Man charged $18,518 for Uber ride after glitch with the app

IF YOU are the type of person who weighs up the cost of catching public transport versus an Uber, spare a thought for this poor guy, who copped a whopping fare.

A TORONTO man was forced to shell out more than $A19,000 for a eight kilometre Uber ride, when a glitch in surge pricing caused his bill to skyrocket.

The passenger posted an image of the overblown receipt — which notes his trip took just 21 minutes — under the Instagram handle Votethehish on Friday.

It shows he was charged $18,518.50 ($A19,133.31) in Canadian cash when the ride should have cost between $A12 and $A16, Slate reported.

“Thanks for choosing Uber,” wrote his driver, whose name was listed as Hisham.

Uber at first refused to give him a refund, the website reported.

But his pal, Emily Kannard, slammed the brakes on that, by calling the company out on Twitter.

My friend was charged 18K for a 20 Min ride (!), and they are sticking to it. What in the world??? This is insane! @Uber_Support @badassboz @Uber pic.twitter.com/RjFihVLKIC

— Emily Kennard (@emilykennard) December 9, 2017

Uber later admitted the mistake and refunded his cash.

“There was an error here and it has been resolved,” Uber said in a statement.

“We have provided a full refund to this rider and apologised to him for this experience. We have safeguards in place to help prevent something like this from happening, and we are working to understand how this occurred.”

This isn’t the first time an Uber fare has given someone grief, with New Year’s Eve surcharging catching numerous people out.

Just ask Sydney woman Skye Shanahan who was stung $720 for a ride from Sydney’s Neutral Bay to Blacktown that would normally cost $100. Or Perth man Kris Keen, who has lodged a formal complaint after his 20km Uber trip that would usually have cost $37 ended up leaving him $332 out of pocket.

And then there was Canadian Matt Lindsey who hailed an Uber for an hour-long ride with multiple stops on New Year’s Eve that ended up getting costing him $A1500.