Caught red-handed: Man finds Grab driver eating at coffeeshop after long wait for ride

Ever waited a long time for your ride to arrive and wondered what your driver was doing? 

Former radio deejay Abdul Karim Sadali, better known as KC Champion, found his driver eating dinner at a coffeeshop near the pick-up point. 

In a Facebook post last Saturday (June 3), KC shared that he had booked a GrabCar Premium ride for his mother as he was "kinda tired to drive her home".

But after a seven-minute wait, the ride-hailing app showed that the vehicle had not moved at all. 

Giving the driver the benefit of doubt, KC came up with various scenarios the driver could be stuck in. 

"Maybe driver go toilet bad stomachache. Maybe one of his wheel punctured. Maybe bad traffic jam [sic]," he wrote and also cracked a joke: "Maybe inside his vehicle got ghost". 

Not wanting to wait any longer, he decided to drive his mother to the Grab driver's location so he could find out what had happened. 

Lo and behold, he saw the driver leaving a coffeeshop.

"As I always assumed (because this wasn’t my first experience), the driver [was] just wasting time enjoying his dinner and waiting for me to cancel his booking so that I [would] get the fine instead and he could profit from it," KC wrote. 

For GrabCar Premium, passengers will have to pay a $4 cancellation fee if they cancel the ride after three minutes of the scheduled pick-up time. 

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KC said he also recorded the whole incident, from the moment he left the carpark to the moment he caught the driver leaving the coffeeshop and entering his vehicle. 

"The moment I saw him entering his vehicle, I quickly left my driver seat and confronted him while showing him my active Grab booking," he recounted, adding that the driver was "stunned". 

"Sir, I don’t know," the driver's replied as he cancelled the booking and left the scene.

"I’m sure there are many times consumers have to cancel bookings because of the waiting time," KC said. 

AsiaOne has reached out to Grab and KC for more details. 

Driver temporarily suspended: Grab 

Grab has since temporarily suspended the driver, a spokesperson told AsiaOne in response to our queries 

After looking into the driver's records, Grab said they had grounds to believe that the driver deliberately did not go to the pick-up point. 

"We would like to reiterate that driver-partners have the option of going offline when they need to take a break," they shared. 

The spokesperson added that the company has steps in place to protect the interests of passengers and prevent prevent such "errant behaviour" among driver-partners.

"Our cancellation policy ensures that passengers will not be charged when our app detects that the driver-partner is not headed towards the pick-up point or does not arrive within the 3 minutes of the estimated time of arrival." 

Grab also reviews any suspected stalling behaviour among driver-partners and will take action if necessary. 

"As such, the vast majority of our driver-partners do not engage in such practices," the spokesperson added. 

"There are sometimes legitimate reasons for late pick-ups, and we encourage driver-partners and passengers to be understanding and check in with each other via a call or GrabChat before cancelling." 

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melissateo@asiaone.com