Instacart shoppers earlier this month. Drivers download apps on their smartphones that constantly monitor the Amazon Flex site and automatically take any routes that become available, as CNBC reported in February. Most Flex routes last from two to four hours and can be scheduled in advance. So securing a route through the smartphone app is the key first step to making money. Unlike hourly employees who get paid even when work is slow, gig workers only get paid by the job. As a result, some Whole Foods locations have come to resemble parking lots at Home Depot Inc, where day labourers have long congregated to pick up home repair gigs. Adding to the pressure, fewer people are using ride-hailing services like Uber and Lyft, so more drivers have to deliver online shopping orders to make money.

But with joblessness rising and unemployment payments shrinking, competition for such work has stiffened, and more people rely on it as their primary income source. For many with other jobs, it’s a way to earn extra money in their spare time. They show drivers approaching the phones and syncing them with their own devices, then sitting or standing nearby waiting for an alert about a route.Īn Uber-like app called Amazon Flex lets drivers make deliveries in their own cars. The company, through a spokeswoman, declined to comment.īloomberg reviewed photos and video of smartphones in trees outside Whole Foods and Amazon delivery stations. In an internal email seen by Bloomberg, Amazon said it would investigate the matter but would be unable to divulge the outcome of its inquiry to delivery drivers. Some have complained to Amazon that unscrupulous drivers have found a way to rig the company’s delivery dispatch system. Much the way milliseconds can mean millions to hedge funds using robot traders, a smartphone perched in a tree can be the key to getting a $15 delivery route before someone else.ĭrivers have been posting photos and videos on social-media chat rooms to try to figure out what technology is being used to receive orders faster than those lacking the advantage. That drivers resort to such extreme methods is emblematic of the ferocious competition for work in a pandemic-ravaged US economy suffering from double-digit unemployment.

Lyft driver app can detect fake app location on my phone