French Man Sues Uber for $48 Million After Wife Divorced Him

In an interesting turn of events, a French businessman from Côte d’Azur is pursuing legal action against Uber after his wife broke up with him. He is asking $48 million in damages. He is pointing the finger at Uber who allegedly failed to keep his late evening rides a secret from his wife because of a bug.

Le Figaro, a French publication told the story in detail. According to local reporters, a bug within the Uber smartphone application allowed his wife to track his every move without his knowledge. Apparently, the businessman used his wife’s iPhone to order his rides and signed out as soon as he got one. However, notifications regarding his rides kept pushing through, even though the account should have been inactive. This is most likely how his wife pieced some things together since she was able to see all notifications without alerting him. Hence, she was able to see details about her husband’s orders, including arrival time, license plate, and driver’s name.

Even though she couldn’t track his location in real time, she did receive lots of information that would let her know whenever he was lying. As the “working late” excuse is generally used by unfaithful spouses, it wouldn’t be so effective if the wife or husband would have access to information proving the liar was, in fact, taking Uber rides all night long.

Reporters working with Le Figaro were able to replicate the bug. However, the glitch could be observed only on iPhones while using a certain Uber app version older than December 15^th, 2016. The update got rid of the issue. The case will be presented in court sometime in the next month. At this point, however, it is unclear why the man is demanding so much money or what exactly did his wife found out from the notifications that kept popping up on her phone. Whatever it was, it was enough to divorce him, according to the plaintiff’s suit.

At the moment, the ride-hailing company is not discussing any details of the case. An official statement says that Uber refuses to openly discuss individual cases, especially those concerning a divorcing couple.

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