We were shocked an Uber ride cost $30K — instead of $55
An American couple revealed they were charged nearly $30,000 for an Uber ride in Costa Rica that should have been $55.
TikTok user @dominique.xo.xo, identified only as Dominique, noticed the charge from a trip with her husband, Douglas Ordonez.
Ordonez took to Twitter and posted a screenshot of the transaction on June 29. He tweeted, “Uber charged me $29,994 USD for a Uber ride in Costa Rica.
“They did not convert that into the Costa Rican currency $54 USD. Altura credit union allowed this charge to process and Uber is not complying. Now I’m in Guatemala with a negative balance on my 5 year anniversary.”
The ride-share app responded to Ordonez’s tweet, “Hey Douglas – so sorry about this situation! We have a specialized team looking into this and we’ll be in touch asap.”
However, the couple said they waited more than 24 hours for the Uber team to get back to them.
The Post reached out to Altura Credit Union for comment.
While the couple continued to wait for a response, Dominique posted her clip on TikTok about the incident the next day.
Dominique’s video — filled with screengrabs of her transactions and communications with Uber and Altura — captured the attention of more than 5 million people. It has the caption, “@Uber charged me $29,994 for a single ride! Correct conversion should have been $54, but was charged 600% more.”
She said, “I always use my credit card for international charges. Unfortunately, I was rushing & didn’t realize my debit card was attached to my @Uber account.”
Uber was supposed to charge the couple 29,994 Costa Rican colones, which should have been converted to $55.32.
The Post reached out to Dominique and Douglas Ordonez for comment.
Dominique claimed that she and her partner repeatedly reached out to Uber and Altura for several days.
“[Uber] replied w/’Do not worry,’ but did not provide any further assistance. I cannot find a customer service number anywhere. They have ignored my messages & I have only received pre-generated messages,” she wrote. “[Altura Credit Union] said there is nothing they can do about it at the moment as I have to wait another 4 days for the amount to possibly convert to the correct amount.”
In a follow-up video, Dominique said, “Basically [the bank] 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.”
The couple said they could not access their funds while being out of the country and had to wait for the bank to resolve the issue before resuming their vacation.
“All of a sudden the charge was fixed. The charge was reversed. I ended up getting all my money back,” she said.
Uber told The Post, “Ms. Ordonez points out in subsequent posts on Twitter and TikTok, the issue has been resolved with her bank.”
Once Dominique received all her funds, Altura sent an apology email regarding the conversion mix-up.
“Cannot believe they allowed a payment of this amount to process. Failed security measures & negligence,” she said.
