Tech companies have often been accused of making it hard to cancel subscriptions, but Uber appears to have taken things to a whole new level! It’s being sued by the FTC for forcing Uber One subscribers to take as many as 32 separate actions when they want to cancel.
The Federal Trade Commission also says that Uber illegally started charging subscribers before the end of their free trial period, and lied about the cost savings …
Uber’s 32-step cancellation process
Uber One is a subscription service which claims to offer a range of benefits, including discounts on rides, free delivery with some food orders, and selection of the highest-rated drivers for your trips. However, not all subscribers were happy with the service, and the company appears to have made it as difficult as humanly possible to cancel.
Engadget reports on the lawsuit.
“Users can be forced to navigate as many as 23 screens and take as many as 32 actions to cancel,” the commission claims. The company also reportedly charged some users before their bill their free trial was up, and misrepresented the savings Uber One offered by not taking its subscription fee into account.
The lawsuit says that Uber’s actions violated the FTC Act and the Restore Online Shoppers’ Confidence Act, 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.”
Uber admits that users could start being charged two days before their free trial ended, an issue it says it has now fixed, but denies the other charges.
A new law was introduced last year, in which companies were required to make it as easy to cancel a subscription as it is to start one.
Bluesky blue checks
Social network Bluesky has started rolling out its own account verification process, emulating the blue checkmarks first introduced by Twitter before they were devalued as part of the X rebrand.
Wired reports that it’s currently being limited to accounts whose authentication matters most, but will later be open to all.
“It’ll be a rolling process as the feature stabilizes, and then we’ll launch a public form that people can use to request verification,” says CEO Jay Graber. The highest-priority accounts right now are government officials, news organizations and journalists, and celebrities.
Tariffs hit more tech imports
The impact of tariffs on technology imported from China and elsewhere is continuing to have unwanted effects.
BBC News reports that DHL has suspended all deliveries to US consumers for goods worth more than $800, citing the increased bureaucracy introduced by the Trump administration to apply the new tariffs.
Game Boy clone maker Anbernic has also suspended all shipments to the US, reports The Verge.
Airbnb now shows true cost of a stay
Finally, Bloomberg reports that Airbnb is now showing customers the true cost of a stay in search results, in order to comply with a law banning hidden costs, introduced last year.
Previously, costs shown in lists were highly misleading, as they excluded cleaning and service fees, which had a particularly large impact on sort stays.
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