The email on the right is especially disappointing. Lyft says that the DMV and their background checks are holding applications up. So let’s look at those two issues.

The DMV

When it comes to pulling driving records, the DMV is not the nightmare that many people associate with their own visits to the DMV. It’s not exactly like Lyft has to bring a big stack of driver record requests down to the San Francisco DMV on Baker Street, take a number, and wait.

The DMV is actually much faster. Just think about the last time you applied for car insurance. Your insurance company was able to pull your driving record in SECONDS, not minutes, hours, days, or weeks. You can actually request your own record as well, though the public doesn’t get the same system as insurance companies. Just check out This Link

So the DMV holding up applications is looking a bit fishy.

The Background Check

Lyft uses a background check company named Sterling Back Check. You can visit their website here. According to Sterling, their typical background check is completed within 48 hours.

Lyft claims that such a large influx of background checks has bogged down their system and they are “outside their control”. Sounds a whole lot like Lyft is squaring the blame on Sterling. If Sterling was a small company of 20 people, 1000's of new driver applications would probably overwhelm them. But how many people does Sterling actually employ?

According to Sterling’s website:

“Our more than 2,200 employees serve over 20,000 customers around the world, including a quarter of the Fortune 100.”

Wow… That’s definitely not some small startup. Sounds like Sterling has this whole background check thing down. They have 25 of the largest companies in the world as customers. So one would think that they could handle an additional few thousand background checks without breaking a sweat.

And in fact they can. As many users have pointed out, their background checks have been complete for days. But still Lyft has kept them waiting.

(EDIT: I emailed Sterling myself to check on the status of my application, and got this response. So, the hold up does not appear to be with Sterling, despite the clear indication from Lyft that it was.)

So What Gives?

Lets go back to this email from earlier in the story.

I mean, Wow! 1000's of applicants, and $1000 for them and $1000 for their referrer. That’s at minimum of $2 million that they could be liable for right there!

More than anything, it really seems like Lyft never had any intention of paying out on their driver referral program and now they are trying to find a way to weasel out of it. More than anything, it’s disappointing.

I was genuinely excited to join Lyft. The experience all the way through the mentorship program was positive and fun! But now all this drama has created a rift between Lyft and its drivers. They’ve got quite a PR disaster looming, and the next steps they take are going to be watched very closely.

Meanwhile, I’ll just be sitting here, waiting for my approval to drive, wondering if I’ll ever get the chance to give someone a Lyft.