‘Paying RM20 is very cruel’: Malaysians criticise US tourist after Grab driver drives from Klang to KL to return his his US$5500 camera
KUALA LUMPUR: After a tourist from the United States posted (and then later deleted) a video of an altercation with a Grab driver over the amount paid for returning the camera he left in the vehicle, Malaysian commenters have by and large sided with the driver.
The tourist had filmed the incident using his Meta glasses and posted it on social media. While the video is no longer up, it was widely shared and can still be viewed.
In it, the driver can be seen handing over the camera, which the tourist said was worth US$5,500 (around S$7,000), to its owner, who in turn gave him a RM20 (S$6.25) note.
The driver asked him for RM50 (S$15.60), since he had “come from very far.”
The tourist, however, scoffed at this and said he had called the driver immediately after alighting, but the driver said he couldn’t answer right away.
The tourist told him, “20 or nothing.”
The argument escalated, and the two men started a full-scale argument, with the tourist feeling threatened and the driver getting more and more upset and swearing at the other man, feeling that he had been cheated.
Another man tries to intervene, telling the tourist that RM50 was reasonable for lost-and-found situations and that the driver had driven all the way from Klang to Kuala Lumpur. But the tourist would not budge, and even asked security for help.
And while the video ends with a Caucasian man sympathising with the tourist, commenters on social media, while admitting that the driver should not have gotten so angry, sided with the driver.
Many pointed out that RM50 is a small price to pay, and that the tourist was lucky that the driver was honest in the first place.
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“For the driver to get from Klang to KL will take roughly more than an hour, AND he has to cancel all of his passengers in order just to go and return the camera,” one pointed out.
“Klang to Seputeh is 30km. RM50 is reasonable. Equivalent to Grab fare for that distance. Paying RM20 is very cruel; he should have just dropped the camera at the nearest police station in Klang and asked the tourist to collect it himself,” added another.
“HE is the nice guy?” A Facebook user wondered. /TISG
Read also: US tourist says food is better in M’sia than SG — and many S’poreans agree