Aimee Walker
A man has claimed that Uber ‘charges more’ for taxis when the customer booking the service has a low battery on their phone.
Tony Aubé ‘proved’ his theory by checking the fare on a phone with a high battery and on one with low battery – pointing out that the fare was 20% higher on the phone with less charge.
He was joined in the video by TikToker @evakuttichova, who said: “Uber will charge you more if your phone is about to die.”
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Aubé added: “Because they know you’re desperate.”
The pair, who were visiting Prague, then checked the fare on a fully charged phone and said: “So we just tried it and as you can see the phone is almost full, and the fare is 129 CZK, (£4.33).
Checking the same route with a different phone, he added: “As you can see my phone is about to die, and I got 154CZK, (£5.18) which is about 20% more.
“This is just so evil, I bet the guy who thought of it got a promotion.
“The moral of the story is – if you want to save money, charge your phone.”
Some users weren’t convinced it was accurate, with one writing: “Prices on uber change every second depending on demand, you can’t assume it’s the battery because of one coincidence.”
However, the TikToker responded directly to this comment, saying: “We tried it four times within 30 minutes. Got the same price at 15% battery, got 20% three times in a row under 10% battery.
Another added: “That’s bulls*** because apps don’t have access to battery info unless you specifically allow it, at least for Android anyway.”
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Uber’s consumer communications told the Daily Dot the allegations were ‘completely false’.
A representative said: “Uber does not use any information about the user’s cell phone battery in setting prices, and has never done so. Ride prices are solely based on the location and time of the request as well as supply and demand.
“There is zero personal data used in setting fares.”
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