[jrumbut]

Oh it very much did not just work (this was a little over a year ago so maybe things have changed?). Neither did anyone else's in my group.

Eventually I tried adding an Indian friend's payment card and I got an email saying I had been banned for suspicious activity or something.

The email made it sound permanent and I never got notified of my unbanning but my Uber account now works in the US and Canada again.

[SSLy]

Well, I've spent a month in India just a year ago and my Uber experience was indeed very smooth. I've just used my Polish card, phone number, etc. with no attempt to swap those things to Indian ones.

[jrumbut]

Yeah this appears to be a US specific thing. No American stuff worked, people from countries that were not the US were fine.