Grab: Taxi Ride, Food Delivery Reviews

by Soadlapan

From this app CS: “Please be informed that from 31 July 2020, GrabRewards Points will only be awarded for payments made with GrabPay Wallet.”

Why didn’t you post this to all customers through Grab ?!? There is NOTHING in the Help Centre regarding this major policy change. When did you plan on announcing it?

As if to add insult to injury, GrabPay Wallet can’t be topped up anymore, even from local banks!

I have lost out on hundreds of points!!!

Recently, my account was blocked for 24hrs for cancellations I never made! Drivers in Malaysia are using a hacked version of Grab that snipes (steals) calls!

Last night our new, untrained driver mesmerized by Grab and GPS came to a full stop on the freeway. A 10 minute ride took 45 minutes. The night before that, a driver tapped “Picked Up” then no-showed, effectively disabling Grab . Took an hour to sort out. While we have a 8 month old baby in tow.

this app is in the chaotic end stages of startup group think. They have monopoly status. Employees neither know nor care what anyone else is doing. They are way past giving a f@#k.

by Coleton.pierson

When delivery drivers forget food orders, customer support does nothing. Wasted money. Corporate policies for fixing the issue are redundant and inefficient and usually lead to nothing being fixed or refunded. Leaves you only able to review the delivery driver, which isn’t fair since the problems are mostly corporate’s fault on how they handle cases.

I continuously order food only to see later that they couldn’t find a driver. It shouldn’t be difficult to order food. Funny thing is that if this fails, I usually am able to order from another service successfully. I have reduced the amount I use the service these days.

Use another service, there are better and cheaper alternatives.

by Local Police Department

Grab suddenly stopped accepting my payment method - I contacted my bank directly and they said it was on grabs end. When I brought that to their attention of customer service they demanded the only way I can move forward is to send a photo of my card, covering only a couple digits. So somehow I was accused of fraud by them for ordering food on my own card…Like what? Completely ridiculous process to make me send a photo of my credit card via email . My bank said absolutely not to do that. So I’m essentially stuck in limbo as they won’t allow me to enter any payment method, despite me having every major card carrier, unless I send them photos of my cards (which I did btw, covering all except the last 4 but they wouldn’t accept unless I revealed more numbers. ) Completely sketchy standard operating procedure. Reaching out to customer support and being accused of fraud is lovely - I won’t use this service anymore.

Be careful for real, they are trying to get your card information in a photo. That’s soooo sketchy and not normal operating procedures for major providers. If you get your identity stolen, blame this app

by JAIOSUSER

I recently reinstalled Grab on my iPhone, choosing the Sign In with Apple option this time for better privacy. At first it worked fine, but after I gave Grab my phone number it forced me to use Sign in with Facebook because I had previously used it to sign in, allegedly for “security”.

This is silly. I don’t want to use Sign in with Facebook. I hate Facebook and want nothing to do with them. I want to use Sign In with Apple, but this app won’t let me. Also, practically speaking, what is a user supposed to do if they’ve deleted their Facebook account? Can they never use this app again until they’ve changed their phone number? In short, this seems like either a.) a bug that is resulting in poor UI/UX, or b.) a sneaky attempt to force users to allow Sign In with Facebook, and all the tracking and data harvesting that this entails.

Per Apple’s policies, any app that offers Sign in with Facebook HAS TO offer Sign In with Apple, so this seems like a clear violation of the official requirements for iOS developers. Maybe just a bug? If so, fix it please. If not, shame on you. I am reporting this to Apple.

by Boo For Grab

I ordered food through Grab . The order was confirmed and said “restaurant is preparing your order,” “expected delivery 5:50-6:05pm” at 6:05 I checked Grab to see where the driver was, is saw “your order has been cancelled as we don’t have an available driver. Try to place your order again.” No message, no email, no nothing. Just a change in the status when I went to check on my (previously confirmed and in process) order. When I went to try to place my order again, the restaurant I ordered from was unavailable. I called “customer service” and was told I “could try to call the restaurant and place an order and then take a this app to go pick it up.” I asked for help placing my order from the restaurant, help getting other food delivered, help with anything at all that could improve the situation. I was told that they don’t have the ability to assist with orders (I was told this from the customer service number on Grab that I ordered from.) I (used to) use this app literally every single day for transport and very frequently for food delivery. I will no longer be using them.

by Truthful Statements

I’ve been using this app for 4+ years and have passed a lot of money through their ecosystem, however I’ve decided on principle that I can’t support this company any longer as their customer service is absolutely terrible. As of late I’ve had a few orders in a row that were wrong, whether they were the restaurant or the drivers fault depends on the different orders, however after writing detailed explanations including photos, this app support didn’t even bother getting back to me at all, let alone compensating me for my lost money and time. On top of what I’ve heard from the drivers (here in Southeast Asia a few years ago there was competition between Uber and this app, and Uber took much better care of the drivers). Clearly this company does not have the customers nor the employees best interest in mind, they’re just out to take your money and get away with compensating you as little as possible. Look elsewhere. There’s lots of competitors who are hungry to satisfy their customers should there be any issues.

by Fwong01

this app booking is the most terrible and most horrid app I use just to book a car. The amount of time wasted looking for a car is the stupidest thing I have experience. Why do I have to wait until the time for peak period for someone to take my booking. I have to keep waiting till the rate goes higher then a driver pick up, that is the most ridiculous and greedy thing I have experience with this system. I would like to point out that waiting 15-20 minutes for a this app is quite unreasonable as I understand the driver also have to make a living but, I have an designated appointment!

Again I would like to point out how this app takes advantage of the customer as it takes away there time for waiting for booking and money as it make you wait to a point where it reaches peak period.

by JustYourAverageHugeNarutoFan

To the dearest company of this app, please forgive me for what I am about to comment upon Grab as it might hurt your boo boos to the extreme. When the new pandemic happened, I haven’t been using this app since March till now. I thought of using it for when the time comes to reuse the application again, but your rotten crusty skin like beings have to deduct my Grabpoints solely because I haven’t been using my this app app at all??!!? This is unfair for us this app users! I would love to save up my points for something later in the coming months and in hopes that nothing can go wrong, but you exist you greedy gold digging pigs. Restore back my points or there will be consequences in the future. May God bless you and I hope you never rise from the ashes of your grave.

by Rice-queen

Grab gives no protection when a customer gets a bad driver. Multiple times drivers will accept a ride, and then not come. They won’t answer calls or texts and all you can do is cancel. Then you get penalized for canceling and there is no way to report the bad driver to the company.

Also the other night i tried to order food delivery multiple times but there were no drivers available so i had to cancel. I am not blocked from ordering as a punishment for canceling but I had no choice. There were no drivers. Grab said to contact customer support, but the customer support chat won’t work. The message just says “Sending” forever. Horrible app and company that treats customers horribly.

by Devastator77

Grab works fine when it works but building a ride share app is not hard. When things aren’t working, it takes 20-30 interactions with customer service AT A MINIMUM to get this fixed. The first order team has the technological knowledge of my grandmother (they know what an app and email is but not much more) and getting to somebody knowledgeable is near impossible. Also, when I call in I don’t want to hear “fill out an online form” to then get into email correspondence and then get told “call us” which has literally happened on every interaction with customer service for me. It’s disappointing because I joined hearing the customer service is better but frankly Go-Jek is cheaper and in Singapore, taxi drivers are great from a service perspective and readily available.

by S. Joey

My grabpay has been blocked due to a chargeback request since December 21st 2020. In the support email it states that it may take up to 90 business days from request date to reach a conclusion but it’s been 207 days without any service reply.

Besides this, I’d say the ride and meal services are actually pretty decent, reliable, and convenient. I’ve been a Platinum member for several years and this app used to be my go-to service app. Their prices don't vary much from in-store rates and I’ve never had any trouble getting a ride except during early hours of the morning (which is totally understandable).

by The Soccer Gamer

After switching to an IPhone 11 I cannot add a second destination. Due to some glitch Grab lacks the +sign that should be located next to the first destination that when clicked opens the field to add a second one.
Which means that when I reach the first destination the trip is marked as finished. Then I have to rebook another trip and pay again for the base fair. I normally just pay cash to the driver off Grab to take me to the second location which makes feel unsafe since there’s no record of the ride. I could get off the car and request a second driver through Grab but due to the heavy Manila traffic it takes a long time until another available driver can be found.

by NinjasOfOrca

I echo the statements of others that customer service is really bad. They’re not rude or anything, just bad at what they do. Most recently, I submitted a comment through Grab and received an email for follow up. The representative emailing me said to reply to the message to resolve my issue. When I did, I got an automatic reply stating that the email did not work for issues and that I had to use Grab

The problem is, when I use Grab , I can only initiate the complaint but I cannot give any specific feedback. Thus there is no way to provide responses for follow up with the issue because there is no way to respond via email

It creates a situation where it’s impossible to get any resolution

by Ftffugfdh

Though I enjoy using Grab for its various points such as delivery, taxi, and sometimes sending products, it can be inconsistent in finding a driver. There were many times when I have ordered food and expect it to be here, only to wait one hour and recheck to see that they couldn’t find a driver. If they couldn’t have found a driver, why didn’t they keep trying, or at least send me a notification? They like to send me notification on nonesense deals and promotions, but they don’t send notifications on important things like a cancelled order. Also one time, one of the shop had to refund me something because they forgot the order, it was just 20Bhat or around 65 cents, and instead of just putting it toward my next order, they literally divided into two and gave me a coupon of 10 bhat each. I know they did it so I would order two more orders instead of one but are you serious? You really have to be that much of a money grabber? Honestly getting annoyed at them and will expand my app usage to other apps now.

by DC Guy In Arlington

I downloaded Grab . Set up my bank account information and it asked me to create a pin. I typed in a nee pin but it doesn’t do anything further. I can’t hit submit or send or save. And I can’t use the Help Centre to get help because it automatically send me to set up a PIN. I can’t figure out to delete Grab and reinstall it because it’s continues to live on my cloud. Help!

by Indonesia Rocks

Giving a 5 star rating because while this app can 100% improve their service (contacting customer service, getting responsible and accountable responses etc) they have grown leaps and bounds since the start of this pandemic. Growing the listing of available restaurants, improved comms between drivers and customers… so much better. And what a grace it is to be able to order something to break up the monotony of these endless MCOs… sure things can be better. But I appreciate this app’s work in giving folks food options during this never ending nightmare and supporting local businesses and this app drivers. Kudos. Keep
It up.

by Banskslsowjwbwbsdm

Grab is not user friendly. Unfortunately there’s no Uber service otherwise I would use them instead. There’s no way for a user to contact a support team via phone call or message. The system to report an issue is long and not helpful. There should be a chat tab or number you can call for assistance. My main issue is when using my card to pay for services they charge you even if this app has not completed the service. I picked a two stop this app ride and my driver only took me to one after saying he completed the ride, which was a lie. this app should have a system in place where the rider also confirms the driver has took you to both stops before saying the ride is complete. But Grab doesn’t seem to help or service the rider who is actually paying for the service. It only benefits the drivers since they can directly contact this app via a phone number and choose when the ride is completed. I wish there was another ride app I could use because I would. But I’ll stick to taxis and motorbikes from the main road from now on.

by Yhan1498

this app was really convenient right now, because of the pandemic it really helps a lot. But to protect riders for scamming i suggest that you allow 5k and up for online payment for anti-bogus or fake booking, it will helps alot to the riders.

I saw alot of post in social media's that theres a lot of rider was been scammed by fake booking and cost a lot of money!. So please this app philippines let's work it out and make things convenient to everyone.

by SaeedRahmatolahi

I like this app and using that for most of the time . The only thing that can be improved is that when I get my food I want to give 5 star to the driver but if I do not rate in that time I can not do that any more it would be better that when there is a food feedback before that check the driver is rated or not . Maybe user forgot to rate the driver . I know its not a bug deal but I want to make the drivers happy with my giving starts but most of the time when I got the food if I don't rate in that time I can not be able to rate them anymore

by CEPierce29

As an expat living/traveling various places in the Philippines, this app has become quite an indispensable asset.

The times I have needed to contact support, the communication and interaction was pleasant and timely with 100% satisfaction and favorable outcomes between both this app food and this app transportation.

The only constructive criticism I have for this app and Grab itself is I believe they should look closer into providing broader financial support and opportunities for foreign citizens who use foreign banks and/or debit/credit cards.

At one point two years ago, I was able to use my American (USAA) bank debit card and add it as an automatic payment method, now for some reason Grab (?) or this app (?) no longer supports as a minimum my bank card in which as mentioned was used previously.

Regardless, I’m still able to use cash which is a little less convenient for me personally, but works just fine for purposes of obtaining services.

Thanks this app!

by Flyonzewall

I live in SE Asia where this app have acquired Uber. I used Uber regularly without a problem for years.

So now I have to use this app and Grab is a near total fail. For example:

- Grab often can not find my pickup location and autolocates hundreds of metres away, sometimes across a busy highway. I have had to cross busy highways in the rain, not at all safe, just so the driver could find me. This is a huge complaint I hear from drivers as well.

- The destination database is very limited. Type in a point, it doesn’t find it, and offers up suggestions that are not even close to where you want to go. Sure, you can pin a destination on a map, but what if you don’t know the city or language?

- Unlike Uber, the route is not plotted on Grab map, so you have no idea if you are taking the correct route. This could also be a safety concern if you doubt the driver’s integrity.

- Many times your current location lags by a minute or more, so Grab doesn’t even show you where you are.

I could go on, but this app is just totally frustrating. If I am somewhere where I can hail a taxi, I do that now rather than deal with the this app app, even if I have to pay more. Both riders and drivers are frustrated...this app needs to fix this if they want to grow their business or keep formerly satisfied Uber riders and drivers.

by Locked Out Too

In one of my first experiences riding a this app car in the Philippines, the driver lied about my scheduled drop off being in the wrong direction and tried to convince me to overpay him by 1,500 in cash to take me where I wanted to go. In one of my last experiences with a this app car in the Philippines, the driver dropped us a 20 minute walk from our destination. When we exited the car confused in the wrong place, we left behind a bag containing a precious family memory of a deceased family member. We realized the mistake immediately and tried contacting the driver repeatedly. He didn’t answer our calls or repeated calls from customer support for several days. By then we had to leave the country. When he was finally tracked down, customer support refused to send the bag despite my offers to pay for the inconvenience and international shipping and my explanations of the irreplaceable nature of the item. We were never refunded our extra expenses for calling a new car to take us to the correct destination. Use this service with caution if at all. If anything goes wrong, they will not have your back.

by Loveaddict

this app used to be much better than this. In the past, the booking given to the driver was not back to back and the waiting time was not horrendously long. Now most of the bookings will be back to back i.e. driving dropping another passenger nearby and then picking you up. I have encountered many times that the driver took longer than usual (wrong turn, etc.) and the waiting time from 7 minutes or or could be doubled. Also, now you don’t see if your trip request is rejected or accepted by drivers when booking. It’s much more annoying for me. The only point that this app is doing much better than Uber (or attracting more passengers) in the SE Asia region is more and more promotions. In the end it won’t be sustainable and one (Uber) will have to go out. And when that day comes, we will have to bear with terrible customer service and price hike!

by C1243657

Apart from the numerous issues with the map and interface (locations aren’t clear, you type in the name of a place exactly as it appears in google maps and they suggests 100 other places nowhere close, etc.), the biggest issue is that I cannot add my credit card to Grab . Does it not accept Visa cards from the US or what? That is half of the appeal of using a ride hailing app. If I have to use cash I may as well just hail a cab on the side of the road - prices are similar, sometimes the cabs are cheaper.

So they sent a developer response saying “For security reasons you can only add a card when you are in S.E. Asia.” What security reasons? Sounds like a lousy excuse. Second, I’ve been living in S.E. Asia for over three years! Maybe you mean “you can only use a card issued by a bank based in S.E. Asia”? Ridiculous. Hopefully some other companies can enter the market, it certainly wouldn’t be hard to do it better.

by Mb_oebanda

Grab used to show a full screen image with a green background showing a photo of the driver, vehicle details, and star ratings when “We’ve found you a driver!” For my past two bookings, that doesn’t show up anymore and when I click on the driver information on the screen with all of the ride info nothing happens. The name is truncated and the photo is too small to see anyway. The driver screenshot is very important; my son is on the autism spectrum and when he takes a this app by himself it’s an essential part of his safety routine to send the family not just the ride details by sharing the ride, but the screenshot of the driver. If this is a glitch, I’d like to report it. If it’s an update feature, removing that full screen image of the driver with the green background is a very bad idea. Please bring it back. this app is a critical part of our lives, enabling someone like my son to travel safely but we need the driver information back. Thanks for listening, this app.

by Saywhatnow

I am exhausted from this app these days. The indicated wait times are never correct due to GPS errors and poor estimates of driver travel time. The drivers always seem to have another passenger to drop off first and there is no way to indicate during booking that I don’t want to wait for that period of time. Cancelling a booking, even after waiting for much much longer than the original estimate results in me being penalised, yet drivers can cancel seemingly at random. The reason this app used to be better than other taxi booking services was that you could count on a driver picking up and then showing up. Now that this is no longer true and the fact that both Comfort and Uber have improved their services in Singapore, this app has zero advantages. As soon as they stop heavily subsidising rides through discounts I will stop using this app. I’ve already stopped using it half the time. Get it together, this app.

by Joshjellel

I rely on ride-hailing apps when working in Taiwan, Thailand and the Philippines. Time and again this app has been a miserable experience when you don’t speak the driver’s language.

Someone please tell me why the drivers never know where to pick me up and where I want to go!? Both of those pieces of information are crucial to booking a ride. Both of those pieces of information are entered with explicit detail and appear in both text and map form in their native language on their own device that they know how to work. And yet, every single ride I get a call with questions about where I am—somehow they can’t figure out without speaking to me how to navigate their car to that pin on the map. And then once I’m in the car we have to try to talk some more and point to places and maps and info on my phone that I know they can’t read.

C’mon man! Knowing how to navigate is like 75% of your job. And this app the company: this wayfinding should be seamless as a part of the driver’s software. How about some initial navigation aptitude testing and ongoing training?! And how about some education on what riders expect from an app-based service?! If I wanted to make a phone call and do a lot of talking, I’d call a traditional taxi service. Talking to the rider can not be your drivers’ first resort—they need to be more resourceful.

Inexcusable. No stars!

by Can't Have The Same Nickname!

Grab would be great, except there are far too many cancellations, especially with food orders. There are times when 6 or 7 drivers will accept my order and then cancel anywhere from 2-10 minutes later, which means waiting 15-40 minutes before someone actually starts to pick up the order... They then accept other passengers when they should be delivering my food, which turns what should be a 10 minute delivery, into a 30-40 minute delivery, and I end up with cold/smashed food... The same happens with rides, and on occasion the driver will say they aren’t coming and demand that I cancel so that they don’t have to. this app needs to do a better job ensuring their drivers follow through and incorporate stricter penalties for cancelling. I have since started using Be/Viet-Go/Uber and don’t have any of those issues.

by Gfrdgorosocd

It’s a bummer in Thailand we have no choice. this app’s drivers never see where you really are. So they call you but you can’t understand Thai and their English is not great. And yes we are the guest and should learn the language but that is the whole purpose of using an app instead of a regular Taxi. You are paying more because you should be able to just use the map and point where you are and where you are going. Their system is messy the poor drivers never know exactly where you are. Also as you are trying to find a ride, all these pop-up offers clutter the way and you have to keep dismissing it. Not a clean app like Uber. You don’t even know the color of the car. I wish another company would come into Thailand and give some competition because otherwise this app will not get any better.

by Expl0d!ngsharp!es

I really love Grab, it’s super user friendly and easy to understand. I love that it gives a lot of options for rides. The other feature that I really love is that it translates the text messages so I know what the other person is texting. I would have to say that alone is awesome. My only (2) complaints are that it crashes when it’s a busy night so it’s really hard to book one when it’s busy and the other complaint is that it’s not always accurate as to where the driver is. For example it will say the driver is there to pick you up but it shows their car 2 streets over (even thought they really are at your pick up point). Once those 2 problems are fixed I’d give it a 5 star.

by Roscomcmillan

I like Grab so this is all to help improve.

The recent payment update caused me to say thanks and walk away from my drivers car while he was expecting cash. My credit card was no longer being used for rides without any notice. He had to run me down and thought I was trying to not pay. I had to use cash for a day before I had time to go through the new pay system sign up. When I tap “Learn more about the this app pay credits”, it takes me to a webpage that can’t be found, so I’m not sure if my card on file will be used again now or if it expects me to top up like a SIM card. Also the this app rewards new sign up process keeps freezing on the last step (entering date of birth).

Minor suggestions from before update:

* GPS is usually inaccurate by a short distance

* Raising rates for drivers or being able to tip in-app should be added asap.

* A standardized picture of the vehicle should appear by the driver picture. This will help everyone, but especially foreigners to spot a car when they don’t know the regional makes and models of vehicles.

* Being able to give public compliments or favorite drivers to use again in the future. More incentives for good drivers.

by Mattgelgota

Grab works very well and is easy to navigate. Early on a few drivers were blatantly picking up and dropping off other people en route so a 4–7min wait could become 40min with the driver detouring in the wrong direction. After 3-4 problem rides in my first week I was given a priority booking and have since had no issue apart from a cancelled booking once in a while that is immediately picked up by someone else. Traffic in Bangkok is ridiculous so jams are bound to happen. Most of the time there’s a 10-15 min wait rather than the 2-4 min you might be used to with Uber or Lyft in SF etc. but once you get used to factoring that in, this app is pretty great.

by AnthonyFromFL

First time to Thailand and stayed in the Bangkok area for 5 days. Unless you’re a local and/ or lucky, you probably won’t find better taxi fares in Thailand unless you use Grab. I’ve gotten taxi fares cheaper than a lot of tuk tuks, using Grab. Yes there’s ads but how do you think a free app remains free?? You may sometimes experience long wait times (15-20 min) because not only traffic at time of request, but it seems like the taxis available from Grab are not as plentiful as say Uber in other big cities around the world- so you may see increased fare prices due to high demand. I still say 5 stars because Grab has done what it has advertised and what it has been designed to do. Plus it saved me some money too.

by Bradsreview

this app App has been our oasis in Asia. We visited Singapore, Malaysia, and now are in Thailand. Singapore was very easy and comfortable to get around on public transport so we didn’t use this app App there. But as soon as we hit the other two countries we desperately needed affordable transportation. Luckily some neighbors in Malaysia at our hotel told us about this app and we’ve been using it since. Very affordable and keeps us from having to deal with local taxis who try and rip off or scam foreigners. The scheduling feature is also great. When we made a stop in Phuket, we were out by Phang Nga Bay which is a rural coastal village for site seeing. A local taxi tried to charge us twice what we paid to get there (we used this app to get there from the airport). Unfortunately this app drivers weren’t in the area but we scheduled it out and got one for a similar price to what we paid to get to Phang Nga from the airport. Now in Bangkok, public transport is very confusing, I can’t read the stops or signs or streets. Nothing is tourist friendly. Can’t figure out how to pay or how much to pay. this app is an amazing alternative. I love Grab!

by MadBetch

I’ve used Grab on my first trip to Thailand in Bangkok and Chiang Mai on May 2019. It works well in both cities. It is the Asian Uber or Lyft app. You don’t need to attach your credit card info. You can pay cash baht as you go to the driver. It’s optional to attach your credit card for a small discount off fares. There are different options - JustGrab is a fixed rate. You can see how much the cost is before you book. Also, this app Taxi will vary on price but will show you an estimate before you book. You will add an additional 20 baht for taxi on top of the meter price. Be warned that some drivers used fake pictures on their this app profile, but all drivers were nice. I had no issues of scams, language barrier, etc.