Competition in high tech is tough and sometimes dirty. Companies seeking to beat the competition sometimes use un-kosher methods to the hoped for edge on their rivals.
GetTaxi Ltd. is a huge success in Israel, and in the past year has tried its luck abroad, offering its service in 20 cities in the US, the UK, and Russia. In New York, one of the important cities where GetTaxi is trying to get a foothold, it is branded as Gett, a limousine service targeting businesspeople.
The reason for the branding is the attempt to compete with rival taxi service Uber, which operates in dozens of cities in the US and other countries, and is considered the leading company in the field through its Uber app. Uber saw Gett's growing popularity in the US, and decided on a very dirty trick.
Earlier in January, Uber employees ordered more than 100 Gett limousines, but cancelled the order moments before the limousine arrived at the meeting point. After the cancellation, the Uber employees sent the Gett driver an SMS with an offer to leave the company and join Uber. The perpetrators were not junior Uber employees; among the 12 employees involved were several top managers.
Gett CEO Jing Herman compared the incident to a "denial of service" attack. "During a very short period of time when we had a hundred cancellations that took up a hundred drivers, those hundred drivers could have served a hundred of our legitimate customers who weren't able to get a car or had to wait much longer to get a car," she told CNNMoney.
Unexpectedly, Uber admitted to the incident. "The sales tactics were too aggressive and we apologize for our outreach approach to these drivers," said Uber on its blog. "But to be clear, there was no time spent by the providers, as the requests were canceled immediately and Uber did pay cancellation fees for these requests. We have messaged city teams to curtail activities that seek lead generation by requesting transportation services."
It is not clear what the legal implications of Uber's tactics might be, and Gett may decide to sue it for the damage to its reputation and financial losses.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on January 26, 2014
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