UBER Charges A Techie Rs 5325 From Bangalore Railway Station To Satellite Bus Station
‘Peak price’ is a word that freaks out our brains, only the frequent cab users know how painful the charges can be at times. Here’s the case of a techie from Mysuru, who hired an Uber cab from the City Railway station to the Satellite Bus Stop, Mysore Road.
The surprise popped out at the end of the 6-km ride, in the form of a bound-breaking bill with Rs 5,325 shown. Now, Praveen BS, the passenger has to pay the whole amount if he wants to deboard the cab. Coming to the details, the passenger had taken the cab to get back to Mysuru and as he did not have the Uber App, he went to the aggregator’s kiosk at the City Railway Station to book his cab earlier.
When asked about the incident, Praveen has said:
“I had to reach Mysuru early, but I missed the 3.30pm train and so decided to take a cab to reach the Mysuru Satellite Bus stand. I boarded the cab KA01G0590 at 4.30 pm. At the destination, the driver pressed the end trip button on his device. The bill amount showed Rs 5,352. I asked the driver, who told me that the current fare is Rs 103, and the rest is your previous balance. This, I could not believe as I was using Uber only for the second time in two years.”
Post the cab drive, Praveen even told the driver there might be a technical glitch in Uber’s billing system. “I will pay Rs 103 only, I said, to which the driver said, no way” he concluded.
Responding to Praveen, the driver said that he has to pay the remaining amount of Rs 5000 if the passenger refuses to pay. The driver even insisted that Uber might have charged him so much because he might have forgotten to pay his previous Uber trips. Now, when the driver called the Uber support, he was told to collect the amount in the bill and not allow Praveen to de-board.
“I refused to pay the bill and then the driver called up the police control room, who asked us to get in touch with the jurisdictional police. I was happy that we were going to the police station to sort the issue out instead of getting into an argument there,” said Praveen.
Here’s an another issue, now that the duo has decided to go to the police station, who will pay the cab charges to the station? Praveen urged the driver for foot walk, but after some argument, both reached the PS in the cab.
“At the Byatarayanapura police station, I had to explain the entire episode to policemen, who heard both the parties and told the driver that he can charge only Rs 103!”
Santhosh Kumar Senapati, the driver finally responded to the media, saying “The bill was actually for 103, but since the App showed it as Rs 5,352, I asked him for it. I could do little as I was scared they would deduct the entire Rs 5,000 from my account. When I persisted, the Uber support group said that I had to collect the entire bill or else report to the police station. After police intervened and spoke to the customer support team, I was told to collect Rs 103. The remaining amount in the bill would be Rs 5,250 rupees for which Santhosh was reimbursed only on Thursday.”
Even, Praveen concluded that the mistake is on Uber side, the driver was just following his duty.
“It was logically impossible to charge Rs 5,000-plus for a short ride. And I had to waste my time, miss my bus and go to the police station, while I was desperate to reach Mysuru before dark as I have a sick child at home. I wish all this was sorted out in the cab, instead of me having to go to the police station,” said Praveen.
Later, to this, Praveen didn’t quit his take, he then filed a case on Uber. When asked about this, he said: “After going there, I filed a complaint of excess meter charging. But, then I was asked to go to the crime police to file a case on harassment, and keeping me hostage and rude behavior. I reached Mysuru and have sent the complaint by post to the Byatarayanapura Crime Police marking a copy to the DCP.”
Meanwhile, after resolving the money issue, an Uber official later said: