Uber has settled claims brought against it by the US government alleging that its wait time fees discriminated against customers with disabilities. As part of the settlement it agreed to pay more than $2 million, with $1.7 million being distributed to roughly 1,000 riders who had complained and another $500,000 to other riders the government identified. The firm also agreed to waive such fees for disabled users in the future.

Over 1,000 people had filed complaints about the fees, which were levied against riders who took more than two minutes to get into the vehicle.

Uber claimed it had a policy to refund wait fees to disabled customers.

The ride-hailing service denied all wrongdoing as part of the settlement.

In a statement Uber said, “It has long been our policy to refund wait time fees for riders with a disability when they alerted us that they were charged.”

The company also noted it had already implemented a policy to have such fees waived automatically, when the company was notified they had been charged.

Uber began charging the fees in 2016 in some cities and eventually expanded them to all markets. The average fee was less than 60 cents.

Officials associated with the settlement said it would provide “hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars in compensation”  for the over 65,000 people who had requested waivers.

In a statement, Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke said, “People with disabilities should not be made to feel like second-class citizens or punished because of their disability, which is exactly what Uber’s wait time fee policy did.”

Uber has had previous issues when serving disabled passengers. Last year a blind woman won $1.1 million in a lawsuit after she alleged being refused service on 14 separate occasions. UK Paralympic medalist Jack Hunter-Spivey had complained also that Uber drivers routinely drove off on seeing him waiting in a wheelchair.

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