Help! I Was Banned From Lyft and No One Will Tell Me Why. Here’s How to Get Back In.
I was a Lyft driver. That was one of my many jobs. I drove thousands of passengers around the San Francisco Bay Area, including the East Bay. I never asked for tips. It wasn’t a big part of my life, but the company made sure I never worked more than 40 hours a week.
I worked nights and weekends, so I never had to work weekends. But when it came to making money, I was happy to see people I knew.
It sounded like a sweet gig. I would drive passengers to a destination that was more than two hours away — places like San Jose, Santa Cruz, San Francisco, and, just a few years ago, San Diego. I would drop them off at the right time and within 15 minutes of picking them up, so they could be home in time for dinner at the restaurant of their choice. I would bring them to bars, restaurants, and nightclubs. I’d get them to their hotel in time to check in and get a free Uber gift card.
I never made an excuse to work late, even if my passengers needed me. When I dropped them off at their destination, I was ready to go right into work, because I never asked them to pay me back. If they wanted to visit another destination on the way home, I never required it.
But when Lyft and its drivers went public in 2017, it changed everything.
Lyft had been one of the country’s most successful car-for-hire companies over the past decade. It was profitable, had hundreds of millions in revenue, and had recently raised $300 million in a private-market secondary offering. The company had become one of the most valuable private companies in Silicon Valley. And when Lyft went public in April 2018, Uber and its rival, driverless car giant Tesla, followed suite.
Lyft co-founder and CEO Logan Green told CNBC News at the time that the company’s stock had “blown past its IPO expectations” while “the world was moving against Uber and other ride-hailing [companies] like Lyft and Didi.”
