President wannabe Tan Kin Lian booked & cancelled 3 Grab rides in a row & asked what's wrong

Help. Some people shouldn't use the Internet.

Belmont Lay | April 27, 2018, 12:15 AM

Some people should just stay away from technology for good and one of these people is Tan Kin Lian, a former Singapore president wannabe.

Booked and cancelled repeatedly

In a Facebook post on April 8, 2018, the guy who ran in the 2011 presidential election once and then failing miserably by forfeiting his S$48,000 deposit because he couldn’t get enough votes, wrote about how he booked and cancelled three consecutive JustGrab rides.

The reason?

He felt a waiting time of seven to nine minutes for one ride is too long and a fare of S$9 is too expensive for where he wanted to go.

This is his post in full:

Comparing ride-hailing with flagging by the road

Worse, he made a comparison of using a ride-hailing app (certainty of getting a ride) versus a taxi street hail (unpredictable waiting times).

According to him, after he gave up on using Grab, he managed to flag a taxi and ended up paying only S$7.50 for his ride and didn't have to wait for it.

Worse, he was even upset that Grab then charged him S$5 cancellation fee for his booking and cancelling antics.

Judged

As expected, Tan's post attracted significant attention over on Twitter where he is judged for his cluelessness.

While only one person defended Tan's actions saying he should have been able to choose the driver (which is not the point), the rest who understand how ride-hailing apps work said he was being a "cheapo".

Paying for certainty

The S$9 ride that Tan felt was unjustifiably higher than the S$7.50 he was charged by hailing a taxi is, in fact, entirely reasonable.

The higher price charged by a ride-hailing app is to pay for the certainty one would get a ride with the convenience of knowing how long before it arrives.

Moreover, Grab takes a 20 percent cut from the price of the ride, leaving the remaining 80 percent to the driver, who then has to cover his operating costs and still turn a profit.

And Grab's S$5 penalty fee is to dissuade users like Tan from exploiting the system repeatedly, which inconveniences the drivers and other riders because of his erratic booking behaviour.

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Tan's other inexplicable Internet behaviour

Tan, 70, is the former CEO of NTUC income, an insurance company, which he was at the helm at for 30 years.

Following the mid-April announcement that ex-military general Neo Kian Hong will be the next SMRT CEO, Tan wrote an open letter to him.

Tan used the open letter to praise himself, as well as recommend ways on running Singapore’s train company -- despite lacking the exact relevant experience as Neo on running a public transport system.