A California woman says she was charged nearly $30,000 for an Uber ride while visiting Costa Rica because of a suspected conversion error.
In a video posted over the weekend, a TikTok user known as dominique.xo.xo posted a partial bank statement showing the charge, along with a series of correspondence she had with Uber’s customer support team. “Take an Uber in Costa Rica they said. It will be fun they said,” the TikToker, whose real name is Dominique Adams, wrote in text over the video.
Part of the correspondence shows what appears to be Adams trying to get access to a support agent using the Uber app. “Hello. I need to speak with someone about this immediately. Is there a customer service number that I can call?” Adams wrote.
She proceeded to write “call support” multiple times in the messages, and there is no response from Uber shown in the screenshot.
In a second part posted to TikTok on Tuesday, Adams elaborated on the situation.
“I ended up taking an Uber, everything was fine. The next morning I checked my bank account and I realized that I was charged in US dollars rather than being charged in the Costa Rican currency,” she said. “I was going back and forth with the bank. They 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 in place with the bank.”
She said its customer support agents told her her bank, Altura Credit Union, should have converted it. “My bank and Uber were basically blaming each other. Keep in mind that I’m out of the country.
This is my primary bank, so I was not able to withdraw any money. My vacation was essentially put on hold,” she said.
Douglas Ordonez, her husband, said over Twitter that he and Adams were on a five-year anniversary trip in Guatemala with “no access to funds.” He included a screenshot of a portion of a bank statement, dated July 2, showing the pending charge.
In an interview, Ordonez said the two share a joint bank account. He said Adams had been heading to the airport on Thursday from her hotel in Costa Rica to meet Ordonez in Guatemala for their five-year anniversary.
The Uber app said the ride would cost $54, he said. Ordonez said he learned of the nearly $30,000 charge when he tried to get a coffee and his bank account notified him that he had insufficient funds. “I went to check my bank account and thought, ‘This is ridiculous.'” It “threw a damper” on our trip, he said.
The charge cleared after about five days, Ordonez said. But while the two waited for it to clear, they had to use cash to get around. “Luckily,” Ordonez said, “I had pulled out about $500 in cash and I was able to use that.” He said some social media users reached out to offer him and Adams money after seeing their posts.
