Uber has settled with the Department of Justice over claims that the company violated the Americans with Disabilities Act by charging disabled passengers fees when they take longer than two minutes to get into vehicles. Uber will credit double the amount of wait time fees charged to the 65,000 eligible riders, estimated to be in the hundreds of thousands or millions.
In a statement, DOJ’s assistant attorney general for civil rights, Kristen Clark, said that people with disabilities “should not be made to feel like second-class citizens or punished because of their disability.”
According to the DOJ, the ride-hailing company has agreed to pay $2.23 million USD to affected passengers, including an additional $1.73 million USD to over a thousand passengers who have complained to Uber regarding the fees, and $500,000 USD to other individuals identified by the department. The company has also pledged a two-year deal to waive all fees for passengers who certify they or someone they travel with frequently needs more time to enter a vehicle due to a disability.
In an interview with Forbes, Uber spokesperson Carissa Simons said that the company was “pleased with the agreement,” adding it has “long been our policy to refund wait time fees for riders with a disability when they alerted us that they were charged.”
In other tech news, Apple has been hit with a potential class-action lawsuit for blocking contactless payment.
wazup.