SINGAPORE: A woman has claimed on social media that a Grab driver kept her waiting for nearly an hour before cancelling the ride and falsely claiming to Grab that she was travelling with children.
In a post on the r/askSingapore forum, she said she booked a Grab Premium from HarbourFront at 11:49 p.m., with an initial ETA of eight minutes. The driver later messaged to say he was dropping off another passenger and asked if she didn’t mind waiting. She agreed.
But the driver never turned up. She claimed his location remained around Sentosa while the app continued showing an eight-minute ETA. After repeated unanswered calls and messages, she contacted Grab, worried something might have happened to him.
“I called Grab. Not because I wanted compensation. Not because I was angry. I genuinely thought something might have happened to the guy.”
“After multiple calls with Grab and nearly an hour of waiting, I’m eventually told that the driver says: his phone was lagging, his GPS location wasn’t updating, and he had already arrived at my pickup point.”
The woman said she found the explanation confusing, as the app was still showing the driver’s location in Sentosa.
She then contacted the driver again and asked him to provide proof that he had arrived at the pickup point. About 10 minutes later, he allegedly cancelled the booking.
According to the woman, the driver’s reason for cancelling the trip was that she was “travelling with kids.”
“I suddenly became a parent,” she wrote, stunned by the false claim. “I HAVE NO CHILDREN. I wasn’t travelling with children. There were no children standing beside me. No babies. No toddlers. No teenagers. Not even a particularly youthful-looking adult.”
Having kept screenshots of the messages, call logs, and the driver’s location, she said she has since filed a formal complaint with Grab and asked other Singaporeans whether the incident should also be reported to the authorities.
“Would you make a non-emergency police report so that the authorities can determine whether deliberately making false representations to Grab to potentially avoid cancellation penalties or protect incentives crosses into something more serious?
“Because being kept waiting for an hour is one thing. Being lied to is another. But discovering at 1 a.m. that I apparently have children was not how I expected my night to end.”
“A driver did this to me too”
In the comments, many encouraged her to report the incident, with one saying, “Report to Grab 100%. Also, drivers play a heck of a lot of punk nowadays. Screenshot everything with timestamps. The moment you book, get the driver, the booked route, driver presses arrive, etc., etc. Take photos of the pick-up location to prove you’re there and all. In this case, might even have to start taking 0.5x selfies to prove no children, no luggage, sia lol.”
Another shared a similar experience, writing, “Yes, happened to me before. They wanted to collect their cancellation fee. Unlucky for the driver that day, I wasn’t rushing, and just wanted to go somewhere.”
“I took screenshots of my phone, took a video while pulling down my notification to show the time. That was enough to send to Grab, but I decided to be ‘petty’ and just waited at a nearby cafe. Eventually, the driver cancelled the booking. I know others would say it was a waste of time but to me, I don’t care, it felt good”
A third wrote, “A driver did this to me too but falsely claimed that I had 2 big luggage with me. Lol I was alone, and he didn’t even arrive, so how did he see me with 2 big luggage?”
Meanwhile, another commenter suggested contacting Grab’s helpdesk if a driver fails to arrive after about 10 minutes.
“You know if it’s 10 mins you can reach the helpdesk on Grab and they can help you to cancel so you won’t lose anything. The last time I did it I even got a S$5 voucher for my troubles!”
In other news, a Singaporean fresh graduate with first-class honours in an IT degree shared on Reddit’s r/askSingapore forum that he still hasn’t been able to secure full-time employment.
According to the 26-year-old’s post, he has applied for more than 100 jobs but has only landed three to four interviews.
Read more: ‘Tiring and mentally draining’: Fresh grad with first class honours says he still can’t find a job after applying to over 100 roles
