Lyft may not deliver on some of its $1,000 sign-up bonuses, angering drivers

SAN FRANCISCO, CA - JANUARY 21: A Lyft customer gets into a car on January 21, 2014 in San Francisco, California. As ridesharing services like Lyft, Uber and Sidecar become more popular, the San Francisco Cab Driver Association is reporting that nearly one third of San Francisco's licensed taxi drivers have stopped driving taxis and have started to drive for the ridesharing services. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

Remember the seemingly-too-good-to-be-true $1,000 bonuses that Lyft promised to new drivers and those who recruited them? Well, it turns out they may actually have been too good to be true.

New drivers who applied to join Lyft in light of the reward just received an email from the company. It cautioned that because it takes time for Lyft to file background checks and process the paperwork for new hires, some of these applicants won’t make the deadline for the reward, despite applying in advance of it. The initial money was only promised for those who had given at least one ride by March 5th (see original promo blog post below).

Although Lyft isn’t technically breaking the reward rules it set out, it’s still pulling a bait-and-switch on potential drivers. The company could theoretically take all the time it wants to do new driver onboarding and cut a lot of people out of their reward. Understandably, the community is very angry.

After I published this story, Lyft responded to my request for comment with the following statement:

We saw a tremendous response to last week’s special invitation to applicants, resulting in the biggest wave of applications in Lyft history. This was a time-limited promotion and we’re working hard to process applications before the promotion ends, while continuing to maintain our core safety standards. We expect that thousands of people will qualify for the promotion.

We’re always exploring new ways to welcome drivers to the Lyft platform and will be in touch with updates for applicants who were not able to qualify for the latest promotion, after this promotion concludes.

This story has been updated with comment from Lyft
This is the email that new Lyft applicants recently received about the promised $1,000 reward

This is the email that new Lyft applicants recently received about the promised $1,000 reward

Here is the original message about the terms of Lyft's sign up bonus

Here is the original message about the terms of Lyft’s sign up bonus

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Wednesday, March 11, 2015
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