Taxi Driver Online

Uber passenger who took 5 mile trip across London is charged more than £800 'after app showed he had been taken 200 miles to Manchester'

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/articl ... d-800.html

● Matthew Cook, 32, has been left with a £830 Uber bill after travelling in London
● Recruiter said he accidentally clicked an address in Manchester, not his home
● But he claimed the driver only took him from Liverpool Street to Lewisham Way
● Mr Cook alleged that Uber has not refunded him because he booked the journey

An Uber passenger who took a five-mile trip across London claimed he has been charged more than £800 after the app allegedly showed he had travelled 200 miles to Manchester.

Matthew Cook, 32, of New Cross, London, claimed he was given a shock on Friday morning when he woke up to an £830 bill from Uber after he apparently booked a trip to Manchester.

The recruiter booked an Uber from Liverpool Street to his house in Lewisham Way in London at 1.11am on Friday, but said he believes he accidentally clicked an address in Manchester, where he had been staying the weekend before for a charity cycle.

Mr Cook claimed that the driver asked him where he was going after he got in the car, so he confirmed his London address, and he was then dropped off at his home a mere five miles away in New Cross.

But Mr Cook claimed he woke up early on Friday to a £830.91 bill from Uber after the app allegedly showed he had travelled 227 miles to Manchester and was apparently dropped off in the city at 6.57am.


Images: Daily Mail

He explained: 'My most recent trip was an Uber in Manchester but underneath that is my home. I must have obviously clicked the Manchester one.'

He said he called Uber at around 7.45am and sent the company screenshots of his Google Maps, showing he was in London so could not possibly have been dropped in Manchester just under an hour earlier.

But he claimed Uber told him that he would have to pay for the journey as that was what he had booked, despite his claims that he had not travelled to Manchester.

Mr Cook said: 'I sent my location this morning, which was an hour after I was meant to be dropped in Manchester, and I'm in London.

'It's impossible, nobody could get back from Manchester that quickly.

'If I'd have fallen asleep and I'd been dropped off in Manchester, I would have been like 'OK I've f**ked up here, but there's no reasoning from them and no budge. It's been like banging my head against a brick wall.'

Mr Cook said there had clearly been an error, claiming that the driver '100 per cent' did not drive all the way to Manchester after dropping him in New Cross, London.

He added: 'I'm £830 down, which is more than my rent! It's outrageous.'

Mr Cook claimed that he has 'flown to Australia' for less than £830, claiming that it is 'frustrating' that he has been told to pay for a trip he did not take.

He continued: 'The service I got was a lift six miles to my home, not 227 miles to Manchester.

'I hold my hands up, I was there last weekend, but you only get two options on the Uber app - your most recent trip and the one before that, which was my home - I've obviously hit the wrong one.

'I'll hold my hands up, but there's been an obvious error here. They should be able to give the money back.'

Mr Cook claimed that he was told by Uber that they could not get in touch with the driver or track him, and he said he was told it was a 'legitimate trip'.

A message from Uber to Mr Cook on Friday read: 'We're sorry to hear about the trouble with the trip. We understand this has been frustrating.

'This trip was requested from a device previously associated with your account, and the pickup/drop off locations are consistent with your trip history.

'We are considering this a legitimate trip, and are unable to make any adjustments to the fare at this time.

'Please, let us know if you have any details regarding this trip that you would like to share with us, and we'll be happy to take another look.'

MailOnline has contacted Uber for comment.

I'm guessing this has something to do with Uber's new fixed pricing - often the driver will be left going a bit further than the stated journey for the same money, but with jobs like this they'll be quids in

Seriously, though, I suspect Uber will refund the fare. Eventually

I see one or two people in the comments (including an ex-Uber driver) suggesting that the driver would have dropped the passenger then drove to Manchester and back empty to get the fare

At a rough guess I suspect the passenger just accepted the quoted fixed fare to Manchester without actually checking it (on 2.5x surge) and was charged accordingly despite the trip not actually happening

Wasn't there a suggestion a while back that the drivers could change the destination in the App ?

If so did he do the correct journey then fiddle the system to show him doing the longer ?

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lack of modern legislation is the iceberg sinking the titanic of the transport sector

Dunno how it all works, precisely, but you'd have thought it wouldn't be too easy to game the system like that.

If the fixed price quote is accepted, then that'll be what's charged unless the journey is 40% *further* than the originally stated trip, as per how drivers have been complaining and striking etc.

But I wonder what the algorithm does when the trip is *shorter* than the one quoted for? Maybe the quoted fare is just charged anyway, and that's what's happened here

If Uber are pricing each individual fares on some sort of weird algorithm based system instead of basing them on a solid set of travelled Fare Mileage rates then they should be investigated....it's a poor way to to do business.

He would have had to to get the route confirmed on the app.

Quite shameful IMO.

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IDFIMH

Well they are now using fixed and quoted fares instead of taxi-style metering via the app. Which is one of the issues that some drivers are striking over. As reported in the Times a few weeks ago:


So not clear whether this system might have been a factor in the article at the top of the thread

The route on the map was the route the driver, or at least the phone, took.

If the driver cleared the job when the punter got out then the route would just show a London to London route.

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IDFIMH