Lack of credit card security with Uber and Uber Eats

Electronics & Technology
1

Hi,
I have had an account with Uber for around 6 months without a problem until recently.
Whilst I’ve often thought about using Uber Eats, I’ve never done so.
On checking my credit card statement recently, I noticed 10 charges totalling $553 from Uber Eats.
These charges were spread out over a two week period.

Immediately I cancelled my credit card with the bank & contacted Uber via their app on my phone, as it is impossible to contact them in any other way.

On contacting Uber, they were helpful & sympathetic & promised to look into immediately.
Initially they asked whether I was aware of a person called Christina, another Uber member, that had apparently used my credit card details on her Uber account to purchase 10 different food orders through Uber Eats. It would seem that if you have an Uber account, you also have an Uber Eats account.
I said I did not know anyone called Christina, nor had I authorised anyone else to use my credit card or Uber account.

Within a day, Uber messaged me telling me that they had investigated the issue & the money would be paid back into my account within a week.
Whilst I was happy with this outcome, I was curious & concerned how this could have happened in the first place & what could be done to catch the perpetrator. Uber advised that this could have been caused by a person capturing our credit card details from a scanner or similar & that another Uber account holder (Christina) had the identical payment details as me. In other words, the other person had been able to set up an account with my credit card.

Whilst I couldn’t get a straight answer from Uber, it would seem that more than one person or user can use the same credit card to open & operate a Uber account. This makes me wonder how many accounts a person could potentially operate with a stolen or copied card.
My question is this; as Uber have my credit card details already, shouldn’t their system flag a problem when another member is using my credit card? It would seem not.

The other answer I had for Uber is what were they going to do about it. I would have thought, as a minimum, they would contact police, as they possess all the information that would be needed to track this person down. Apparently not. Uber referred me to the terms & conditions area on their website, which says that this is not something Uber are prepared to do, that is up to the individual to pursue. Rather than contact police, Uber immediately cancel the offending persons account, which obviously alerts them that there is a problem. I asked Uber several times why they aren’t interested in playing a part in catching offenders, they replied by saying that this would be against their privacy policy.

I would have liked to follow the matter up with police, but the running around would surely mean me taking a day off work, which isn’t feasible at present.
I remain very disappointed with this outcome. In my opinion, Uber have not fulfilled their civic duty by reporting this to police & certainly don’t give me an confidence in trusting them with my credit card details in the future

Steve
Brisbane

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One reason is that partners sometimes have (primary-secondary) credit cards with the same numbers, and each may have good reason to have separate accounts, so one account per card number would not be on as a matter of practicality.

We had a bogus mobile account set up with our card a few years ago. Fortunately we caught it (almost by accident) within hours. The telco was relatively helpful in shutting it down. We had all the details of the identity thief/fraud including the address. Taking it to the police was one of the most unrewarding experiences ever. The police had no clue what to do it anything. At the time their position was that if we had no loss we had no problem, but they dutifully put it in their report log.

I doubt businesses have had any better an experience and if dudded with a loss they have to hire the silks to prosecute just as we would, and proving criminality can be quite difficult so for small amounts nobody is usually interested. Businesses factor in often substantial amounts to cover such losses, and the write-offs are usually far less onerous to their P/L than costs of prosecuting.

Scammers of all sorts are well aware of how the system works (or in reality doesn’t work) and are happy to take advantage since they know the bounds of their impunity.

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I have an Uber driver account and an Uber Eats account. I recently ordered something through Uber Eats and instead of charging me once ($26), they put another charge ($36) onto the credit card. I eventually found out that this extra charge was from my Uber driver account. The first problem is, I didn’t owe any money for that account. As far as I know, it’s not even possible to owe money because they always take the money out before even getting in the Uber. I double checked anyway and I definitely didn’t owe any money. The second and more serious issue is, the card from my Uber Eats account that they took the money off was not even my card and definitely had not been authorised on Uber Driver.

Uber Driver and Uber Eats are run as two separate businesses. I understand that it’s the same company but they are different businesses. What gives Uber the right to access personal financial details like that from one business to another separate business? I would have thought it is highly illegal. To make this seriously worse, the card they accessed between businesses was not and never has been authorised with Uber Driver.

Upon trying to sort this out, I quickly realised that it is impossible. There is no phone contact at all for Uber Eats and there is no email option in the app. It only provides useless information but nowhere to contact them.

As the only option was to call the Uber Driver phone number, that is what I did. This has gone over three days and each day I’ve spent 20-40 minutes on the phone. Each time they assured me that someone from Uber Eats would call me back. On the second day, I received an email from them that night. Via email I tried to explain that I was waiting for a phone call. On the third day after calling them again, I was told that no one would be calling me and I would receive an email.

What a horrible horrible company to deal with. I will never use Uber again, for anything. I’m now lodging a complaint with the ACCC to hopefully get this resolved.

Has anyone else had any similar experiences and if so, how did you get it resolved?

Thanks.

5 Likes
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Hi @AlexM

Welcome to the forum. Sorry to hear about your problem with Uber’s charging.

I have moved your post to an existing thread where someone else posted their credit card issues with Uber.

I would suggest you go to Facebook and post your complaint on their Uber Oz page if you can. Probably get a response quite quickly. (You might mention that you have posted on the matter to Choice, and there is interest in Uber’s lack of credit card security.)

Keep us informed on how you go.

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Unfortunately our police are too busy investigating serious crimes, like the unauthorised (as opposed to authorised) leaking of information to journalists, and who in a minister’s office tampered with a page of the Sydney City Council’s annual report before providing it to a friendly ‘reporter’. Wait, sorry - the second one isn’t serious enough.

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I don’t know the contract agreement you have with Uber but like all great privacy agreements (sarcasm), they may allow them to share the information with their other entities, their partners, their suppliers, their advertisers and generally anyone else they care to add to the contract document. So that may explain the CC detail transfer as the parent company may be the holder of your CC data and they share it to subsidiaries as required???

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Dispute the charge with your credit card provider.

1 Like