One day, I received a shocking email from Lyft informing that my account had been deactivated indefinitely, without any prior warning or explanation. This abrupt deactivation left me without a source of income, and I was deeply distressed by the sudden loss of my livelihood.
I tried to contact Lyft’s support team to understand the reason behind my deactivation and to request reinstatement, but I received only automated responses and vague explanations that did not clarify the issue. Despite my persistent efforts, Lyft remained unresponsive to my inquiries and requests for clarification.
I was left with no choice but to consult with legal counsel. Together with my attorney, I decided to sue lyft for deactivation, seeking not only reinstatement of my account but also compensation for the financial hardships I had endured during the period of deactivation.
In my lawsuit, I alleged that Lyft had violated its own terms of service by deactivating my account without providing any specific reasons or opportunities for appeal. I argued that Lyft’s actions had caused my emotional distress and financial hardship, impacting my ability to support family.
As the case unfolded, legal team gathered evidence to demonstrate that Lyft’s deactivation process was arbitrary and lacked transparency. They also sought to highlight Lyft’s failure to uphold its contractual obligations to drivers, including the promise of fair treatment and due process.
If the case is still in progress you probably want to delete this post until its completed. Judges don’t look fondly on people talking about ongoing cases before they conclude.
You will have probably been told by now that contracts almost never state that the service provider must give a reason why they are terminating the contraxtual relationship.
By suing the firm you will in due course find out their reason as they will probably wish to defend themselves against your charges. You may even succeed in obtaining damages.
I hope you are absolutely certain that in all work under this contract you have not committed any illegal activity, even unknowingly or unintentionally.
Doesn’t have to give a reason? I think it is important to do this every time a contract is concluded, otherwise where is the assurance that the rules of the contract will be respected? If, for example, one of the parties can break the contract at any time and just ignore the other party. He can just walk away without explaining anything. That’s what contracts are for, to avoid misunderstandings between the parties.
as your lawyer will quickly confirm (if you ask) the answer to the question of whether they have to give a reason varies from country to country, according to the overriding contract laws of each jurisdiction
some countries follow what lawyers call the “pacta sunt servanda” policy, which means more or less that if it says in the fine print of the agreement that they don’t have to give a reason, then they don’t have to give a reason, if that’s what both parties agreed to, however unfair or unreasonable that is
in other countries (such as the UK, for example), there are overriding statutory considerations (such as the Unfair Contract Terms Acts of parliament) which can mean (in a case like this) that they do have to give a reason and that it has to be a reasonable and valid one (this gives rise to a lot of litigation, of course,and lawyers love it!) regardless of what was actually agreed to in the contract by both parties at the time of its formation
so, as you can see, it’s not a simple question you’re asking there, at all
and online forums are a dreadful place to be discussing legal considerations of this kind, because everyone has an opinion but (almost) nobody actually has the exact, appropriate and correct knowledge and experience to be right
i wish you good luck and low legal fees
my guess is that you will get nowhere further than legal bills, but i’ve been wrong before, and i hope i am again, this time
I recently got my access to some of the functions to the William Hill betting and gaming app removed without my knowledge and without telling me why. I took them to task over it and after two days of being fobbed off all they could tell me was I wasn’t using the app as intended. I’ve broken no rules and have indeed used the app as intended, which is for betting and gambling. What they are referring to was that I was winning rather than losing and they don’t want people to win so they restricted my access to all the areas of the app I was making money from, but left open the parts I was losing on.
I suppose I have a case and could probably take them to court, but what’s the point, they’ll win. I’ll just choose another company to fleece instead!
you may possibly be able to get that resolved in your favour without taking them to court
if you send them one letter from a solicitor they’ve heard of who is known for specialising in the Gaming Acts, announcing your intention to appear at the Magistrates Court next time their group gaming licence is up for renewal (that happens once a year) and object to it being renewed - which any member of the public can do - they may well back down, just to avoid nasty publicity when you invite a lot of journalists along
(this happened to Ladbrokes at one point in the 1970’s and it cost them millions, and the industry doesn’t forget things like that! it’s a “trick” that’s been very successfully used several times since then, over the decades, unsurprisingly)
it’s not trivially easy to do, and you do need to pay for one lawyer’s letter, but it may well work - if you think it’s worth doing, that is
it’s poor customer service to not give a reason but it might be legal for them, both in your jurisdiction’s contract legislation and in the terms of the actual contract.
But in their defence they might have concluded that you in some way breached their terms of service and this takes away from them any obligation to be nice to you.
In some situations, which might relate to financial security measures and regulations such as anti-money laundering, the firm will almost definitely not tell you why they terminated the contract and they will say that to do so would undermine their security or legal obligations.
There we have it!
Winning accounts get resticted and/or closed by bookmakers including Betfair.
I was closed and banned from betting in William Hill shops in South London in 2000. They even have IDs on their shop monitors of successful punters. It’s just got worse with the pending Gambling Commission report, they are making very intrusive affordability checks which punters are refusing to comply with - the horseracing industry is freaking out because of potential loss of levy when punters migrate to illegal bookmakers.
Bookmakers are a law unto themselves, big corporations, long gone are the days of old when bookmakers would stand up to be shot at and bet their opinion against yours - oh the good old days!
Of course they ban winning customers. They’re not a public service, it’s a profit-making company. If you were running any kind of business, wouldn’t you ban the customers who just kept costing you money?
Bookies do it, casinos do it. Clothes shops will do it if you buy stuff repeatedly and keep taking it back for a re-fund. A china shop will ban you if you keep breaking their displayed stock accidentally. I got restricted in a computer shop once when I kept breaking the rubbish joysticks they were selling me: they said I could still be a customer but just no more joysticks. Hey ho.
