An American tourist was charged nearly $30,000 for a June Uber ride to the airport in Costa Rica, thanks to a currency mix-up.
Dominique Adams said her “heart sank” when she saw a $29,994 charge at her bank for the Uber ride, part of a trip to celebrate her five year wedding anniversary with her husband.
"I was definitely worried that I was not going to get my money back because Uber and my bank were not helpful or providing me with any type of solution," she told Newsweek. "It was a constant battle."
The mix-up occurred when she was charged $29,994.33 for a ride that should’ve cost 29,994 Costa Rican colones, the equivalent of just over $55.
"My bank and Uber were basically blaming each other," she said in a TikTok about the experience, which went viral, adding, her bank "basically told me that it was my fault because I put a travel notice on my card, and because of that the charge was able to bypass all of the security measures, all of the policies that were in place."
Uber said once it was alerted to the issue it quickly worked to resolve the problem.
"At Uber, we take every report seriously,” the company toldInsider. “As soon as we received the user’s report, our support team promptly addressed the issue and released the authorization hold mistakenly applied due to a bank error in Dollars and not in Colones."
"However, the time it takes for the refund to be processed depends on each bank’s policies,” Uber added.
Ms Adams’s husband, Douglas Ordonez, said on Twitter the issue had been resolved.
“ABSOLUTELY NO REASON why this amount should have cleared. After 4 full days 29k was finally adjusted,” he wrote.
