Advertisement

Who pays when Indonesian ride-sharing fraud goes full throttle?

Drivers are using various techniques, including fake GPS apps found on the dark web, to inflate their numbers and get undeserved bonuses

Reading Time:5 minutes
Why you can trust SCMP
Go-Jek drivers wait for customers in Jakarta, Indonesia. The Indonesian ride-hailing service says it will expand into Thailand, Vietnam, Singapore and the Philippines in the next few months. Photo: AP

Ignasius Yoesrandewanto, a driver with Indonesia’s ride-hailing giant Go-Jek, was waiting for work recently at his usual spot in a bustling railway station in Jakarta when he got a request that would seem quite a challenge for the 34-year-old scooter operator.

Advertisement

He was asked to deliver a locomotive.

“I cancelled the order right away,” Yoesrandewanto told This Week in Asia. “You know it’s fake.”

The story may be worth a chuckle, but such bogus auto-bid requests matter to Yoesrandewanto’s bottom line, as bonuses are based on a driver’s performance and completion rates.

What Uber needs to do to catch up with Asian rivals

At Go-Jek, for example, two-wheeler drivers must complete at least 60 per cent of all bookings per day to receive a maximum bonus of 200,000 rupiah (US$14). For drivers with Singapore-based Grab, Go-Jek’s main rival, the cancellation rate must be below 10 per cent.

Advertisement
loading
Advertisement