GrabShare suspended amid COVID scare

MANILA, Philippines — Grab Philippines is suspending its ride-sharing service known as GrabShare starting noon today (March 13) in Metro Manila and Cebu.

In a statement, Grab said the temporary suspension of GrabShare services is meant “to aid in the social distancing prescribed by the Philippine health officials with regard to the public health situation on COVID-19.”

“GrabShare services will resume as soon as the public health situation de-escalates,” it added.

Grab’s other transport services such as GrabCar, GrabCar Premium and GrabCar six-seater would remain available to commuters.

Meanwhile, the company said it is continuously addressing the issue of frequent cancellation on rides and no-show for food orders as such behavior is resulting in loss of opportunities and resources for its driver- and delivery-partners.

Grab said such behavior damages their driver- and delivery-partners’ ability to devote time and resources to those users who are truly in need of the service.

“With that, users who frequently cancel on rides and do not show up to claim their food orders are flagged for a possible account suspension,” the company said.

Grab said its anti-fraud team has been continuously identifying multiple accounts that were created and being used by the same user.

“These initiatives have deterred users who use the platform with ill, fraudulent and malicious intent,” it said.

As a general safety procedure, Grab said its safety and anti-fraud teams regularly go through and suspend accounts with fake, incomplete and unverified names.

Users will not be able to book rides until they have updated their names on the system.

Grab said it has sent out communications to the users with fake, incomplete and unverified names used on the app and had given them until Feb. 22 to correctly update their profile.

Those who failed to correctly update their profile have been suspended from the platform.

Last year, Grab said it suspended more than 351,000 fake, incomplete and invalid accounts from the platform.

In addition, it has also suspended around 856 accounts of the same nature just last month.