A $789 Uber ride to go 0.03 km? Woman battling Uber after account hacked

Symone Somerville starts her workday long before the sun rises at 4:30 a.m. She’s in her 20s and for safety reasons has relied on Uber drivers to get her to work safely.

“It’s mainly for safety reasons as I go to work when it’s still dark so I have used Uber basically every day. It has become an essential service for me,” Somerville said.

A service she can no longer use.

“They’ve banned my device, so changing a phone number or an email wouldn’t work in this situation,” she said.

It all started on April 8, when Somerville woke up and opened her Uber app.

“I had a receipt from Uber of a charge of $789. Obviously, this shocked me, because I had not gone anywhere this day.”

---

When she looked at the details of the trip, she was even more convinced her account was compromised. 

“The trip was in Courtice, Ont., which is a city that I have never been to. I’d never heard of it until this point, and when I looked into the receipt details, I saw the drive only moved 0.03 kilometres.”

The total time for the trip was two hours, and the receipt showed a hefty tip to the driver in the amount of $157.

---

Somerville immediately contacted Uber support.

“They asked me for some screenshots and some details, which I sent them over. I then received a response where they were blaming me for this charge, saying that I must have given my password to somebody or a family member had access to my account, and that they were not going to look into it.”

The money was taken from her account, and after she said Uber support was not helping. She alerted her bank to report what she believes is fraud. Her bank disputed the charge.

“I believe that if my bank didn’t dispute the charge, Uber would not have given me my money back.”

Somerville believes her Uber account was hacked. She shared with CityNews her requests to get the ride-sharing giant to look into her case, but the responses thus far have left her frustrated.

“I still don’t know how this person got into my account. Uber would never answer the question of what really happened,” she said.

Whoever is behind it set up two-factor authentication, which meant that when Somerville went to access her app, she was blocked.

“I then reached out to Uber again, and that is where they told me that they had restricted my account and my device and that I had violated their terms and conditions and that I was no longer able to use the app,” she said.

Somerville then reached out to Speakers Corner in the hopes we could get answers for her case.

We contacted Uber multiple times, asking where the investigation stands, if they’ve contacted the driver involved and why Somerville’s device is no longer able to access the Uber app. We got no response, not even an acknowledgement that our request was received by their press office.

Uber does recommend that riders set up their own two-factor authentication to combat fraud. Somerville admits she did not do that, but even so, says she expected better from a service she has used for years.

“I would say to them that their response was completely unacceptable. It was unprofessional, and if this is how they treat their loyal customers, they don’t deserve to have customers at all,” she said.

If you have an issue, story or question, you’d like us to look into, contact us here.