I can confirm, I've heard this from drivers as well.
As an anecdote, the one time I left a 1-star review, the next day I had a 20-min wait to get a car. Not sure if it was bad luck or I was getting penalized for leaving a bad review...
Yeah, well, my auto shop told me they were going to send me a survey about my visit and that, "anything less than a 10 is failure," so don't discount gaming the stats on the provider end.
That seems to be part of the program for vendors like Ford, where the employee asks the customer to call them if there is anything that they can't rate perfectly so they can fix the issue for them. They use the survey as a way of flushing out issues that the customer wouldn't otherwise voice so they can deal with them. It's less about collecting stats, and more about having an extra tool to get the customer to happy.
I'd heard this too, so I didn't leave reviews for my first few UberX drivers who had broken cars and didn't know the way, because they seemed like nice guys having a bad day. Then by the time I had bad drivers who weren't nice guys, I figured that was just the general quality of UberX service and still didn't leave reviews.
If true, this is horrible. I give 4 stars for an average trip that gets me there on time, with little to no grief. I only give 5 stars if the driver was exceptionally nice, funny, helpful or there was something outstanding with the trip. 5 stars shouldn't be the de facto rating for an average trip.
As an anecdote, the one time I left a 1-star review, the next day I had a 20-min wait to get a car. Not sure if it was bad luck or I was getting penalized for leaving a bad review...