Over 60,000 fares overcharged by Grab
In a recent announcement on 22 December, both the Land Transport Authority (LTA) and the Public Transport Council (PTC) disclosed that more than 40,000 Grab passengers experienced overcharging due to the utilisation of outdated Electronic Road Pricing (ERP) rates within the app.
Reports filed with the authorities highlighted instances where Grab passengers had been billed incorrectly for their trips.
Upon investigation, the LTA determined that these discrepancies were a result of inaccurate ERP charges applied to the fares.
In response, the LTA instructed Grab to conduct an extensive review of its data to identify further cases of overcharging and take necessary corrective actions.
“This error affected 40,431 passengers, with excess ERP charges generally ranging from S$1 (US$0.76) to S$3 collected for the large majority of affected passengers,” stated LTA and PTC.
“We understand from Grab that the ERP charges have been updated in their backend system and it has since taken action to reimburse all affected passengers.”
A spokesperson from Grab attributed the error to a temporary backend syncing issue that prevented the application from reflecting updated ERP rates for specific gantries, despite the scheduled revisions during the school holiday period.
This technical hitch resulted in a minor percentage of rides between 20 November and 4 December being overcharged as they passed through the affected gantries.
Grab promptly rectified the error, informing impacted customers and initiating refunds. The company assured that they have conducted a thorough review of ERP pricing across all gantries in their system to ensure accuracy. Additionally, they have implemented enhanced internal testing procedures to forestall similar incidents in the future.
Expressing regret for the inconvenience caused, Grab issued an apology to consumers.
“We sincerely apologise to consumers for the inconvenience caused,” Grab shared.
Both the LTA and PTC stated their intent to investigate the matter further, emphasising that ride-hailing service operators bear the responsibility of ensuring accurate fare charges for passengers.
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