KUALA LUMPUR, 14 May 2018:
With almost three million drivers now registered in Southeast Asia with ride-hailing service Grab, it is only natural that more are now confident enough to sign up for extra income.
But there’s a major loophole which allows more enterprising existing drivers to take advantage of new ones without the latter’s knowledge – it’s called the “GrabCar Multi-Level Referral Programme”.
While the scheme is designed to reward an existing driver to recruit friends and family onto the ride-hailing platform, it is also open to abuse – via recruitment methods carried out online and offline.
A number of banners (see below) advertising this recruitment service has gone up all over the Klang Valley and beyond in recent weeks after the Grab-Uber merger process began – but it is learnt the abuses had actually begun a lot earlier online.
Some tech-savvy drivers have also developed apps placed on Android and iOS stores online – tricking new drivers to register via this referral programme instead of directly with Grab.
How does this scheme work? An explanation has been set out on the Grab webpage here and the illustration below is taken directly from Grab:
1st level
- Chong is a GrabCar driver. He refered two of his friends, Rizal and Vijay, to also sign up with Grab. So Chong will earn RM150 (RM75 x 2 person) under the referral scheme.
2nd level
- Rizal then decides that he really likes driving with Grab and recruits his friend David to join. Rizal earns RM 75 and Chong earns an additional RM50.
- Meanwhile, Vijay manages to recruit some new drivers too: his 2 siblings and 4 cousins! And while Vijay makes RM425 (RM75 x 6 person), Chong makes an additional RM300 (RM50 x 6 person)!
3rd level
- Later on, David recruits his friend Ariff into Grab, which means:
- David gets RM75 > Rizal gets RM50 > Chong still earns an extra RM25!
Total earnings
- This gives Chong a total earning of RM525 – and all he did was recruit 2 people!
So the more new drivers you refer, the more you can earn. And if they’re better at recruiting than you are, you can earn more than you ever expected!
And to make it easy, Grab also says: “Remind your new referrals to put your Referral ID: for you to earn the referral incentives”.
The existing driver can now drive less and end up earning more – instead of driving an average 10 to 20 trips daily, the referral scheme means the “referred driver must have completed 30 jobs within the 1st month. You must be an ACTIVE driver: maintain at least 20 jobs within the past 30 days”.
To avoid fattening the pockets of others, new drivers should go directly to the Grab offices and kiosks and get help from the staff there. A list of available locations can be found at https://www.grab.com/my/driver/gdc/.