[uberduber]

There's a huge number of people who use Uber as a payday loan who are completely unaware of finance. They just need cash NOW.

The most ridiculous one I saw was a drive with a cracked iPhone 7 Plus three days after release. In my half hour ride I saw 4 overdraft notifications and 2 please pay your bill notifications. We talked about waiting in line to get the phone and how she regretted not paying $50 for the case. She was also interested in buying a lot of stuff.

Many of them will do something stupid like trade-in their car impulsively, or total it backing into a pole where mileage doesn't really matter.

A lot of them will use the Uber gas card to get gas and then drive for Lyft to get the cash. Then next month when they need money they forgot they owe Uber and now have to drive to pay off the gas debt to Uber before they can earn anything.

I've only met three people who were willing to admit using it as a payday loan, they were all grad students. Two had financial aid delays, one blew too much money on his girlfriend.

I've also met quite a few older people (usually men) with high incomes that were laid off and need quick cash. These are often singles living paycheck to paycheck on $200k in LA and they can never figure out what to cut.