A Grab passenger was shown waiting fees that continued to increase during her ride.
The passenger reached out to Mothership claiming that the waiting fees rose to S$18 at one point during her ride.
What happened
On May 8, the Grab passenger booked a ride from Jurong to Bras Basah, with a S$27.50 fare. The driver did not confirm the pick-up when she boarded the vehicle.
When she first received a notification regarding the wait fee, she said she asked the driver about it and reminded him to confirm the pick-up.
As the ride went on, the app continued to notify her of the increasing wait fee.
Screenshots from the Grab app showed that a S$6 wait fee would be imposed if she did not meet her driver by 9:49am. As of 9:53am, this fee increased to S$9.
The passenger added that she thought the driver might be trying to scam her by deliberately letting the wait fees accumulate even though she was already on board.
Screenshot from Mothership reader.
Videos shared with Mothership showed that the passenger was already on the Grab vehicle by then. This is as of 9:41am, seen from the time displayed on the driver's phone:
Screenshot from video submitted by Mothership reader.
The driver eventually swiped to confirm the pick-up "a few minutes before he dropped (her) off," she said.
For JustGrab, GrabCar, GrabPet and GrabFamily, there is a grace waiting period of three minutes. Subsequently, passengers will be charged a waiting fee of S$3 per five-minute waiting block.
Grab's response
In response to queries from Mothership, a Grab spokesperson said that they have looked into the matter and found that the incident was due to the driver-partner's oversight — he had not immediately confirmed that he had picked up the passenger in-app.
Grab has reached out to the affected passenger to reassure her that no wait fee was charged.
The driver-partner has been issued a warning, and has also been reminded on the correct procedures with passenger pick-up.
According to the spokesperson, the Grab app also has "guardrails in place" to invalidate wait fees if it detects that "arrived" or "pick up" has been pressed but the driver-partner is not within a certain radius of the pick-up point.
Top photo & screenshots from video submitted by Mothership reader.