The Federal Trade Commission brought a legal action on Monday against Uber, alleging that the Driving and Delivery giant billed customers for its Uber One subscription service without their consent. The trial also claims that Uber has failed to achieve the promised savings in its subscription service and has made it unreasonably difficult for users to cancel it despite its promises “cancel at any time”.
Uber denied any reprehensible act and accused the FTC of precipitating the investigation process and based its demands on “unrecovered allegations”.
The trial comes after the FTC pushed companies with subscription services to make them easier to cancel by its previous director, Lina Khan. In October 2024, the agency finalized its “click to cancel” rule which forces companies to make the cancellation of a subscription as simple as registering for one. Despite the challenges of industry groups, the rule should come into force on May 14.
“Americans are tired of registering for unwanted subscriptions that seem impossible to cancel,” said FTC president Andrew Ferguson in a statement. “Trump-Vance’s FTC retaliates on behalf of the American people.”
The FTC complaint, which follows an investigation that started last year, alleys that Uber’s customers were wrongly $ 25 per month.
“Even if this was true, Uber does not take into account the cost of the subscription (up to $ 9.99 / month) when calculating these savings,” reads an FTC declaration. “The company also obscures material information on the subscription (for example, using a small gray text that consumers can easily fail).”
The complaint accuses Uber of automatically invoicing consumers who have registered at a free trial before their billing date. He also alleys that Uber makes “extremely difficult” for customers to cancel, in which users can be forced to navigate “up to 23 screens and take up to 32 actions to be canceled”. These actions come in the form of explaining why they want to cancel, dealing with Uber urging them to suspend their membership, and if that fails, the presentation of the offers to stay.
“Some users are informed that they must contact customer support to cancel but have no way of contacting them; others claim that Uber invoiced them for another billing cycle after requesting cancellation and waited to find customer support” reads the FTC declaration.
Uber said that before, customers who wanted to cancel within 48 hours of their registration date should contact customer support to cancel. The company says that this is no longer the case. Techcrunch has contacted to learn when Uber has updated its policy to allow these customers to cancel in the application.
The complainants push the court to prohibit Uber from continuing its alleged deceptive practices and forcing the company to pay a monetary compensation.
“We are disappointed that the FTC has chosen to go ahead with this action, but we are convinced that the courts will agree with what we already know: Uber One’s registration and cancellation processes are clear, simple and follow the letter and the spirit of the law,” said a spokesperson for Uber in a press release. “Uber does not register or invoice consumers without their consent, and cancellations can now be made at any time in the application and take most people 20 seconds or less.”
Tim Muris, a former president of the FTC who represented Uber during the period of investigation of the case, accused the FTC of not having made a complete investigation and of based its complaint on the “misunderstandings of the facts and the law”.
Uber’s current foreign council, Christine Wilson, said: “The unconventional nature of the precipitated investigation process that preceded this application action has been aggravated by the addition of new and not evaluated allegations at the last minute. It is disappointing to see the FTC move away from the rigor and equity that has long defined the agency to its best. ”
The base of Uber One members reached 30 million in 34 countries in 2024, and the company claims that it increases approximately 60% in annual shift. A year ago, Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi, said Uber’s membership fees would have “more than $ 1 billion” in 2024.
