We recently announced an updated policy to prevent intentional abuse against our platform. This is aimed at less than 0.5% of our bookings. This has resulted in a range of questions from our community, and we truly appreciate every piece of feedback. However, there has been some misconceptions, but be rest assured that the vast majority will not be affected by it, here are three reasons why:

Why are we implementing this policy? To protect our community against intentional abuse

The vast majority within our community are honest, respectful users. Unfortunately, we have noticed some repeated patterns of intentional late cancellations and no-shows. Therefore, to protect our genuine users, we have to be tough against the small minority of intentional abusers. Grab will not derive any profits from these fees; instead, all fees go towards compensating affected driver-partners

How will we ensure fairness? We will be tough against intentional abuse by any party

Similar to our passengers, the vast majority of our driver-partners are also honest, respectful and hardworking individuals. Today, we already have strict measures in place to take action against unfair cancellations by a minority of driver-partners who give the whole community a bad name. For instance, driver-partners who repeatedly ask passengers to cancel could result in a suspension or even a permanent ban.

What will we do to protect our users? We have put in place three layers to safeguard our good users  

It is true that mistakes are sometimes made. For example, a user may have had a genuine emergency, or was forced to cancel due to no fault of his/her own.

Therefore, we have put in place three layers to protect our users:

• First, through advanced machine learning we are able to monitor real-time data to check for genuine circumstances, such as unforeseen delays in the driver’s arrival
• Second, fees are automatically waived for the first time
• Finally, we will keep an open feedback channel via our in-app Help Centre – if a genuine mistake has been made, we will reimburse the fee within a maximum of two working days.

Ultimately, our twin goals are to provide safe, affordable transport, while creating more income opportunities. We truly believe that the best way to maintain affordable fares is to protect our hardworking drivers’ livelihood against unfair abuse. Therefore, we call for our community to stand by this decision, and to continue to give us valuable feedback. As always, we are fully committed to keep improving so that we can provide a strong experience and opportunity for our community.

=END=