Uber charge Coventry man £606 for 20 minute journey to Ivy House

A man from Coventry was charged £606 by Uber for a 10 mile trip, after the driver continued to drive around for nearly five hours once he was dropped off.

Rich Phillips, 27, ordered the taxi from a festival in Coventry to Ivy House, which should have been only around a 28 minute journey.

But, Mr Phillips was stunned when he woke up the next day to see that his account showed that the Uber driver had travelled from Coventry to London and then to Nuneaton on a 243-mile trip lasting four hours and 42 minutes.

After seeing this charge to his account, he complained to Uber about the fare, and explained that he was not in the car, but with friends in a local pub. Even though he provided timestamped CCTV surveillance footage of himself at the bar in Coventry, while his taxi was in London, Uber refused to refund him.

Uber claimed that a passenger was still in the car and "all riders must be responsible for their own account activity."

Mr Phillips said: "I was in complete shock when I saw the charge to my bank account from Uber, especially since I was only in the car for about ten minutes.

"We were in the Ivy House bar all night and had a great time but to wake up to a charge for £606 for a trip from Coventry to London to Nuneaton was just horrendous.

"I thought when the bar gave me the CCTV footage showing us in the bar at the time of the trip that Uber would listen to me but they didn’t want to see the footage and now are just refusing to help."

CCTV Footage of Rich Phillips in Ivy House

"£606 is a lot of money and I can’t believe they’ve been so unreasonable. I’ll never use Uber again after this."

In messages from Uber to Mr Phillips on the app, Uber said: "The trip was requested from the device associated with your account, and we see no illegitimate logins from any other device prior to the trip taking place.

"To further understand what may have happened, we reached out to the partner driver who advised there was more than one passenger in the vehicle and the passengers requested multiple stops along the way.

"We are sorry to hear that it appears someone else may have taken your trip request. Unfortunately Rich, all riders must be responsible for their own account activity.

"We hope you can understand that we will be unable to make any adjustments to the fare in this instance, as your journey was completed from pick- up to drop- off.

"This leads us to believe this is a legitimate trip taken by you. Your partner- driver needs to be fairly compensated for their time on the road.

"His account was reimbursed in full when Uber were approached for comment."

An Uber spokeswoman said: "We are always happy to review a trip if there are concerns about the route taken, and provide a fare adjustment when appropriate.

"In this case, we apologise that we did not meet our usual high standards of customer care, and the customer has been fully refunded for the trip."

Featured image: SWNS / Uber