FTC sues Uber for alleged deceptive subscription practices
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is accusing Uber of duping consumers in how it enrolls and charges them for its Uber One subscription service.
In a complaint filed in the U.S. District Court of Northern California on April 21, 2025, the FTC alleged that Uber has been charging consumers for its Uber One subscription service without their consent, failed to deliver promised savings, and made it difficult for users to cancel the service despite its “cancel anytime” promises.
Specific charges the FTC is making against Uber include:
- Wrongly promising customers savings of $25 a month when they sign up for Uber One, which was introduced in 2021 and has a full-price cost of $9.99 per month or $99.99 per year.
- After sign-up, the FTC says Uber charges consumers before their billing date. For example, some consumers who signed up for a free trial have told the FTC they were automatically charged for the service before the free trial ended, even though Uber promises customers the ability to cancel at no charge during the trial period.
- When customers try to cancel, the FTC claims that Uber makes it difficult and users can be forced to navigate as many as 23 screens and take as many as 32 actions to cancel. If a customer tries to proceed with cancellation, Uber can require them to say why they want to cancel, urge them to pause their membership or, if that failed, present them with offers to stay.
The FTC says Uber does not account for the cost of the subscription when calculating those savings and also obscures material information about the subscription via methods such as using small, grayed-out text which consumers can easily miss).
In addition, the FTC alleges that consumers have been enrolled without consent. The complaint quotes one consumer saying they were charged despite not even having an Uber account.
The FTC also alleges that some users are told they have to contact customer support to cancel but are given no way to contact them and some have claimed that Uber charged them for another billing cycle after they requested cancellation and were waiting to hear back from customer support.
The FTC claims that the company’s deceptive billing and cancellation practices violate the FTC Act and the Restore Online Shoppers’ Confidence Act (ROSCA), which requires online retailers to clearly disclose the terms of the service they are selling, obtain consumers’ consent before charging them for a service, and provide a simple way to cancel a recurring subscription.
[READ MORE: Federal government streamlines subscription cancelation]
"Americans are tired of getting signed up for unwanted subscriptions that seem impossible to cancel," said FTC Chairman Andrew N. Ferguson. "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."
The FTC is allowed to take action against Uber as part of a governmentwide consumer protection initiative known as "Time Is Money” which the Biden administration launched in August 2024. See the complaint here.
In an email to CNBC, an Uber spokesperson refuted the FTC’s allegations and said the company is confident it will prevail in court.
"Uber One’s sign-up and cancellation processes are clear, simple, and follow the letter and spirit of the law," the spokesperson told CNBC. "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."
Based in San Francisco, Uber started in 2010 and has facilitated more than 52 billion trips.
