Southern California couple charged nearly $30,000 for Uber ride on vacation

It was supposed to be a romantic vacation of a lifetime to renew their vows, but one Riverside couple was left trapped in a real-life nightmare.

Douglas Ordonez and Dominique Adams were excited to celebrate their five-year wedding anniversary in Guatemala, but an Uber charge for nearly $30,000 left them without money while they were in a foreign country. 

“We’ve been planning it for like a year now,” Ordonez said of the special trip.

“We were both really looking forward to the trip,” Adams said.

It all started when Adams was in Costa Rica and took an Uber to the airport so she could fly to Guatemala to meet her husband.

“I took an Uber, everything was fine,” Adams recalled. “It was like a 30-minute ride. I didn’t think twice about it.”

As soon as she arrived at the Costa Rice airport, her husband called her saying his card got declined while he was trying to purchase a cup of coffee.

It turns out, that 30-minute ride ended up costing nearly $30,000.

“I sat down and looked at what the heck was going on and that’s when I noticed the $29,000 charge on our account,” Ordonez recalled. “I didn’t believe it at first, but obviously it was actually true.”

Costa Rican currency is called colones. When converted to U.S. dollars, ₡30,000 in colones is around $55 in U.S. dollars.

But the Uber ride was processed as $30,000 in U.S. currency instead of colones.

Uber insisted the couple’s bank was at fault for the botched conversion charge.

“We contact the bank,” Adams said. “The bank says contact Uber. So it was just like that back-and-forth of nobody knew really how this happened or how it passed all the security measures.”

Eventually, the bank told the couple they could dispute the charge but it would take 7-10 days to resolve the issue. 

“I explained to them that we’re out of the country. We have no money,” said Adams. “So what are we supposed to do?”

“I am telling them this is literally a $29,000 charge,” said Ordonez. “No Uber is going to cost $29,000. Why do I have to wait seven days for this?”

With little cash on hand and no access to their account, the couple was forced to dramatically change their trip. They postponed their wedding vows and spent their vacation pinching pennies with the little cash they had brought with them.

After four days and countless phone calls to their bank along with multiple exchanges with Uber, the charge was finally reversed.

“Personally, I believe it’s because we posted it on social media,” Adams said. “We were sharing our story. I think that’s why there was that urgency for someone to fix this.”

The couple’s video posts detailing their nightmare went viral on social media and were seen by millions of people.

Uber released a statement on the incident saying in part: 

“As soon as we received the user’s report, our support team promptly addressed the issue and released the authorization hold mistakenly applied due to a bank error in Dollars and not in Colones. However, the time it takes for the refund to be processed depends on each bank’s policies.”

As for the couple’s future travel and commuting plans, Uber will likely play no part in them.

“I definitely will not use Uber again,” Adams said. “I’m going to keep it as short as that. Never using Uber again. To this day, Uber hasn’t contacted us. They haven’t emailed us back. Before this was resolved, they marked this case as resolved in their app. They were very negligent.”

The couple offers this advice to anyone traveling abroad: “Always take out cash, extra cash on hand,” said Ordonez. “Most importantly, only use your credit card when you’re traveling. Don’t use your debit card.”

KTLA reached out to the couple’s bank about the incident but has not yet heard back. 

The good news is, the couple did eventually renew their vows. They also say they still can’t wait to take their next international trip but hopefully with no more nightmare snafus.