Uber customer charged more than £10,000 for a 21-minute ride in Toronto

A customer was charged over $18,000 for a five mile trip
AFP/Getty Images
Alexandra Richards11 December 2017

An Uber customer was hit with an expensive surprise after being billed more than £10,000 for a 21-minute ride.

An unnamed man was allegedly charged the outrageous amount after ordering an Uber in Toronto, Canada.

On Twitter a woman named, Emily Kennard, who was allegedly friends with the man, took to social media to share her dismay at the £10,766.85 ($18,518.50 CA) cost of the trip.

She wrote: “My friend was charged 18K ($) for a 20 Min ride (!), and they are sticking to it. What in the world??? This is insane!”

The Uber receipt was first posted on Instagram under the username “votethehish” who has a private account.

Followers quickly began to weigh in on the issue.

Jonathan Jones wrote: “Is this for real?”

Another struggled to see how it happened, pointing out that Uber usually informs a customer of the cost of their trip before they travel.

Uber uses a ride estimate tool to inform customers how much their ride will cost.

Using the tool, IBTimes predicted that the five mile trip should have cost £7-£10.

However, in this case, the customer was using a version of the app available in Toronto called Uber TAXI. This version of the app works in a similar way to a regular taxi when the fare is determined by a meter in the car.

Uber confirmed the glitch was real in a statement which said: “There was an error here and it has been resolved.

“We have provided a full refund to this rider and apologised 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."

In September, the San Fransisco-based company was stripped of its licence to operate in London by Transport for London.

It was announced on Monday that the company will continue to operate in the city until next spring when the hearing to defend it's licence will take place.

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