An Open Letter to Uber South Africa: How Many “Small” Charges Are Customers Supposed to Just Accept?

# An Open Letter to Uber South Africa: How Many “Small” Charges Are Customers Supposed to Just Accept?

Dear Uber,

This is not about one R33 charge.

That was simply the charge that made me stop, look properly at my receipts, and realise that I may have a much bigger problem.

I have Uber trips for **every morning this week where I have raised concerns about additional charges**, as well as an afternoon trip. I have also gone back through trips from the previous week because I only realised on Monday what appeared to be happening.

Once I started looking, I could no longer dismiss these as isolated incidents.

**This is a recurring issue.**

And that is why Uber's repeated response that an individual trip is “not eligible for a price adjustment” is completely inadequate.

I am not disputing one isolated fare.

I am asking Uber to investigate a **pattern of charges across my account and my regular trips.**

On Monday, 31 August, for example, my trip showed an estimated fare of **R70**, but the final charge was **R103**. Uber's own charge summary identifies **R2.55 as “Time at Stop”**, among the other components of the fare. I disputed that charge because I had evidence showing that we left the stop within the permitted time.

Instead of investigating the underlying trip data, I repeatedly received essentially the same automated response telling me that the trip was not eligible for a price adjustment.

And this is where my concern becomes much bigger than R33.

### These charges accumulate.

A few rand here.

R10 there.

R20 or R30 on another trip.

An adjustment because of “time and/or distance.”

A wait-time charge.

A route-related increase.

Individually, each amount might appear insignificant.

But when someone uses Uber regularly — particularly to commute to work — these amounts accumulate very quickly.

And that is the part I believe Uber needs to understand.

**A charge does not become insignificant simply because it is individually small.**

For a customer managing a household budget, transport costs are a recurring expense.

If I budget for a trip based on the price presented to me, and the final amount repeatedly increases, then I need to understand exactly why that is happening.

I should not have to manually audit my trips after the fact to discover that the amounts I am actually paying are materially different from what I expected.

### Uber is not simply a convenience for me.

My alternative is not as simple as “just take public transport.”

My route to work using public transport would require me to travel into town and then back out again. It would require me to wake up exceptionally early to make the journey possible.

I also have a young child who attends school close to where we live.

A lift club is not a practical alternative. I sometimes travel for work, and my child is too young to be travelling alone in a lift club — particularly because she is not yet able to communicate verbally.

So Uber is not something I use because I am unwilling to use other forms of transport.

For me, it is part of how I make an otherwise extremely difficult work and childcare schedule function.

That makes unexpected and unexplained increases in transport costs particularly serious.

### What concerns me most is what happens when I challenge them.

I have now submitted multiple queries.

I have raised concerns about trips from this week.

I have gone back and questioned previous trips from last week because I only realised on Monday that this appeared to be happening.

And I have asked for an actual person to review the issue.

Yet I continue to encounter the same system of automated responses.

On one occasion, Uber eventually reviewed the trip and adjusted the fare, explaining that there had been a change in time and/or distance.

That raises an obvious question:

**If a trip can be reviewed and the fare can subsequently be adjusted, why is the customer's initial dispute so often dismissed without meaningful explanation?**

And more importantly:

**How many customers are simply paying these additional amounts because they don't notice them, don't have the time to investigate them, or give up after being told that their trip is “not eligible” for an adjustment?**

That is the question Uber needs to answer.

I am not asking Uber to refund legitimate fares.

I am asking Uber to make sure that the fares it charges are **accurate, transparent and properly reviewable.**

If I legitimately waited for my driver, charge me.

If the trip legitimately took longer, explain it.

If the route legitimately changed, show me how that affected the fare.

But if I dispute a charge and provide evidence that the recorded time, stop or route does not correspond with what actually happened, then **investigate it.**

Do not simply tell me that I am not eligible.

Do not make me submit the same complaint repeatedly.

And please do not tell customers to be patient while their hard-earned money has already been taken from them.

### This is not about being difficult.

I pay for the services I use.

I expect drivers to be paid fairly.

I understand that fares can change for legitimate reasons.

What I do not accept is being charged amounts that I cannot understand, repeatedly finding discrepancies in my trips, and then having to fight an automated support system to get someone to actually examine the evidence.

Uber has access to the trip data.

You have the GPS information.

You have the timestamps.

You have the driver's records.

You have the fare calculation.

You have the payment history.

**I should not have to prove your own data back to you.**

And this is why I am making this an open letter rather than continuing to submit individual complaints one trip at a time.

Because reviewing one ticket is insufficient.

**I am asking Uber to review the pattern.**

Review the affected trips.

Review the wait-time calculations.

Review the fare increases.

Review how these charges are being generated.

And review the process by which customers are told that they are not eligible for adjustments.

Because if I have been charged additional amounts across multiple trips, the question is no longer:

**“Will Uber refund my R33?”**

The question is:

**“How many times has this happened, to how many customers, and how are customers supposed to know?”**

Uber, I am asking for transparency.

I am asking for accountability.

And I am asking for an actual human review of the evidence.

Not another automated response.

Not another “thank you for your patience.”

**I have been patient.**

Now I want answers.