Youth Duo To Cheat GrabHitch $26,000 Through Fake Bookings
Image from Today
Around April 2019, Ryan Wong Wei Zei and his childhood friend have recruited more than a dozen other people for a plan to scam ride-hailing firm Grab after Wong has discovered a weakness in the booking and payment system on the mobile application which he can book rides with a social carpooling service GrabHitch using a debit card which is linked to an empty or insufficient bank account.
For this, he manages to cheat Grab for $26,115 before the company discovered this scam and reports to the police. Wong’s plan started around Jan 2019, when he discovering this system to make money through this trick, therefore he asking his friend Chua to join in the scheme. however, they realize that the profit shared wasn’t enough as each driver could only make two trips a day and earn around $144 daily. In order to make their plan earns more, they started to recruiter more drivers to join in this plan and they could get $300 – $400 commission from it.
On March 30, Grab discovered the fraudulent rides and deactivated the 13 driver’s account and reports were sent up to the police department leading to the police officer from the Commercial Affairs Department calling Wong up for questioning. Wong, lawyer, Mr. CK Teo mentioned that Wong’s behavior might be from his rather disadvantaged family and also always thinking of ways to earn extra incomes thus from his service allowance of $500 only.