- The Federal Trade Commission has filed a lawsuit against Uber, alleging the company used deceptive practices to market and manage its Uber One subscription service. The complaint centers on claims of misleading savings and a deliberately complex cancellation process. It’s the first major tech lawsuit to be brought under the Trump administration’s FTC.
The FTC is suing Uber over claims it engages in “deceptive” billing and cancellation practices through its subscription service, Uber One.
The agency is alleging that Uber misled its users about potential savings and made cancellation difficult, violating consumer protection laws. The agency claimed that some users had to click through up to 23 pages and perform 32 actions just to cancel their subscriptions.
Uber spokesperson Ryan Thornton told Coins2Day: “We are disappointed that the FTC chose to move forward with this action, but are confident that the courts will agree with what we already know: Uber One’s sign-up and cancellation processes are clear, simple, and follow the letter and spirit of the law.”
“Uber does not sign up or charge consumers without their consent, and cancellations can now be done anytime in-app and take most people 20 seconds or less,” he added.
It’s the first major tech lawsuit to be brought under the current Trump administration. The Federal Trade Commission has several ongoing lawsuits against Meta, Google, and Amazon. While some of these legal battles began under the Biden administration, the agency was already ramping up enforcement during Trump’s first term—with Meta becoming one of its most prominent early targets.
“Americans are tired of getting signed up for unwanted subscriptions that seem impossible to cancel,” FTC Chair Andrew Ferguson said in a statement. “The Trump-Vance FTC is fighting back on behalf of the American people. Today, we’re alleging that Uber not only deceived consumers about their subscriptions, but also made it unreasonably difficult for customers to cancel.”
Late last year, Bloomberg reported that Uber was facing an investigation from the U.S. Consumer watchdog into its flagship subscription plan. At the time, the company defended its cancellation policy and said it was cooperating with the FTC to answer the regulator’s questions.
Uber One
Launched in 2021, Uber One offers members benefits like free delivery fees and discounts on select rides and orders for a fee of $9.99 a month or $96 annually. As of December, Uber said the service had around 30 million subscribers, according to the company’s most recent annual report.
The FTC is claiming that customers who signed up for Uber’s subscription service were wrongly promised savings when they signed up. In its lawsuit, the regulator argues that Uber advertises its subscription service as offering savings of $25 a month, but fails to include the monthly cost of its membership in this calculation. It also accuses the ride-hailing company of charging consumers before their official billing date.
The case is not the first time Uber has faced scrutiny from the FTC.
In 2017, the company settled allegations that it had misrepresented its privacy and data security practices. The following year, it agreed to pay $20 million to resolve claims that it had overstated potential driver earnings in its recruitment efforts. Most recently, in 2022, Uber avoided criminal charges through a settlement in which it acknowledged that employees had failed to disclose a 2016 data breach affecting 57 million users and drivers.
