Uber has agreed to pay more than $2million (£1.68million) to settle US government claims that its waiting time fees discriminated against customers with disabilities.
The company also agreed to waive fees for disabled users in the future.
More than 1,000 people had complained about the charges, which often apply if you get in the car for more than two minutes.
Uber said its policy is to reimburse waiting fees for disabled drivers.
In settling the lawsuit, the transportation company denied wrongdoing.
“It has long been our policy to reimburse drivers with a disability for waiting time fees if they alerted us that they were being charged,” the company said, adding that prior to the lawsuit it had made changes to accommodate the Automatically waive waiting time fees for disabled drivers when Uber is notified that they have been charged.
- Uber Files: Greyballing, Kill Switches, Lobbying – Uber’s Dark Tricks Revealed
- Leak reveals top politicians who secretly helped Uber
Uber began charging wait-time fees in some cities in 2016 and eventually expanded the practice, according to the lawsuit filed by the U.S. Department of Justice in November.
The average fee is less than 60 cents, the company said at the time.
As part of the agreement, Uber agreed to pay more than $1.7 million to about 1,000 passengers who complained and an additional $500,000 to some individuals identified by the Justice Department.
Officials said the settlement would also bring “hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars in compensation” for the more than 65,000 people who signed up for the waivers.
“People with disabilities should not be made to feel like second-class citizens or be penalized because of their disability, which is exactly what Uber has done with its wait time fee policy,” Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke said in a statement.
It’s not the first time Uber has run into trouble because of disabilities.
Last year, a blind woman in San Francisco was fined $1.1 million after being denied a ride 14 times. In the UK, Jack Hunter-Spivey, a Paralympic medalist, said Uber and other cab drivers regularly pulled out when they saw he was in a wheelchair.
Add Comment