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Nasir and Matt discuss the legalities of surge pricing and how one company is flipping the script on surge pay. Full Podcast Transcript NASIR: All right. Welcome to our business legal podcast where we cover business in the news and add our legal twist to the show. Mmy name is Nasir Pasha. MATT: And I’m Matt Staub. NASIR: All right. Welcome. So, again, for the second time, I feel like I just should repeat myself after Groundhog Day a couple of days ago. We’re talking about surge pricing today. Unfortunately, we’re not focusing on Uber but I think we’ll have to talk about them, right? We get to talk about them, right? MATT: Yeah. I mean, they’re kind of the ones that put it in the spotlight – at least recently they have. We’ll talk about surge pricing and I think everyone knows pretty much what that is but, for those that don’t, we’ll use the Uber example really quick even though I know you don’t want to. They have a certain rate for when you want to take a car or want to take a ride somewhere. But, if the demand is really high, they bump up their prices and then your ride is whatever – a multiplier of 1.5 to et cetera. So, you pay more during peak times. That’s kind of the surge pricing model. Well, there’s this company, Zappos, which I believe is, are they shoes? NASIR: No, they do shoes but I think they do other apparel, too. MATT: They are testing out surge pay so it’s not surge pricing per se but it’s the same sort of concept and it’s dealing with their employees in their call centers. And so, I’m not sure of the exact arrangement they have and I think it’s still relatively new, too. But, essentially, they tried this open market pilot that they tested out and it gave every employee 10 percent flexible time so you’re not working the same exact hours every single day, every single week, and the thing with this is, like I said, it’s surge pay. So, if you’re working at a time when the demand in the call center of this customer service center is really high, they actually pay you more and, if you’re working in times where it’s not, you get paid less. It’s an interesting concept. Let’s say you’re on the East Coast and it’s early and a lot of people are calling in, especially because no one’s calling in on the West Coast, you know, it might not be as high a call time but, in the middle of the day, when both East Coast and West Coast people are calling in, the IRS is kind of a similar thing. When I call in to them, I’m realizing now that I structure my calls at a time when I think most Eastern Time zone and Central have all done for the day because that’s peak times. So, it’s an interesting concept, but I wanted to talk about the whole surge concept in general. NASIR: I think, in this case, it’s pretty neat in that the surge pricing aspect of things, people are somewhat uncomfortable with it – not only customers are uncomfortable with it but even cities and governments are uncomfortable with it too – because there are anti-gauging laws that are put into effect in certain circumstances and, if you think about it, when Uber implements them and these other companies that may do the same thing, they do it when supply may be low and demand may be very high. But, since the surge pricing for Uber and other companies, it’s done on an algorithm or done automatically based upon how many people are requesting a ride and how many rides are available, sometimes, it can have some – I don’t know if it’s attended or unattended but – results in the sense that, during a national tragedy or a storm, for example, surge pricing can go into effect. In just this last month, we’ve seen the same thing happen in France during the last terrorist attack though the surge prices were done taken away manually but they kicked in as soon as that happened. And then, also, with this last winter storm last week on the East Coast, that was also kicked in. But the difference is now, with East Coast specifically and I think in New York City specifically – in ...