US couple charged ₹24 Lakh for one Uber ride: Surprising reason revealed

A US couple on vacation in Costa Rica faced an exorbitant Uber ride fare due to a currency conversion issue, resulting in a charge of approximately ₹24 lakh ($29,994) instead of the expected ₹4,500 ($55).

During their fifth-anniversary celebration, Douglas Ordonez and Dominique Adams encountered an unexpected event when their Uber ride was charged in US dollars instead of Costa Rican Colón. The mistake left them with a negative bank balance.

Why Uber exorbitantly charged the couple?

Adams explained that the Uber app displayed the fare as 29,994.33 in Costa Rican colón, equivalent to roughly 55 US dollars. However, they were shocked to discover a charge of $29,994 USD in their bank account.

"Uber charged me $29,994 USD for a Uber ride in Costa Rica. They did not convert that into the Costa Rican currency $54 USD. Altura credit union allowed this charge to process and Uber is not complying. Now I’m in Guatemala with a negative balance on my five-year anniversary," Ordonez said in a tweet.

Altura Credit Union, their bank, informed Adams that the charge had gone through despite her smaller daily spending limit on her debit card because she had placed a travel notice on their account for the trip.

Uber accept their mistake

Uber responded to the incident, acknowledging the mistake and attributing it to a bank error in converting the currency.

"At Uber, we take every report seriously. As soon as we received the user's report, our support team promptly addressed the issue and released the authorization hold mistakenly applied due to a bank error in Dollars and not in Colones," reported Business Insider.

The couple gets their money returned

After four days of back-and-forth between Altura Credit Union and Uber Support, the couple finally saw an adjustment to the $29,000 charge, resolving the issue.

"AlturaCU and Uber_Support are blaming each other. AlturaCU stated that the 29k amount bypassed security & daily charge limit because we put a travel notice. ABSOLUTELY NO REASON why this amount should have cleared. After 4 full days, the 29k was finally adjusted," Ordonez updated in a subsequent tweet.