Uber, the most famous ride-hailing company, has been sanctioned for unfairly charging additional fees to people with disabilities.
Accused of discriminating against people with disabilities, Uber has reached an agreement with the judges, as announced on July 18 by the United States Department of Justice in a press release. According to the report, Uber will have to reimburse “additional fees” applied by the service to 65,000 users already identified, and will incur more than $2 million in compensation for the others affected.
The claims related to the additional waiting charges the app imposed on users. When ordering an Uber vehicle, the customer has up to two minutes to board the vehicle, with additional charges then automatically applied until the ride begins. Some users were unable to get into the vehicle within two minutes due to their disability. Thus, many customers were charged “waiting fee“additional.
Uber collects controversies
Considered as discrimination, and violating the American law on the handicap, Uber was thus condemned to compensate the various users unjustly taxed, more especially as the company was aware that some of them needed more two minutes to get into a vehicle. Some 65,000 users of the platform have already filed a report and will be reimbursed double the pending fees they were charged, which could amount to between hundreds of thousands and millions of dollars. In addition, Uber will pay $1,738,500 to more than a thousand users who have complained about the situation, and another $500,000 for directly affected individuals identified by the Department of Justice.
“We are pleased to have reached this agreement. We are always striving to improve accessibility for all users and encourage users with disabilities to use our self-declaration form to obtain waiver of wait time charges.“, told The Verge Uber representative Carissa Simons.
The multinational has been in the eye of the storm since the revelations linked to the Uber Files, an investigation carried out by the Guardian with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ). It highlights tens of thousands of documents showing various controversial practices, such as lobbying or the use of anti-search software.