The Federal Trade Commission filed a lawsuit against Uber on Monday, complaining to ride-hail and delivery giant charged customers for his Uber One Subscription Service without their consent. The case also claimed that Uber failed to supply committed savings to his subscription services and made users inadvertently difficult to cancel despite the “cancellation of any time” promise.
Uber denied any wrongdoing and accused the FTC on the basis of the investigation process and its claim on the basis of “uninterrupted complaint”.
The case comes after the FTC pushes companies with subscription services to make it easier to cancel under its previous director Lina Khan. In October 2024, the company has finalized its “Click to Click” Rules for which companies need to be discarded simple subscriptions such as signing up. Face -to -face Some challenges By industrial groups, the rule is expected to be effective on May 14.
FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson said in a statement, “Americans are tired of sign up for unwanted subscriptions that seem impossible to cancel.” “Trump-Vans FTC is fighting for American people.”
The FTC complaint, which followed the investigation that began last year, complained that Uber customers were incorrectly promised to save $ 25 a month.
“Even if this is true, Uber subscription costs (up to $ 9.99/month) when calculating these savings, not accounting,” Statement From FTC “the company also obscures information about subscription (eg, smaller, grade out text that customers can easily miss)” “”
The complaint has been accused of automatically charged customers signed up for trial before their billing date. It also complains that it makes “extremely difficult” to cancel Uber customers, where users “can” take about 32 steps to navigate and cancel about 23 screens “. These verbs come in the form of explaining why they want to cancel, call on Uber to break their membership and present the offer if it fails.
“Some users were told that they had to contact customer assistance to cancel but no way to contact them; others claimed that Uber had charged them for another billing cycle after requesting their cancellation and listening to customer support.”
Uber made clear that before, customers had to contact customer assistance to cancel those who wanted to cancel within 48 hours of their sign up date. The company says there is no more case. TechCrunch has reached learning when Uber has updated its policy to allow customers to cancel the application.
The plaintiffs are pressing the court to continue his alleged fraudulent practices of Uber and force the company to provide financial relief.
“We are disappointed that the FTC has chosen to move forward with this step, but the confident courts that we already know: Uber One’s sign-up and cancellation processes are clear, simple, simple, simple, simple, simple, simple, simple,” a Uber spokesman, “said a Uber spokesman,” a Uber spokesman said in a statement. “Uber does not sign up or charge customers without their consent, and cancellations can now be applied at any time and most people can take 20 seconds or less.”
During the investigation of the case, the former chair of the FTC of Uber complained on the allegations of the FTC FTC failing to investigate the FTC and “misunderstanding both information and laws”.
Uber’s current outer consultation, Christine Wilson said, “The obsolete nature of the fast investigative process before this enforcement step was more complicated by adding new and uninterrupted complaints at the last minute.
Uber One member base has reached 5 million in 5 countries in 2021, and the company says it is increasing by about 60% year after year. A year ago, Uber Chief Executive Officer Dara Khosvashahi assumed that Uber One’s membership fee would be “more than $ 1 billion” in 2021.