Man charged Dh53,000 for 20-minute cab ride

A man in Canada got the shock of his life when the Uber he travelled in charged him over 18,000 Canadian dollars for a 20-minute ride. We all, at some point, have paid extra for a short ride in the cab due to surge pricing, but that was not the case here. Being charged exorbitantly for an in-city trip is a nightmare for any customer.

This Canada man travelled in an Uber cab from Widmer Street to The Queensway in Toronto on Friday evening, precisely just 7.7km apart. It took the cab about 20 minutes to drop the customer to his destination, a journey that should have cost him $12-16. However, when the trip ended, the man was shocked to see a bill of $18,518 Canadian dollars (about Dh53,000).

The man posted the screenshot of the trip and the bill on his private social media account, which was reshared on Twitter by a woman claiming to be his friend.

"My friend was charged 18K for a 20 Min ride (!), and they are sticking to it. What in the world??? This is insane!" she tweeted.

According to reports in NDTV, Uber said in a statement to Slate that the customer had been given a full refund. "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. We have safeguards in place to help prevent something like this from happening, and we are working to understand how this occurred," an Uber spokeswoman told Slate.