SINGAPORE: A man posted online about a particularly unpleasant encounter with a Grab taxi driver, and appealed for the company to take action.
In a Nov 13 post on the COMPLAINT SINGAPORE Facebook page, Amal Ashlam wrote that he noticed that the driver had overcharged him by S$1.
He acknowledged that this is not a big amount, but added that if the driver does this repeatedly, this changes matters.
Mr Amal then wrote that when he confronted the cabby, the man “arrogantly” answered back that the over-charge had only been S$1.
However, when he asked for a receipt and/ or a photo of the meter screen, the man allegedly started shouting vulgarities.
This frightened the three children of Mr Amal, and they began to cry.
He appealed to Grab to “please do something about this manual entering of the fare,” adding that this is the second time a Grab driver had manually entered an additional charge.
Mr Amal was able to obtain the actual receipt from Transcab, a screenshot of which he added to his post.
The receipt from Transact shows that the total fare for his ride was S$15.22 for a 4.7-kilometre ride from 450A Sengkang West Way to 117C Rivervale Drive on Nov 8 from 6:24 to 6:35 pm.
In the screenshot of his payment details from Grab, however, it shows that he paid a total of S$16.23, which appears to show that the cabby had keyed in an additional S$1.01.
A number of commenters on Mr Amal’s post suggested that he report the Grab taxi driver to the Land Transport Authority (LTA) so they can look into the matter, while others urged him to report the issue to Grab.
Another wrote that this type of incident happens when cabbies are allowed to key in the transport fare on the Grab app manually.
One chimed in that this has happened to him twice, which resulted in Grab issuing a voucher as compensation.
People who wish to. complain against a cabby may do so by calling the customer service hotlines of different companies, which can be found here.
They may also call LTA at at 1800-CALL-LTA (1800-2255-582).
The Independent Singapore has also reached out to the post author, as well as to Grab, for further updates or comments. /TISG
UPDATE: Nov 18, 2024
A spokesperson from Grab said they had refunded the additional amount charged to the affected passenger and clarified the matter with the below statement:
“We are sorry for the unpleasant experience the passenger had with our driver-partner.
This incident does not reflect the integrity and professionalism that the majority of our driver-partners uphold in accordance with our Code of Conduct.
Upon a thorough review of the incident, we determined that the driver-partner had violated our Code of Conduct. As such, we have suspended him with immediate effect.”