'Are you playing around?' Woman ends up late for work after PHV driver takes detours to avoid picking her up

One woman booked a Grab ride on Wednesday (Jan 3) for a breezy commute to work.

But she still ended up late to the office after the private-hire driver "played" with her for 30 minutes, she said.

Taking to TikTok on the same day, user Mira said that she left home to board the Grab ride at around 10.11am.

But after 10 minutes, the driver was seen in the ride-hailing app "stuck" at Yishun Community Hospital after taking three detours.

The app showed that the driver was expected to pick her up in seven minutes.

At 10.28am, the fed up Mira wrote to the driver: "Are you coming or just trying to play around? Just cancel the ride so that I can book a new one."

She added that the driver refused to pick up her call or reply to the messages.

"Concerned" about the driver's well-being, Mira sarcastically asked if he was stuck in an accident at the hospital.

"I'm usually not that rude, but no way am I going to let him get the cancellation fee," she said.

When the driver failed to pick her up, Grab notified Mira that she would be entitled to a $5 voucher.

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But after the four-wheeler did not show up at 10.36am, the woman resigned herself to take public transport to work.

"Perhaps this fella is sick? Or he needed to poop?" Mira wondered while on her way to work via public transport, while the app continued to show the driver was still driving around Yishun Community Hospital.

In the comments, a netizen wanted to know what happened to the Grab driver.

"I don't know. He eventually cancelled 20 minutes ago, but I've already reached work a long time ago," she said.

Another netizen urged Grab to do something about this errant driver.

"I waited for 20 minutes for my driver to cancel on me before," she said.

AsiaOne has contacted Mira and Grab for comment.

According to Grab, users will not incur a $4 cancellation fee if they are made to wait for more than five minutes after the indicated estimated time of arrival.

"Conversely, if you cancel after three minutes, your driver will receive compensation from you to make up for the time, petrol, and effort he took to get to you," the ride-hailing company said.

But Grab encourages users to first check in with their driver via a call or their the app's messaging service if they are late.

ALSO READ: 'You are Indian, I am Chinese, you are the very worst': Private-hire driver caught in racist tirade against passenger

chingshijie@asiaone.com