Uber, Lyft sell virtually identical rides at vastly different prices, offer fake discounts using AI-driven pricing: bombshell investigation

Uber and Lyft have been using black-box, AI-driven pricing tactics to sell virtually identical rides at vastly different price points – and even offer fake discounts to entice customers, a stunning new investigation revealed.In tests conducted for select routes across 17 states in March and April 2026, the median price difference between the lowest and highest fares for rides ordered at nearly the exact same time was a whopping 50%, according to a Consumer Reports investigation published Tuesday.The two most popular ride-hailing apps in the US also frequently woo customers with promotions – but nearly 11% of all discounts on Uber and Lyft appear to be fake, because they’re based on falsely inflated prices, according to the nonprofit research and advocacy group.The rise of dynamic pricing – when companies adjust prices in real time to reflect supply and demand – has outraged consumers at least since last year’s publication of a bombshell Consumer Reports study on Instacart.The company faced such heated backlash that it eventually reversed its dynamic-pricing model, which was nickel-and-diming shoppers by charging different prices to different customers on the same grocery items in the same supermarkets based on demand.Consumer Reports said Tuesday that it appears Uber and Lyft’s methods go beyond dynamic pricing, “because volunteers booked identical rides within a few minutes of one another and, in many cases, within the same minute.”Volunteers remotely placed orders for the same rides, setting identical starting locations and destinations at around the same time.Some of the tests were also placed by volunteers who waited in-person for the rides.Uber argued that it is impossible to ensure that volunteers placed their orders at the exact same time, since price changes take place “nearly every second.”Lyft said that prices might have been artificially inflated during experiments by having so many volunteers place orders at the same time.Both comp...