It Takes One Click To Join Uber One, But Quitting Might Need 32 Actions

The USA’s Federal Trade Commission on Monday launched a lawsuit against Uber, alleging the rideshare giant ripped off customers by enrolling them in its “Uber One” membership scheme without permission, failing to deliver promised savings, and making it devilishly difficult to opt out.

A complaint [PDF] filed in the US District Court for the Northern District of California states: “Uber claims that consumers in an Uber One membership will save certain amounts off ride bookings or food deliveries compared to those without an Uber One membership, and that Uber One consumers can ‘cancel anytime’ without additional fees.”

The reality, the complaint argues, is that some people have reported being signed up for Uber One without opting in and then charged for the service, and that while it is possible to cancel a membership doing so requires “as many as 32 actions” spread across 23 screens of Uber’s app.

The complaint also alleges that Uber charges members of the scheme before the end of free trial periods, meaning some can’t quit before they are charged. Paid members who quit the scheme less than 48 hours before a payment is due are always charged for at least one more month because Uber “never processes cancellations concluded via the in-app cancellation flow in the final 48-hour window.” Some requests to cancel Uber One memberships see customers asked to contact customer service, but the complaint alleges Uber never responds to such requests in time to avoid a payment.

The regulator also alleges that Uber “obscures material information about the subscription (for example, by using small, greyed out text which consumers can easily miss)”

The logic of Uber’s claim that members will save “$25 every month” is also disputed, on grounds that it doesn’t take into account the $9.99 monthly fee.

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“Americans are tired of getting signed up for unwanted subscriptions that seem impossible to cancel,” said FTC Chairman Andrew N. Ferguson in a canned statement that went on to say his agency “is fighting back on behalf of the American people.”

For what it’s worth, the Biden administration also targeted this sort of thing after complaining that some companies “deliberately design their business processes to be time-consuming or otherwise burdensome for consumers … all with the goal of maximizing profits.”

Further, the FTC in 2023 called for companies “to make it as easy to cancel a subscription or service as it was to sign up for one.”

Uber is far from alone in confusing customers. Microsoft recently made its Copilot AI service opt-out, but made it very hard to find the tools to do so. Epic Games refunded some customers after they racked up purchases they didn’t understand. Amazon.com has also felt the regulatory lash for practices that saw it cancel orders that customers thought were set to ship, and for placing the text explaining its policies “in gray font on a white background, at the very bottom of the page.” ®