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

Uber warned on its website that New Year's Eve customers should not be surprised by "surge pricing"due to the high holiday demand.

>> UBER: What is surge pricing?

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 demanddriving 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. Burns (@StewartMBurns) 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”
— Big E (@Too_Bonafide) January 1, 2015

We global now RT "@starflyergold: And so it starts, and it's only 7pm #ubersurgepricing pic.twitter.com/eLJCYqYLus"
— Uber Surge (@Uber_Surge) January 1, 2015

Really???? You'd charge us about $450 one way to get home last night???? No thanks #Uber #ubersurgepricing #NYE2015 pic.twitter.com/U8ZCwcL6YF
— amy walton (@amy_endres) January 1, 2015

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