One Millennial in Toronto got the shock of his life last Thursday evening when Uber charged him C$18,518.50 (around US$14,398) for a 5-mile trip from 12 Widmer, ST to 30 The Queensway in Toronto, that should have cost C$12 to C$40.
According to Votethehish’s friend, Emily Kennard took to Twitter and said, “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”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)
While combing through the dozen of replies to the initial tweet. We stumbled across an interesting interaction where Kennard said, “Uber is not backing down at the moment” from charging C$18,8158.
Uber appears to be shaking up more than the Taxi market in Toronto with its dynamic pricing model. One Twitter user replies, “surge pricing must have been 10,000% that day.”
Frustrated Twitter users voice their concerns for Uber, and even delete the app.
According to the Inquirer.Net, Uber issued a statement saying there was an error in the dynamic pricing model and it has been resolved.
“We have provided a full refund to this rider and apologized to him for this experience. We have safeguards in place to help prevent something like this from happening, and we are working to understand how this occurred,” the statement read.
Less than two weeks ago, we reported on a rather embarrassing moment for Uber, where a trifecta of events including investors drop out of the latest financing round, hackers steal 57 million customer profiles, and another massive quarterly loss are adding to speculation that Uber is a “Dead Unicorn Walking”… (see: Uber Reports Massive $1.5 Billion 3Q Loss As Two Investors Drop Out Of New Financing Round.)
Considering Uber’s statement reads, “we have safeguards in place to help prevent something like this from happening,” in Mr. Votethehish’s case, where were the safe guards?
