Amid rising plaints, regulator issues notices to Ola, Uber

NEW DELHI: Acting on rising complaints, the Central Consumer Protection Authority (CCPA) on Friday issued notices to ride-hailing platforms Ola and Uber for unfair trade practices and violation of consumer rights.

The notices were prompted by the lack of proper consumer-grievance redressal mechanism, deficiency in service, unreasonable levy of cancellation charges, and issues related to fairness of algorithms used to calculate fares, among major issues, the top consumer-rights regulator said. Ola had a larger share of complaints than Uber, the CCPA’S data showed.

A key area of concern noted by the consumer-rights regulator was inadequate consumer grievance redressal mechanisms marked by an absence of both “customer care numbers” and details of the “grievance officer”, which were statutory requirements.

Last week, the consumer affairs department under the ministry of consumer affairs meeting representatives of ride-hailing companies such as Ola, Uber, Rapido, Meru Cabs and Jugnoo, asking them to become partners in the National Consumer Helpline for quicker grievance redressal for consumers and also comply with provisions under the Consumer Protection Act, 2019 and e-commerce rules, an official said.

“As per the data from the

National Consumer Helpline (NCH), from 01.04.2021 to 01.05.2022, 2,482 grievances were registered by consumers against Ola and 770 grievances were registered against Uber,” the CCPA said.

The CCPA said the other issue is that there is a lack of any information on the algorithm or method used by the company to charge different fares for the same route from two individuals.

According to the the Central Consumer Protection Authority’s statement, the primary issues raised by consumers, which formed the basis for the notices, included deficiency in service. HT reached out to both companies for a comment, but did not get a response till the time of going to press.