Uber 'surge' hangover: $500 for a 20-minute cab ride?

Uber waed on its website that New Year’s Eve customers should not be surprised by “surge pricing” due to the high holiday demand. 

And, yet, many were. Actually, “surprised” is probably not the word. Maybe “shocked” is more like it, for customers who ended up paying nearly 10 times the normal rate for a ride.

Uber defends surge pricing this year, just as it has in the past, noting that it’s the simple economics of supply and demand driving the rates.

If you were an Uber user on New Year's Eve, the cost of a ride depended on where you were. In the San Francisco Bay area, riders reported surge pricing did not really kick in until well after midnight and did not surge much over double the rate.

But check out complaints from riders in other cities:

My biggest @Uber fare of the night $509. It was a 20 mile trip. #UberSurgePricing #NYE2015 #SurgePricing pic.twitter.com/fnepZg3VR6 — Eric Lawton Forbes (@EricLForbes) January 1, 2015

@Uber you're charging 8.9x standard fare?! In what world. It's laughable. @USATODAYmoney @KCStar #ubersurgepricing pic.twitter.com/yYjtoxVJ5V — Stewart M. Bus (@StewartMBus) January 1, 2015

Dawgg RT “@aospital99: Hey @Uber you should be ashamed of yourself! This was a 19 min ride! Unreasonable #Uber pic.twitter.com/sIjoiKa1tn” — Dr. E (@LmaoAtDoseHoes) January 1, 2015

Could have been worse! RT "@jdpantaleon30: #uber got me bad last night pic.twitter.com/bL4u6UDsCq" — Uber Surge (@Uber_Surge) January 1, 2015

@Daniel_Burkhart RT @bfree007: @Uber_Surge here is mine…highway robbery.. picked up in a Ford Focus #disputecharge pic.twitter.com/RUw4ampCA7 — Chris Skinner (@chrisaskinner) December 31, 2014

My uber driver just told me his buddy made $454 in one trip last night. 6.25 surge pricing, SUV trip to Oakland. — Tyler Waneka (@waneka) January 2, 2014

New high score: $731! ..for an hour = ~$1,500,000 per year at 40hr/wk for 52 weeks @ben_wright33 @kaylynnchelss — Uber Surge (@Uber_Surge) January 1, 2014

@Uber_Surge Winner! “@ben_wright33: Your welcome #uber sorry bob and Trudy pic.twitter.com/owkTZA0M2x” guess it could have been worse — Kaylynn Chelss (@kaylynnchelss) January 1, 2014