Hyderabad: Mr Rathish Sekhar, a private consultant working on government projects, was presented with a bill of Rs 9,15,887 by an Ola cab driver for a trip to Nizamabad and back the same day, on August 24.
He started from Jubilee Hills at 7.57 am and after a two-hour break at Nizamabad he returned in the same cab at 5.16 pm.
“When I booked the cab the estimate shown on my phone was about Rs 5,000. When I actually returned, the bill showed Rs 9.15 lakh,” Mr Sekhar said.
The bill for the 450 km round trip showed the distance travelled as 85,427 km, he said.
Mr Sekhar said it could be Rs 9,000. “There were no dots between the numericals. For example, some times the bill amount is displayed as ‘9158.87’ which would mean Rs 9,158. But even Rs 9,000 would be almost double the estimate,” he said.
Even cab driver Sunil Kumar was shocked and told Mr Sekhar that he could buy two Indica cars with the amount.
Mr Sekhar refused to pay the bill, and the driver called the Ola support staff who recalcuated the bill to Rs 4,812. The process took almost half an hour. The invoice, which he had to submit to the office, took three days, Mr Sekhar said.
He said the Ola support staff told him that the error was due to a problem in computer and apologised. When contacted, Ola Cabs spokesperson Soumitra Chand said they are looking into the issue.
