Uber Glitch Leads to Overcharge: Can I get a refund?, By Christopher Elliott

FEATURED COLUMNIST Uber Glitch Leads to Overcharge: Can I get a refund?

By Christopher Elliott

Darrick Collins thinks he’s going to pay $20 for a ride in Los Angeles. But Uber charges him $98 instead. What’s going on? ••• Q: Uber is charging me $98 for a ride in Los Angeles. But I only agreed to pay $20 for it. The system kept glitching when I was on the app. I denied all of the high offers and took the lowest. They also canceled two drivers who were under $20. Can you help me get a $78 refund, please? — Darrick Collins, Inglewood, Calif. •••

Uber’s app should have charged you what it said it would — not a penny more.

But you have to keep in mind what Uber is trying to get. It wants to extract the most money it can from each ride. When I enter a destination on my Uber app on St. Simons Island, Georgia, it offers several choices, including the less expensive UberX and the slightly roomier — and pricier — UberXL.

But in California, Uber displays its rates differently*, which appears to be what happened to you. The system allowed drivers to set a higher rate, which most passengers rejected. Uber disabled the system that allowed drivers to set a higher fare multiplier.

It appears that when you requested your ride, you had several cars that set a higher fare multiplier. You turned them down but somehow still got matched with one of the more expensive drivers. That’s a glitch.

When you notified Uber, it should have quickly corrected the problem. It did not. You made numerous efforts to contact Uber, but it still didn’t help. Fortunately, I list the names, numbers and email addresses of the Uber customer service contacts on my consumer advocacy site, Elliott.org: https://www.elliott.org/ company-contacts/uber/

This is one of those rare problems that Uber seems to have fixed for its users before I contacted them. But it kind of forgot to take care of the problems it created for some of its users before the policy change. When you’re dealing with hundreds of thousands of trips, as Uber does, it’s easy to lose track of complaints like yours. But that’s no excuse.

You could have reached out to Uber or initiated a credit card dispute. You kept a thorough paper trail, although you didn’t have screenshots of your accepted rides. It’s unrealistic to expect anyone to take a screenshot of a transaction that appears successful. But you almost have to do that nowadays. Otherwise, a company like Uber can overcharge you by $78.

I contacted Uber on your behalf. A representative reviewed your case and agreed that the app was glitchy at the time you used it. “Without getting into the weeds, this one seemed to have been a combination of a few things,” he told me. Uber refunded the difference. n *https://www.uber.com/blog/california/ upcoming-changes-to-the-driver-app/ •••

Christopher Elliott is the chief advocacy officer for Elliott Advocacy. Email him at chris@elliott.org or get help with any consumer problem by contacting him at http://www. elliott.org/help © 2021 Christopher Elliott.

“Used CPAPs” from page 21

COVID-19 cases in India have surged since April, with thousands of deaths reported daily, and projections are that the country may experience 1.16 million total deaths by October. About 500 people each day die of Covid in India, according to Johns Hopkins University.

Experts are expecting a third wave due to the Delta and Delta-2 variants, putting even more pressure on an already-inadequate healthcare system. Ventilators and oxygen are in critically low supply.

In rural areas, vaccination rates remain low and only 10% of the world’s population is vaccinated, according to IndiaCovidSOS.org, which plans to send the modified CPAP machine to wherever in the world COVID-19 help is needed most urgently.

In Santa Cruz County, spare CPAP/BIPAP machines can be dropped off in Santa Cruz at the Valero gas stations, 1319 Ocean St. or 2202 Mission St., or in Watsonville at the 7-Eleven, 1455 Freedom Boulevard.

To request a prepaid shipping label to mail your spare machine at no cost to you or for more drop off locations, see https://www.indiacovidsos.org/equipmentdonation or see https://docs.google.com/ forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSf5Kk4konIeuK x2EtOzJ4i9xu3Exa4wzrFQwVjdBjhO mDoLYg/viewform

For questions, call 408-842-5037, Dr Attraya’s Gilroy Family Dental Office, or email vdevadhar@salesforce.com n

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Photos: Volunteers collecting and modifying CPAP machines for use as non-invasive ventilators for people with COVID-19 in India.