Uber mistakenly charged a man in Toronto, Canada a whopping CA$18,518.50 ($14,415, £18,518) for a short 21-minute, five-mile ride. The outlandish cost of the trip was shared on Twitter after a user named Emily Kennard tweeted a screenshot of the ride's receipt.

Axar.az reports citing IBT.

"My friend was charged 18K for a 20 Min ride (!), and they are sticking to it. What in the world??? This is insane!" Kennard tweeted on Saturday (9 December).

The Uber receipt was first shared by an Instagram user with the handle "votethehish" who has a private account.

"He could have just bought a car and driven the 20 minutes himself for less," one Twitter user said.

As per Uber's official ride estimate tool, the 8km trip from 12a Widmer St. to 30 The Queensway should ideally cost between CA$12-$16. Even if the rider opted for one of Uber's luxury ride options such as UberBlack or UberSUV, it would still only amount to CA$32-40 or CA$41-49, respectively.

Uber confirmed the erroneous charge and said the rider has been issued a refund.

"There was an error here and it has been resolved," the ride-hailing giant said in a statement. "We have provided a full refund to this rider and apologized to him for this experience. We have safeguards in place to help prevent something like this from happening, and we are working to understand how this occurred."