Grab has banned a GrabExpress delivery driver after eight boxes of mooncakes he was supposed to deliver to a customer's clients went missing.

He had picked up the mooncakes in his car on Sep. 5, but they never reached the intended recipients.

Eight boxes of mooncakes went missing

The affected customer, Joanne, told Mothership that with the Mid-Autumn Festival approaching, her marketing agency had ordered mooncakes for their clients.

She then arranged for a GrabExpress delivery to send the mooncakes to the clients' offices on Sep. 5.

However, one of the batches — comprising eight boxes from Ding Mooncake, with accompanying handwritten greeting cards — never found its way there.

It was picked up at about 9:15am by a driver named "Ng Kim Song" in the app, who uploaded pictures of the eight bags placed in their vehicle boot.

As proof of delivery, the driver also shared pictures of the delivery addresses — most of which were exterior shots of buildings.

But when Joanne checked with the five intended recipients, none of them received the mooncakes, she said.

Joanne declined to disclose the total cost of the missing mooncakes. On Ding Mooncake's website, mooncakes are priced from S$69 per box.

She reported the matter to Grab immediately.

Two users complained about same driver

In the week that followed, Joanne's suspicions were heightened when she came across complaints from two other users on Grab's Facebook page, in early September, about the same driver.

One alleged that the driver picked up their order but did not make the delivery to the customer.

Another claimed that the driver did not even pick up her items for delivery three times but collected the delivery fee anyway.

After checking the CCTV footage from her building management, Joanne said that the driver who collected the mooncakes didn't look like his profile picture in the app.

She also lodged a police report on Sep. 10 regarding the suspected theft.

A 'stressful experience'

Since making the complaint, Joanne shared that Grab has refunded her the S$74.50 delivery fee on Sep. 13.

Five days later, on Sep. 18, they also agreed to compensate her for the cost of the mooncakes.

But it was nevertheless a stressful experience for her, Joanne shared.

Her company had to purchase a new batch of mooncakes for the clients, and also had to rewrite the handwritten cards.

She hopes that Grab can screen its drivers more thoroughly to prevent such incidents in future.

We have banned the driver: Grab

In response to Mothership's enquiries, a Grab spokesperson apologised for the unpleasant experience the customer had with GrabExpress.

"We do not condone the behaviour of falsely confirming deliveries, as it goes against Grab's commitment to service integrity," the spokesperson said.

"We have taken immediate action by banning the delivery-partner involved and have refunded the customer for the missing items."

Top image courtesy of Joanne / Canva (for illustration)