Edited by: TJVNews.com

In a blistering rebuke of Uber’s business practices, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) filed a lawsuit on Tuesday accusing the rideshare giant of orchestrating what many consumers have long suspected: a calculated scam disguised as a subscription service. The federal complaint paints Uber’s “Uber One” membership program as a predatory operation that systematically defrauds consumers, locks them into charges they didn’t agree to, and entraps them in a labyrinthine cancellation maze designed to extract money against their will.

“This is about more than fine print — it’s about flat-out fraud,” said FTC Chairman Andrew N. Ferguson, who pulled no punches in describing the scale of the deception. “Americans are tired of getting signed up for unwanted subscriptions that seem impossible to cancel. The Trump-Vance FTC is fighting back on behalf of the American people.”

The FTC’s complaint, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, exposes Uber’s so-called Uber One subscription — which promises exclusive discounts and perks for a monthly fee — as a classic bait-and-switch scheme. On paper, consumers are told they’ll save $25 a month. But in reality, even if those savings were real (which the FTC doubts), Uber deceitfully omits the subscription cost itself — up to $9.99 per month — from its calculation. And it gets worse.

The FTC noted that critical information is buried in small, greyed-out text, carefully designed to be overlooked. According to consumer complaints cited in the lawsuit, many users were enrolled without ever giving consent — with one saying they were charged even though they didn’t have an active Uber account.

One of the most egregious elements of Uber’s deception is its manipulation of free trial periods. The company promises that users can try Uber One without charge and cancel before the billing period begins. But dozens of consumers reported being charged before the free trial ended, in blatant contradiction of Uber’s own terms.

This isn’t a fluke — it’s a pattern. The FTC alleges that Uber routinely bills consumers prematurely, often slipping charges onto accounts in the middle of the night or days before they expected to be billed. For many, the only clue that they had been enrolled came when a charge appeared on their bank statement.

The most damning charge, however, may be Uber’s weaponization of its cancellation process. The FTC discovered that canceling Uber One can take as many as 32 steps across 23 screens — an intentional digital maze meant to deter users from successfully opting out. This dark pattern design, as it’s known in consumer protection law, is as cynical as it is effective.

Want to cancel? First, you must explain why. Then Uber will try to get you to pause your membership. Then it may present you with “exclusive” offers to stay. If all that fails, you may be told to contact customer support — which Uber deliberately makes unreachable.

Even worse, some users who followed all the steps to cancel reported being charged for another billing cycle anyway — forced to wait indefinitely for a response from a nonexistent customer service team.

According to the FTC, Uber’s conduct violates multiple federal statutes, including the FTC Act and the Restore Online Shoppers’ Confidence Act (ROSCA). ROSCA requires companies to clearly disclose all terms, obtain affirmative consent before billing, and offer consumers an easy way to cancel. Uber, the complaint says, failed on every front.

The Commission’s vote to pursue legal action was 2-0, with Commissioner Mark R. Meador recused. The case, now in the hands of the federal judiciary, will determine whether Uber’s behavior meets the legal standard of consumer fraud — but to anyone reading the FTC’s complaint, the verdict seems obvious: Uber didn’t just cross the line — it erased it.

While this lawsuit focuses specifically on Uber One, it’s far from the first time the company has been accused of using deceptive practices to line its pockets. Over the years, Uber has faced numerous allegations — from surge pricing manipulation, to data privacy violations, to misclassifying drivers to avoid labor costs. As The New York Post and other outlets have previously reported, Uber has long flirted with the boundaries of legality in pursuit of profit.

What makes the Uber One scandal particularly insidious is that it exploits trust and convenience — two things consumers expect when using a modern app. Instead, users were led into a subscription trap, charged without consent, and locked into a system designed to frustrate and exhaust them before they could escape.

The FTC’s lawsuit is not just about Uber. It’s about setting a precedent for how big tech and platform-based companies treat consumers. If Uber is allowed to skate by with what the FTC characterizes as systematic deception, it could embolden other corporations to deploy similar tactics.

The lead attorneys on the case — Stephanie Liebner, James Doty, and Paul Mezan of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection — have taken up what many see as a battle for digital consumer rights in the 21st century.

In the meantime, the FTC is urging consumers who have been affected by this or similar schemes to report their experience at ReportFraud.ftc.gov.

Call it what it is: Uber ran a scam. Through clever design, misleading promises, and outright billing fraud, the company coerced millions into paying for a subscription they didn’t ask for and couldn’t escape from. And they did it with a smile and a slogan: “Cancel anytime.”

The only thing more outrageous than Uber’s conduct is that it took a federal lawsuit to stop it. For consumers, the lesson is clear: when a tech company tells you it’s easy to cancel — get ready to fight.