In response to the exclusive report by FMT today on how such fraudulent practices were said to be occurring, the company said there is no threat to its customer data.
“These illegal tools and modified apps do not operate within the Grab app, and under no circumstances is any Grab app or passenger data compromised in any way.
“It is our driver-partners who choose to download and employ these illegitimate tools who put their own personal data at risk, because they may compromise the integrity of their mobile device and the data stored on it,” the company said in a statement.
Grab said it has worked hard to educate its driver-partners against the use of such illegal tools and modified apps.
It said there is only a small number of driver-partners involved and their modus operandi covers two methods.
“They are GPS spoofing, where drivers use third party illegal GPS tools to artificially pin themselves in a particular location, such as a shopping mall, though they may be physically some distance away.
“And (they are also using) modified apps, which are non-sanctioned apps obtained outside the official Google Play Store or Apple App Store, that allow drivers to ignore job allocations they do not want, without incurring any penalties.”
It said GPS spoofing is a way to trick their app into pulling fake data.
Grab also said significant investments in technology have resulted in any fraud on its platform being “far below 1%, below industry averages”.
In our report, FMT had also reached out to a Grab driver-partner who claims to have fallen victim to this fraudulent activity on the platform.
The man, who asked to remain anonymous, said the dishonest driver-partners would usually steal high-fare bookings only.
“This happens especially for long-distance trips where the fare is usually more than RM30.
“There was one time that I received a booking from Bangsar to Banting with the fare stated as RM70, but after 15 to 30 seconds, the booking was cancelled,” he said.
He said his bookings had been stolen four times in the last two months.
However, Grab denied this was possible due to the use of anti-fraud technology.
“It is not possible for an assigned job to be stolen by or transferred to another driver-partner, with our advanced anti-fraud technology in place.
“We also use machine learning models crunching millions of booking data in real-time looking for fraudulent patterns,” it said.
Grab said they can predict which rides are “high risk” and prevent most of these risky or fraudulent rides from taking place preemptively.
“We have in place warning systems and we work closely with our driver-partner community to educate them that such tools are unfair and they pose risks,” the company said, adding that a whistle-blower programme also rewards driver-partners who tip off the company on any illegal practices.
“It allows drivers to participate directly in the eradication of driver fraud by reporting suspicious fraud activities as they happen.”
Editor’s note: This story is in response to an FMT report that said the Grab app can be hacked and that the bookings can be stolen. We have since removed the inaccurate article and apologise for any misunderstanding caused.