I choose my disguise

“I can’t work for Uber under my own name and I pay 25€ to the owner of the account, some pay more. He provides me with a photo, a false name, and a bank account where the money even goes straight to him. You’ve got to be able to trust them, because some have done a runner with other people’s money. I don’t exist. If I ever have an accident, it didn’t happen.

“We are given dislikes without knowing the reason why. Customers sometimes don’t even know their own addresses, we climb so many flights of stairs every day and then if something goes wrong, it’s always our fault and we end up being blocked from the app. How are we supposed to eat while we wait to be allowed back on?”

“Customers call me Marcelo, but that’s not my name, I always think it’s for someone else, sometimes I don’t even look” [laughs]. They always ask me why it’s not me in the photo and I always say that’s my cousin who’s sick at the moment. But I don’t like it.”

“You get the job done and then the next day you open the app only to find your rating has gone down. So you get given less orders. You send emails, no-one responds, there’s no number to call. We’re always being evaluated and there’s no way to defend yourself. Everyone has a say, except for us.”