The latest dark pattern in all these apps is that they will mess up your order/ride and then "refund" you in the form of account credit. There's no way to actually get your money back. Trying to contact support results in an endless loop of help screens and chatbots. If you are able to figure out the magic combination of options that will get you to a support agent they will say "sure we will refund your money" but that is still only going to your app account. The last time I had an issue I literally had to ask them 3 times "I want you to confirm that you are refunding my credit card the amount it was charged" for them to finally agree to it. It is crazy what they can get away with.
Uber is an interesting company in that they were always shady, but initially in ways that customers liked (somewhat illegal taxis ripping off their drivers, for below cost, subsidized lifestyle by VC).
They then flipped the "make a profit" switch and are now shady in ways customers dislike (ripping you the customer off).
Similar to CA's requirement for online cancellations if a subscription is purchased online, there should be a rule that requires the same amount of steps to cancel as it takes to subscribe.
Yes it could still be gamed, but anyone who's worked on user funnels knows that every added step reduces conversion, so it would be self-balancing.
UberOne is why I almost never use UberEats any more and instead use a local competitor.
Shortly after it was introduced it seemed every order of mine would get surprise delayed after pick up as the driver would have to first drop off a different order at >90° different direction from me, no doubt for the user who would get priority for being on UberOne.
I don’t order food often enough to justify a subscription, so I just switched to Mr D(elivery), a local South African company where the delivery time is at least almost always consistent. I also feel a bit better about less of the money leaving the country.
I’m bearish on uber because despite all of these shady tactics they are still barely profitable at the current scale and with enormous tailwinds. Last quarter they made $770 million on $12 billion of revenue. It’s just a lousy business model and they are desperate to beat Wall Street’s ever inflated expectations each quarter.
Uber Eats markets a 2 for 1 deal that I would have only ordered due to the deal. They always add both items when you take the deal to the cart, but they suddenly changed it. I didn't realize I had to manually add both, and only had one delivered. I called them up and they only refunded a portion, and not the whole thing without accounting for the fact that it was an opportunity cost for me. I would have just bought something else, or not at all. It's tin-foil hatting, but they coerced a purchase imho.
Uber is worth a case study in absolutely horrendous customer service and borderline theft. I haven't used them since they stole $150 from me for an UberEats order I was 10 minutes late to pickup in a one hour window, stating that the pickup windows are firm even for non-perishable goods and failure to show up during the window is a forfeit without refund. They even fought my credit card dispute on the matter. Vile company.
Another dark pattern is consistently underestimating the time to be picked up by a driver. The estimate is always something like 3 minutes, but often the wait time is more like 7 minutes.
Same for Uber Eats. They estimate 25 minutes for a drop off, but it's often more like 45 minutes.
I’m disabled and rely heavily on food delivery apps and stopped using uber/postmates about a year ago. I somehow got tricked into paying $40 on a $6 order. I went back through the flow to see where I messed up, the screen did show my order amount that I expected, but after many many emails and messages with support, this discount didnt apply because I didn’t hit some “minimum” on the order, so they went ahead and charged the full amount (not what was displayed, or if it was, was done in an extremely dishonest/obfuscated way).
I am far from a novice computer/device user. you’re already making a decent amount of money off me and the slave labor wages you pay your workers, why try to aggressively milk every penny I have? I stopped using it after their joke of an outsourced customer support would not do anything but run me in circles. How much did losing my business cost them in revenue vs. the blatant petty theft in dark patterns would have gained? There has to be a day where all these user hostile apps triggers some response from people like “no, enough of this.”
As a driver for Uber Black and Black SUV services, I would like to express some concerns regarding the treatment of drivers and customers by the company. It seems that Uber prioritizes the interests of its board of directors and shareholders over those of both drivers and riders.
One issue I have observed is the disparity in compensation offers for similar ride requests. For instance, two drivers might receive the same request, yet each is offered a different amount of payment. It appears that the platform may take advantage of drivers who are known to accept lower fare rates by directing them less profitable rides.
Additionally, I want to share some insights that may not be widely known. Uber has led many passengers, including google AI search into providing false information to everyone regarding there payment structure. They have majority of everybody out there believing that drivers receive 75% to 80,% of the total trip cost, while the company (uber) retains 25% to 30%. However, based on my five years of experience with the platform, the actual compensation for drivers is closer to 25% to 30%, with Uber retaining 75% to 80%.
I encourage you to verify this for yourself during your next ride by inquiring with your driver about their earnings in relation to the fare you paid. This will provide a clearer picture of the company's compensation practices.
There is a pressing need for regulations to prevent companies from exploiting their workers in such ways. Unfortunately, meaningful change may be hindered by the connections some board members have with high-ranking government officials. A notable example is Tony West, Uber's board member and chief legal officer, who is related to former Vice President Kamala Harris
I've long suspected these shady practices, and I'm relieved they're finally being exposed. Utilities and others aren’t far behind, sending invoices no reasonable person wouldn’t question.
Since 2019, I've relied on ride-shares and delivery services, consistently questioning their fee structures. During this time, I've spent an unconscionable amount on Uber and Uber Eats alone.
A big shame both to the ones running the show and the ones who trained them to think this is acceptable.
Not only.
Does Uber charge customers unfairly? When you use their g, p, s, they take you the long way to get them to their destination. For Insta.
Nce I picked up a person and they told me take a break.
I thought to myself. 1 2 49 is to my left, but it took me 2 miles to the right out of the way.
And backtrack me back to 249. Not only did that put more gas and mileage on my car. It took more time to get my customer there. This has happened to me on many occasions. That's why I quit them in just 1 week. I've got a lot of complaints but I won't bore you with the details.
My suggestion stay away from
During the early days of Uber, it was breaking Australian trade practices law in the regulated taxi industry. Uber told drivers it would give them financial backing, if taken to court.
I believe this was in itself, a significant departure from business ethics: It may be the regulations were bad, but inviting drivers to become scofflaw and offering them indemnity from payment in civil suit, feels like taking corporate lawfare into a new realm.
Quite aside from this disregard for Australian Business law, Uber was transfer pricing the profits from the taxi business into the USA. It operated at a loss in Australia, and exported a lot of revenue to the USA.
There was, and continues to be, many problems with taxi as a business, and the regulator was highly deficient. These problems relate to reliability, driver ethics, safety for women, minorities (things like drivers refusing to take seeing-eye dogs, and hassling solo women riding home) -I'm not blind to the failure here and I do not personally view this as "all regulated industries are worse than free enterprise" -the regulator just couldnt be bothered enforcing it's requirements.
The real problem was that the cost of a taxi plate rose over a 20 year period at 2-3 times the rate of inflation. Towards the end, a taxi plate was a $500k investment and was owned by many ex accountants, lawyers, doctors and the like as a massive capital gain, independently of the social utility of running taxi as a function. -This destroyed the real driver cooperative movement, and made restriction of entry to taxi a necessary economic forcing function: all attempts to add drivers deflated the capital value of the plate, and were opposed by the current owners.
When this was eventually liquidated (Dublin for example) the capital losses were extreme. A $500k plate could drop to $10k or less. A lot of people had life savings eroded, the industry collapsed. Brisbane wasn't much different. Canberra had this too.
London, cities with a high barrier to entry like "the knowledge" and the LEZ have different models. I don't know if Uber is in London.
I’ve found that apps like uber, coinbase, robinhood etc that offer subscriptions can opt you in somewhat unexpectedly because most people are accustomed to an IAP confirmation screen. They can bypass this due to the nature of their subscription, so one too many “continue” taps and bam you’re subscribed. They don’t display pricing so prominently either.
Happened to me with coinbase, I accidentally subscribed and got charged for 3 months. Luckily they were able to refund me since I didn’t actually use the service.
> 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
Funny enough I had to take an uber today but it was taking too long so I wanted to cancel the request and call a taxi, I was asked 4 times if I wanted to really cancel, small things like that really do just inflict a little bit of pressure it’s a horrible practice. The fact that a company comes up with these dark patterns to squeeze every cent from you says everything you need to know about them.
When arriving to new countries getting Uber from airport to hotel, different Uber accounts get different price quotes. Enough so, it is better to purchase a burner phone and get a sim card at the airport because the savings on Uber will cover the difference after a few trips. Nonetheless, Uber is 1000% safer and better than the taxi mafia.
I can't express how angry it makes me that I only had access to taxis for a couple years in the city before they were all pushed out and rates were jacked, screwing both the customer and the driver providing the value. It will take decades to reverse this course even if everyone has decent intentions, and shareholders rarely do.
Uber is a complete scam. One of their legal numbers directed me to a person speaking with an accent and requesting me to pay a fee for something completely unrelated to what I had ask... it was a literal scam. They have stolen my food twice in a row and Uber decided it was appropriate to say no refunds even though by policy it is still lawful to provide me with a refund...
Uber rides and Uber eats is a whole scam... they are CONTACTLESS... someone with power should be doing something about this because their complete scammers and do not care to follow the policies they stipulated over themselves... ridiculous.
THANK YOU, FTC! Holy shit. I was enrolled in Uber One and cancelling it was insanely difficult. I was convinced they purposely made their support pages near impossible to navigate. Fuck Uber.
I know, its veering into court-politics- but is the FTC now "selectively active" as in, if the king deems your company out of favor for lack of tributes, it becomes active?
Now please investigate their teaser rates to get you to choose Uber as a transport option when they know your driver is vapor and/or will cancel then charge 3x congestion pricing on the next refresh when it’s too late to pick another option. Infuriating practices, and the drivers seem to keep getting screwed on the gigs.
I was always able to cancel very easily. I’ve done so many X free months of Uber One and it’s been so much easier than cancelling any number of other subscriptions (NYT has still been my worst experience on that front). I’m surprised to see that as a complaint tbh.
I use virtual credit cards for most of my subscriptions. If I can’t cancel via normal means, I cancel the card. We can do this the easy way or the hard way.
Can’t say whether this is the recommended method for all services but it works for me.
I'm glad we over here have decent public transport, large non-Uber taxi companies, excellent pre-prepared food in supermarkets with high food standards, sidewalks ...
If Uber banned me it would be the mildest of inconveniences. Every airport has an established taxi company (sure, wouldn't be as cheap but I wouldn't be stood up for 45 minutes to 1 hour at night) and some form of public transport. Each city and town still has established taxi companies. Many takeaways still take orders directly.
The answer isn't to try to make a crappy capitalistic company less crappy by slapping their wrists, it's to provide competition and use it
Here I assumed I just fat-fingered something when doing an Uber. I never sign up for the recurring charge stuff and recently saw the UberOne subby and canceled it.
I guess now I'll be a party to the class action and get a gift card in 10-12 years from this BS. Neat!
FTC takes action against Uber for deceptive billing and cancellation practices
(ftc.gov)425 points by pinewurst 21 April 2025 | 264 comments
Comments
They then flipped the "make a profit" switch and are now shady in ways customers dislike (ripping you the customer off).
Yes it could still be gamed, but anyone who's worked on user funnels knows that every added step reduces conversion, so it would be self-balancing.
Shortly after it was introduced it seemed every order of mine would get surprise delayed after pick up as the driver would have to first drop off a different order at >90° different direction from me, no doubt for the user who would get priority for being on UberOne.
I don’t order food often enough to justify a subscription, so I just switched to Mr D(elivery), a local South African company where the delivery time is at least almost always consistent. I also feel a bit better about less of the money leaving the country.
I don’t see those deals on Uber Eats so it feels like the real value of Uber One is for heavy Uber Eats users.
PS. Worth going through the cancellation flow when you are up for renewal as they will probably offer you 50% off Uber One.
A company can save a lot of money by not handling edge cases.
Uber Eats markets a 2 for 1 deal that I would have only ordered due to the deal. They always add both items when you take the deal to the cart, but they suddenly changed it. I didn't realize I had to manually add both, and only had one delivered. I called them up and they only refunded a portion, and not the whole thing without accounting for the fact that it was an opportunity cost for me. I would have just bought something else, or not at all. It's tin-foil hatting, but they coerced a purchase imho.
"CEO donors who gave $1 million include Sam Altman, head of OpenAI; Tim Cook, head of Apple; and Dara Khosrowshahi, head of Uber."[1]
[1] https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/rich-people-and-corp...
Same for Uber Eats. They estimate 25 minutes for a drop off, but it's often more like 45 minutes.
I am far from a novice computer/device user. you’re already making a decent amount of money off me and the slave labor wages you pay your workers, why try to aggressively milk every penny I have? I stopped using it after their joke of an outsourced customer support would not do anything but run me in circles. How much did losing my business cost them in revenue vs. the blatant petty theft in dark patterns would have gained? There has to be a day where all these user hostile apps triggers some response from people like “no, enough of this.”
Dear All,
As a driver for Uber Black and Black SUV services, I would like to express some concerns regarding the treatment of drivers and customers by the company. It seems that Uber prioritizes the interests of its board of directors and shareholders over those of both drivers and riders.
One issue I have observed is the disparity in compensation offers for similar ride requests. For instance, two drivers might receive the same request, yet each is offered a different amount of payment. It appears that the platform may take advantage of drivers who are known to accept lower fare rates by directing them less profitable rides.
Additionally, I want to share some insights that may not be widely known. Uber has led many passengers, including google AI search into providing false information to everyone regarding there payment structure. They have majority of everybody out there believing that drivers receive 75% to 80,% of the total trip cost, while the company (uber) retains 25% to 30%. However, based on my five years of experience with the platform, the actual compensation for drivers is closer to 25% to 30%, with Uber retaining 75% to 80%.
I encourage you to verify this for yourself during your next ride by inquiring with your driver about their earnings in relation to the fare you paid. This will provide a clearer picture of the company's compensation practices.
There is a pressing need for regulations to prevent companies from exploiting their workers in such ways. Unfortunately, meaningful change may be hindered by the connections some board members have with high-ranking government officials. A notable example is Tony West, Uber's board member and chief legal officer, who is related to former Vice President Kamala Harris
Since 2019, I've relied on ride-shares and delivery services, consistently questioning their fee structures. During this time, I've spent an unconscionable amount on Uber and Uber Eats alone.
A big shame both to the ones running the show and the ones who trained them to think this is acceptable.
I believe this was in itself, a significant departure from business ethics: It may be the regulations were bad, but inviting drivers to become scofflaw and offering them indemnity from payment in civil suit, feels like taking corporate lawfare into a new realm.
Quite aside from this disregard for Australian Business law, Uber was transfer pricing the profits from the taxi business into the USA. It operated at a loss in Australia, and exported a lot of revenue to the USA.
There was, and continues to be, many problems with taxi as a business, and the regulator was highly deficient. These problems relate to reliability, driver ethics, safety for women, minorities (things like drivers refusing to take seeing-eye dogs, and hassling solo women riding home) -I'm not blind to the failure here and I do not personally view this as "all regulated industries are worse than free enterprise" -the regulator just couldnt be bothered enforcing it's requirements.
The real problem was that the cost of a taxi plate rose over a 20 year period at 2-3 times the rate of inflation. Towards the end, a taxi plate was a $500k investment and was owned by many ex accountants, lawyers, doctors and the like as a massive capital gain, independently of the social utility of running taxi as a function. -This destroyed the real driver cooperative movement, and made restriction of entry to taxi a necessary economic forcing function: all attempts to add drivers deflated the capital value of the plate, and were opposed by the current owners.
When this was eventually liquidated (Dublin for example) the capital losses were extreme. A $500k plate could drop to $10k or less. A lot of people had life savings eroded, the industry collapsed. Brisbane wasn't much different. Canberra had this too.
London, cities with a high barrier to entry like "the knowledge" and the LEZ have different models. I don't know if Uber is in London.
Happened to me with coinbase, I accidentally subscribed and got charged for 3 months. Luckily they were able to refund me since I didn’t actually use the service.
Funny enough I had to take an uber today but it was taking too long so I wanted to cancel the request and call a taxi, I was asked 4 times if I wanted to really cancel, small things like that really do just inflict a little bit of pressure it’s a horrible practice. The fact that a company comes up with these dark patterns to squeeze every cent from you says everything you need to know about them.
Uber rides and Uber eats is a whole scam... they are CONTACTLESS... someone with power should be doing something about this because their complete scammers and do not care to follow the policies they stipulated over themselves... ridiculous.
Can’t say whether this is the recommended method for all services but it works for me.
If Uber banned me it would be the mildest of inconveniences. Every airport has an established taxi company (sure, wouldn't be as cheap but I wouldn't be stood up for 45 minutes to 1 hour at night) and some form of public transport. Each city and town still has established taxi companies. Many takeaways still take orders directly.
The answer isn't to try to make a crappy capitalistic company less crappy by slapping their wrists, it's to provide competition and use it
I guess now I'll be a party to the class action and get a gift card in 10-12 years from this BS. Neat!