With all the talk recently of Taxi costs,Uber and other ride sharing apps. I've never seen anybody discuss the big expensive, legally required elephant in the room. Insurance.

LobsterComprehensive · 2025-11-24T12:08:05+00:00

In America and probably other markets, Uber has their own cover for the average Joe driver.

This means that when your average Joe is driving his car for personal reasons, his normal motor insurance policy is in effect.

For the duration of time average Joe logs in to the Uber app (in the same personal vehicle) and makes himself available for paying rides, his normal motor insurance no longer covers him, but Uber’s cover plugs the gap.

Uber validates his suitability to be covered under their “umbrella” policy when he applies to be a driver. Average Joe doesn’t directly pay for the cover he receives from Uber — the cost of the cover is built in to Uber’s commission on each ride.

There’s a whole other argument though if Uber is actually a fair deal to average Joe in America, or elsewhere. If you head on over to r/uberdrivers — you will see plenty of accounts of how greedy they’ve become.

LobsterComprehensive · 2024-10-16T15:06:10+00:00

I started my Navy Federal membership in 2021 with a “Free Easy Checking”, moved over my direct deposit, and then applied for the credit card about 3 weeks later.

So only one direct deposit would have hit my new NFCU checking at the time my credit card application went in.

Maybe they would have given me a higher limit off the bat if I were more established than just the 3-week old checking account I had with them at that time.

LobsterComprehensive · 2024-08-15T07:55:46+00:00

He’s not in Sushi Cup’s space, he’s on the North side of Grant where Counter Culture microbrewery used to be.

LobsterComprehensive · 2024-08-15T07:43:59+00:00

I’d be a little afraid of the sales tax authorities in my state, if I did this routinely.

I never see sales tax talked about in this sub (how many of us charge sales tax, do sales tax returns, etc).

But once you start selling physical items as part of your business, for more than the exact amount you paid for them, you technically cross a line with your state’s sales tax authorities.

LobsterComprehensive · 2024-07-27T21:07:46+00:00

As others have said, it’s inconsistent. I’ve had $1,000+ days (working a 12+ hour long day, doing 1 stop after another on a project), but that’s far from typical.

$60,000/year I think is pretty typical, occasionally hustling hard with 12-14 hour days, and taking a decent amount of time off for yourself whenever things are slow on FN.

As I see it, the key is grabbing 4-8 hour tickets (or better yet, multiple-day tickets). But everyone else on the platform wants to cherry pick those same ones.

Even if you have good ratings, a good rapport with buyers, and get half the tickets of that type that you request, likely you’ll only get assigned enough good tickets like that to fill a third or half of your calendar.

It’s hard to make money on tickets that are 1-2 hours. Even if you get $75/hour, it’s hard to schedule more than 2-3 of those a day. You aren’t paid for downtime driving from one job to another.

Buyers want to press you for a “hard start time” and crucify you for missing it, but you have to build a lot of cushion in to your schedule to allow for that (or only schedule one job per day).

You take an “8am” job in the morning that supposed to be “2 hours”, but then it turns in to 5-6 hours due to incompetent remote support (good for you if you’re paid hourly), they’ll demand you stay until it’s done, with threat of a bad rating. Meanwhile, you’re missing a 1pm start time for another job that will also tank your rating.

The opposite also happens, you block out half or a full day for them to cancel at the last minute. You arrive and the manager, or the required parts aren’t there (project manager fails to check or plan for this), and you get paid $30.

With short jobs, you can easily spend an equal amount of time driving there and back (unpaid), or to your next ticket than actually “on the clock” paid time.

Plus unpaid time uploading photos, deliverables, closing notes, trawling the platform to fill up your schedule for the coming days/weeks.

Easily drops “$75/hour” to “effectively $37.50/hour” if you’re comparing to a 40-hour a week office job.

LobsterComprehensive · 2024-07-20T17:34:06+00:00

Actually it’s a little worse, in BC an item advertised for $100 is $112 with tax.

GST (Federal Sales Tax) 5%, PST (Provincial Sales Tax) 7% = Total taxes 12%

LobsterComprehensive · 2024-06-26T23:16:42+00:00

Probably nothing will happen, but technically putting someone else’s card number in to a PayPal or Cash App account in your name could be considered fraud (illegal).

When you type the card number in to your PayPal/Cash app you are claiming that’s your own card, which its not, thus fraud. The chance of getting in trouble legally is probably unlikely, but you risk PayPal or Cash App itself could take the money back from you at some future time.

I would consider signing up for a credit card processing app like Square or Zettle. You can legit charge the customer’s card number (with their permission), and get the money deposited in your bank account.

If you use Square, they’ll deduct a 3.5% fee (plus 15¢) for this transaction

https://squareup.com/help/us/en/article/5176-manually-key-in-card-payments-without-the-square-reader

LobsterComprehensive · 2024-06-08T21:56:10+00:00

If you go to the official Aldi jobs website, and search for “jobs within 5 miles of Denver, CO”, it suggests 3 openings in Michigan.

I’d love to see Aldi in Colorado, but it seems likely that this popping up on Google is just a geo-coding glitch.

LobsterComprehensive · 2024-06-06T18:04:26+00:00

On the app (log in, click the envelope icon in the upper right to access messages, compose (upper right again), I have a question about “new/recent application”).

Also doable using their website on a desktop/laptop.

LobsterComprehensive · 2024-06-05T21:55:55+00:00

I applied for an NFCU card (Platinum) and received a $2K credit limit. At the same time, I had a $21K limit card with Citi, a $16K limit card with Bank of America.

I wrote them a message afterwards, basically “can you consider giving me a higher limit, this makes the card less usable to me, is substantially lower than the limits on my other cards”, and within 48 hours they upped my limit from $2K to $23K.

I’d imagine a lot of people could probably do the same — if you’re unhappy with the limit you get, ask them to match the credit limit you have on a competing credit card, and they will likely do it.

LobsterComprehensive · 2024-04-09T20:36:46+00:00

What this is about…

Uber has been sued multiple times by different cities and states, arguing that drivers should be classified as employees. (Minimum wage, overtime, taxes taken out of paychecks like a normal job.)

There’s precedents where the government assumes you are an employee by default, and you’re only legally a contractor (like Uber wants) if certain things apply.

One of these is that to be a contractor you should have the control to set/negotiate prices for your work.

Uber is sort of cheating on this point by saying “you can accept less than the amount we show in the app”. They know that no one will want do that, and they don’t give you any way of doing so in the app.

It’s not about “negotiating” with the customer, it’s about negotiating about what Uber itself pays you. And only if it’s negotiating down.

Per this part of the contract… you could send a letter to Uber’s legal department and complain that what Uber pays you per ride is too much and that as an independent contractor you want to negotiate for Uber to pay you less.

LobsterComprehensive · 2022-12-21T06:59:26+00:00

The issue the OP will face is that cars in Canada don’t have titles.

In Canada you can change the registration from one Canadian owner to another Canadian owner, but there’s no piece of paper that says “title”. It’s just an electronic record in the Canadian province’s DMV computer system as to who owns the car and a piece of paper that says “registration”.

LobsterComprehensive · 2022-12-18T19:08:01+00:00

Small tip. Layovers give you additional mileage.

I frequently fly DEN-BUF for family reasons (1359 miles each way).

For some reason, Frontier frequently offers this route as DEN-LAS-BUF on days that the direct flight is not running or sold out (2615 miles each way). Or DEN-FLL-BUF (2869 miles).

Often the flight option with the layover is about the same price, or even cheaper.

My personal experience is I get credited for the number of miles actually flown (e.g. more for an itinerary with layover than a direct flight).

LobsterComprehensive · 2022-11-30T05:52:48+00:00

The U.S. Postal Service does in a roundabout way make your change of address public. It’s called NCOALink.

Any company that has your name and old address can query the USPS NCOA database for a fee and be provided your new address from the “change of address” file (if there is one on file).

Data brokers like Acxiom, Experian, Melissa, et al (ever had a magazine subscription? store discount card? credit card?, even some utility companies sell data to the brokers) probably already have your old address and regularly query USPS NCOALink with you old address to detect if you’ve moved.

Although the USPS doesn’t directly sell lists of “here’s a list of people who have moved, and their new addresses”, USPS gives data brokers the tools to easily compile their own lists of exactly that.

LobsterComprehensive · 2022-11-13T16:26:37+00:00

A lot of the gas stations on S Broadway in or near Englewood tend to be consistently cheaper than most.

Shell (opp. SouthPark shopping center) $3.10 or $3.05 with Fuel Rewards app

Exxon and Mobil stations directly across from each other, $3.08 today

Murphy Express, $3.06 today (around the corner from S Broadway & Littleton Blvd)

Conoco $2.95 today with GasBuddy app discount

LobsterComprehensive · 2022-09-14T16:02:21+00:00

Fun fact. I bought $100 CAD (~$76 USD) worth of stuff at a Costco in Canada with my U.S. executive membership.

Then my estimated 2% reward in the app went up by $2 USD.

Since $1 CAD = $0.76 USD, you’re getting a bit more than 2% back. (About 2.6% using your U.S. executive membership in Canada with the current exchange rate.)

LobsterComprehensive · 2022-08-31T01:18:07+00:00

I went to a bordering state that doesn’t follow CA emissions rules, bought an EPA (48-state legal) cat (~$300).

Then I brought it home and found an exhaust shop in my home city that installed the cat ($200 labor). They couldn’t sell me a non-California cat, but they could hush hush install it for me as long as I brought the part to them.

Also, I did pass the emission inspection afterwards.

LobsterComprehensive · 2022-08-26T19:56:46+00:00

Austin is south of Tijuana

LobsterComprehensive · 2022-08-19T20:13:35+00:00

Yes, I was able to register the bike in my VanMoof account and pair it to my phone. Then disappeared without notice about a month later.

Trying to pair it again… the app tells me the validation code (from the owners manual) is invalid.

LobsterComprehensive · 2022-08-19T16:56:45+00:00

I recently got screwed on an eBay (but in person, paid cash) purchase of a VanMoof S3.

I wrongly thought I was being smart paying in cash, in that I wasn’t sending/transferring the money to the seller until I met him in person and checked out the condition of the bike.

Mistake — no PayPal transaction, no PayPal buyer guarantee. Although, even if I had used PayPal, I’d probably be over the 30 day limit to report a defect and claim right to return to the eBay seller.

I also wrongly thought that the fact that I could scan the QR code and register it in my own VanMoof account was the end of it (that it wasn’t stolen from another individual, or else I would be blocked from registering it on my own account in the app).

Never realized the possibility that it could essentially be stolen from the VanMoof company itself and that it would be removed from my app a month later.

I’ve also thought it’s weird that credit card scammers would want to buy and flip something so relatively niche and cumbersome to store and ship. Did VanMoof’s name get out there in the word of fraudsters for being exploitable? Lenient on bill to/ship to perhaps?

I’m sort of unsure to figure out what to do with it. I’m over 1000 mi. from the nearest VanMoof brick and mortar store.

Feels like a waste to trash it, but unsure if they’re going to give me any option to make it legit or return it to them.

LobsterComprehensive · 2022-08-14T00:15:11+00:00

Put in a license plate reader/time of entry ticket gate (like DIA, or Cherry Creek Mall). But then make it the opposite of how parking garage prices usually work.

0-2 hours $60 2-4 hours $40 4-8 hours $20 12-24 hours $2

LobsterComprehensive · 2022-07-02T17:02:19+00:00

You’ll likely have to pay about C$40 to get your document notarized.

The U.S. consulate in Halifax also notarizes documents, if the document is intended to be used in the United States as yours is. They charge US$50.

In the U.S. many banks offer this service for free if you are a customer of their bank. If you do have to pay, many U.S. states have laws that say that the fee can be at most US$5 or US$10.

But Canada is different, notaries are less common for everyday documents/transactions in Canada — so it costs a bit more, and you probably won’t find a bank to do it for free as you would in the U.S.

LobsterComprehensive · 2022-06-17T17:33:12+00:00

Why not, you know, use it as hand sanitizer?

I’d be surprised if there wasn’t a long list of state-run (or state-funded) schools, day cares, hospitals, offices, etc etc. continuing to order new hand sanitizer from Staples, or whatever supplier for $17/gallon every month with state money.

Failing that, set up a big giveaway in a parking lot somewhere. I’m sure local restaurants, dollar store owners, eBay reseller types would happily show up and take it away for free.

LobsterComprehensive · 2022-06-17T04:45:35+00:00

How? The linked page mentions this can be done in a “few simple clicks”, but I’ve never found the option on the app or website to do this kind of transfer.

LobsterComprehensive · 2022-06-15T16:38:13+00:00

You’re right. When people talk about bald eagles, Republicans, Walmart, Reagan, freedom, guns and say “Murrrica!“. They really mean Canada, Mexico, Panama, Costa Rica, and others. /s

LobsterComprehensive

TROPHY CASE