Jeff, you are far more knowledgeable than I am.

I was referring (too vaguely) to those drivers who took it on their own initiative to lease new vehicles, ‘average’ or spiffy, to either start driving for this Über thing that promises 80k-a-year-in-takehome-pay-plus-no-boss, or to jump up a strata to Über Black. I wasn’t aware of the Santander offer, which does sound usurious, but I suppose my objection is the same: taking advantage of someone’s optimism or desire for a better life just seems wrong, legal or not. That your count on the number of drivers who borrowed via Santander or have leased too lavish cars is low is some comfort.

(Brief pause in solidarity for how awful payday loans are. I do hope something works its way through the courts to put protections for people in place. Compounding interest is complex and can be used to do horribly deceptive things to people. I would love to see the military take more action here as loan providers often target bases. If not already the case, moving payday to Friday might be a start.)

Über self-reported that 60% of their drivers are otherwise full-time employed. That’s tough to verify. Never being too quick to believe volunteered information from companies currently fighting lawsuits and raising funding, I could see that possibly being true in an absolute sense; but if one measured Über drivers on the road in any given week, subtracting out people who just signed up for a laugh, I think that number would go down substantially. Absent disclosure, I guess we only have anecdotes: for what it’s worth, every driver I’ve spoken with has been a full-time driver.