Dive Brief:
- The Federal Trade Commission is probing Uber for its subscription practices for Uber One, the ride-hailing company confirmed Monday. Bloomberg first reported news of the investigation last week.
- Uber One is the ride-hailing company’s subscription offering that provides consumers savings on Uber and Uber Eats for $9.99 a month or $96 a year. The Uber One platform has 25 million members, Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi said in an October earnings report.
- “We will continue to answer any questions the FTC may have about our cancellation policies,” an Uber spokesperson said via email Monday. "The Uber One cancellation process follows both the letter and the spirit of the law: Uber One members can easily cancel their membership in the app — in fact, the majority of those cancellations take 20 seconds or less.”
Dive Insight:
Under the Biden administration, the FTC has cracked down on companies’ subscription practices. In October, the agency finalized its “click-to-cancel” rule to make it as easy to cancel subscriptions and memberships as it was to sign up for them.
Over the years, some users have complained about the difficulty of canceling Uber One, claiming the process was so frustrating that they gave up on canceling and simply asked their bank to stop charges.
In response to CX Dive’s request for comment on the probe, the agency said Monday via email that it “does not confirm or deny the existence of investigations and does not comment on investigations that have been publicly disclosed by the companies.”
The agency has recently sued several companies for their subscription practices, including Adobe and Care.com.
The “click-to-cancel” rule requires businesses to provide customers with a simple method to immediately halt recurring charges and to obtain consumers' express informed consent for recurring charges.
The rule is set to go into effect on Jan. 14, 2025, but businesses have until May 14, 2025, to comply with certain provisions.
