Ghatkopar resident receives Rs 80,000 bill from Ola for round-trip to Pune

A Ghatkopar resident received a shockingly overpriced bill of over Rs 80,000 for a round trip from Mumbai to Pune thanks to a bizarre software glitch in the cab-aggregator Ola’s software.

Kamal Bhatia had booked an Ola cab on September 4 to travel to Pune from Ghatkopar, where he was going to attend a wedding with his family. The family left from their home around 6:30 am and returned back around 9 pm.

When the driver ended the trip and showed the invoice copy, Bhatia was shocked to see Rs 83,395 as the total payable amount. According to the invoice, Bhatia had travelled over 7,000 km in a span of 14.5 hours, implying that he travelled at a speed of 500 km/ph. He had been charged a base fare of Rs 2,750 for 250 km, Rs 75,262 for another 6842 km and Rs 5,382.64 in taxes.

Fortunately, the driver also realized that the amount was too high for a 14 hour journey and called the Ola call centre to ascertain how to proceed. After talking to a co-ordinator over the phone for a few minutes, the aggregator issued a new invoice which showed 347 km as the travelled distance and total payable amount of Rs 4,088.

Bhatia gladly paid the rectified amount and even tipped the driver for helping him sort the issue. Later, he even received a call from the aggregator to find if he had discussed the inflated bill with anyone. The company official apologized for the error and assured Bhatia that they would ensure it never happens again.

Bhatia’s entire fare was also waived off, possibly to avoid any legal repercussions. Meanwhile, Ola has not publicly acknowledged the issue.