On Friday, Uber erroneously charged a Toronto customer $18,518.50 for a 21-minute ride that was supposed to cost, at most, $16.
Uber confirmed that the bill was an error on Sunday. It says it has since refunded the passenger.
“There was an error here and it has been resolved. We have provided a full refund to this rider and apologized to him for this experience.” said a spokesperson for the company in a statement to Slate. “We have safeguards in place to prevent something like this from happening, and we are working to understand how this occurred.”
My friend was charged 18K for a 20 Min ride (!), and they are sticking to it. What in the world??? This is insane! @Uber_Support @badassboz @Uber pic.twitter.com/RjFihVLKIC
— Emily Kennard (@emilykennard) December 9, 2017
News of the overcharge started to spread when a Twitter user who said she was friends with the passenger posted an image from his personal Instagram account showing the $18,518.50 bill. A variety of publications, including U.S.-based ones like Slate and Business Insider, quickly jumped on the story.
Sunday’s news is just the latest piece of bad press for the San Francisco-based company. The company recently lost its license to operate in London, England. In November, it came out that Uber had paid hackers $100,000 to cover up a cyberattack that exposed the personal data of 57 million users. Closer to home, the company’s main U.S. competitor, Lyft, is launching in Toronto on Tuesday.
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