I'm not surprised: Uber is under investigation for Uber One subscription service

Uber is one of many services offering a subscription option, with its Uber One plan offering discounts on rides and deliveries. Now, it turns out that the company is facing regulatory scrutiny over this plan.

Bloomberg reports that the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has opened an investigation into the Uber One subscription service. It’s believed that the FTC is specifically looking into the sign-up and cancellation processes.

Uber also issued a statement to the outlet:

We will continue to answer any questions the FTC may have about our cancellation policies. The Uber One cancellation process follows both the letter and the spirit of the law: Uber One members can easily cancel their membership in the app — in fact, the majority of those cancellations take 20 seconds or less.

I can’t say I’m surprised by this investigation after my own recent experience with Uber One. I accidentally signed up for Uber One last week after the Uber Eats app decided to show the Uber One signup button and menu instead of the expected delivery confirmation screen.

The trouble didn’t end there, as Uber Eats forced me to tap through three consecutive menus before my subscription was actually canceled. So, while Uber is technically correct that this cancelation process could take 20 seconds, it’s still needlessly complex compared to the sign-up process. Check out the screenshots below.

In any event, we hope the company refrains from these dark patterns for Uber One and makes canceling the service as easy as signing up in the first place.

The news also comes as the FTC takes more action against tech support scams, as it extends protections to outbound calls mistakenly made by consumers to fraudsters.