Imagine what it’d be like to open a receipt for a cab ride, only to learn that you were charged $12,000 for the privilege of using an app to get a ride home. For one New York City woman, this type of nightmare became a reality after Uber sent her a bill for what appears to be a lifetime of chauffeured rides.
According to DNAinfo, Jaime Hessel used the car service to get home after a charity fundraiser in late May. According to her, her driver wasn’t the best she’d ever had. In fact, it sounds like the commute to her house was pretty hellish:
“We get to Meeker Avenue and all of a sudden, the driver starts taking phone calls and checking his voicemails,” said Hessel, who works in finance.
“Then he started missing turns. He went right past McGuinness [Boulevard]. He went on the on-ramp to the BQE. Then he slammed on his brakes and starts going in reverse. I started freaking out saying, ‘What are you doing?’ He said, ‘No, I got this.'”
It only got worse from here:
“He gets in the left lane to go downtown,” Hessel said. “I said, ‘Sir, we need to go uptown,’ and he swerves back to the ride side and slammed on his brakes. He was really good with his brakes. I’ll give him that.”
Hessel’s driver even merged into the bus lane in order to make up for some of the time he’d spent showing off his brakes. But the real issues began when Hessel was charged $56.40 for the driver’s ineptitude. She contacted Uber to get them to lower the fare and they sent her a receipt for $12,000:
“It freaked me out,” she said. “I have bad eye sight and I thought maybe I wasn’t reading it correctly.
The company told Hessel they were looking into it, but her terror is understandable. Being told you owe Uber the value of two mid-range ponies (I checked) must have been a nerve-wracking experience.
Uber has since apologized for their mix-up and hopes that Hessel will continue using the service, but she’s not so sure. Her boyfriend, who originally posted the story on Reddit, writes that they’ve offered her a credit, but she’s not giving them a new credit card number any time soon.