The Federal Trade Commission filed a lawsuit against Uber, alleging the rideshare and delivery company charged consumers for its Uber One subscription service without their consent, failed to deliver promised savings, and made it difficult for users to cancel the service despite its “cancel anytime” promises.
According to the FTC, the path to Uber One cancellation was a messy and confusing one. When customer tried to cancel their subscriptions, they were taken to multiple screens, all of which did not provide a clear option to cancel. Specifically the complaint states that “For any consumer wishing to cancel Uber One, defendants require them to take at least 12 different actions and navigate a maze of at least 7 screens, if they guess the right paths to use, despite there being no mention of cancellation until the fourth screen.”
“Americans are tired of getting signed up for unwanted subscriptions that seem impossible to cancel,” said FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson. “The Trump-Vance FTC is fighting back on behalf of the American people. Today, we’re alleging that Uber not only deceived consumers about their subscriptions but also made it unreasonably difficult for customers to cancel.”
In its complaint, the FTC alleges that Uber used deceptive billing and cancellation practices. For example, the complaint alleges:
- When signing up for Uber One, customers are wrongly promised savings of $25 a month. Even if that were true, Uber does not account for the cost of the subscription (up to $9.99/month) when calculating those savings. The company also obscures material information about the subscription (for example, by using small, greyed out text which consumers can easily miss). Many consumers say they were enrolled without consent; the complaint quotes one consumer saying they were charged despite not even having an Uber account.
- After sign-up, Uber charges consumers before their billing date. For example, some consumers who signed up for a free trial say they were automatically charged for the service before the free trial ended even though Uber promises customers the ability to cancel at no charge during the trial period.
- When customers try to cancel, Uber makes it extremely difficult. Users can be forced to navigate as many as 23 screens and take as many as 32 actions to cancel. If a customer tries to proceed with cancellation, Uber can require them to say why they want to cancel, urge them to pause their membership or, if that failed, present them with offers to stay. Some users are told they have to contact customer support to cancel but are given no way to contact them; others claim that Uber charged them for another billing cycle after they requested cancellation and were waiting to hear back from customer support.
The FTC alleges that the company’s deceptive billing and cancellation practices violate the FTC Act and the Restore Online Shoppers’ Confidence Act (ROSCA), which requires online retailers to clearly disclose the terms of the service they are selling, obtain consumers’ consent before charging them for a service, and provide a simple way to cancel a recurring subscription.
Uber denied the FTC’s claims, stating that that the company does not sign up or charge consumers without their consent. The FTC’s investigative process “was rushed, unconventional and compounded by the addition of new and unvetted allegations at the last minute,” according to Uber counsel and former FTC Commissioner Christine Wilson. “It is disappointing to see the FTC stray from the rigor and fairness that has long defined the agency at its best,” said Wilson, who was appointed to the FTC by President Donald Trump during his first term. 