An undisclosed number of drivers who work for Uber Inc in Chengdu, the capital of Southwest China's Sichuan Province, have been banned from picking up customers after being accused of falsifying orders to make more money under the company's incentive plan, domestic news portal jiemian.com reported Tuesday.
The Chengdu branch of the car-hiring firm announced Monday on its twitter-like Weibo account that the company explicitly prohibited drivers from falsifying orders, and drivers involved in the alleged behavior have been banned.
Media reports said that starting September 14, drivers in central Chengdu and some of its suburban counties, including Xinjin, Shuangliu and Jintang, were banned by the company.
Uber's incentives for drivers have helped the company expand fast in the domestic car-hailing market, but they also prompted some drivers to engage in the practice that got them banned, according to the media reports.
In the country, drivers who work at least 70 hours per week and get 100 orders are classified as a "super group". An additional 50 yuan ($7.84) is paid to them if they get 10 orders daily and 100 yuan is awarded for 15 orders, jiemian.com reported.
The banned drivers account for only a small part of Uber's drivers in Chengdu. Most of the drivers closely comply with Uber's rules and help promote the development of the car-hailing platform, a spokesman of Uber China told jiemian.com.
Uber's move aims to protect the legitimate rights and interests of the most honest drivers, the spokesman said.
China is Uber's second-largest market after the US, and Chengdu ranks in the top 10 cities for the company's business development.
Uber has had to pay about 900,000 yuan for fake orders every day, and the company has tried to lower the fake orders in recent months, the spokesman said.
Uber has promised to advance the innovation of its technology to uncover cheating on condition of the protection of its drivers' privacy, according to jiemian.com.
