Online cab hailing company, Ola has been found to be scamming customers by adding more kilometers to the destination by manipulating the app.
The Mumbai Police has arrested three Ola cab drivers for this crime.
Read on to find out how Ola drivers have been manipulating their customers for a couple of extra bucks.
Glitch In The Ola App Found By Drivers; Here’s How They Fooled The Customers
Apparently, there is a glitch in the app that the company drivers use. The mastermind of the scam, Rajesh Acharya found this glitch in the outdated version of the app.
Here’s how they did it – on the driver’s version of the app, the cab would appear on the bottom of a bridge even if it was on top of it. They achieved this by turning off the app whenever the cab was going traveling under a long overpass, bridge or flyover.
Once the bridge was crossed, they would then switch on the app again. The map’s rerouted path would then add to the kilometers and also to the passenger’s fare.
The most preferred route for this scam was the Mumbai airport to Panvel route due to the reason that this route is the longest and there are several bridges and flyovers along the way which helps the drivers to increase the fare.
Home Button On Driver Interface Of App Helped Drivers
As per reports, the drivers managed to get rides to this same particular route despite the possibility of the aggregator sending them to any other destination. They did this by using the home option that is provided by Ola.
This option enables drivers to find the trips to the destination of their choice. In spite of some drivers staying in South Mumbai they would put the home option during the day which ended up showing their location as Panvel. And hence they would only be given the rights to Panvel by the system.
The fare of a ride increased by twice the amount due to this fraud. The police have said that if the fair from Panvel was Rs. 610, the fair in the app showed as much as Rs. 1240.
Aacharya had said that he would change the settings and ensure that the app did not automatically update.
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