News & Reviews:   Grab

Attention to all e-hailing drivers out there, we have good news. Even though today marks the deadline for e-hailing drivers to get their Public Service Vehicle (PSV) license. The Ministry of Transport just announced that they will give an additional 3-month grace period for e-hailing drivers to acquire the (PSV) license. 

Drivers for e-hailing services such as the ever popular Grab has been instructed to register for their Public Service Vehicle (PSV) license starting last April. As the deadline of July 12 looms ahead, we riders may be seeing a jump in price and waiting time for the popular service as the fee for the PSV license is steep.

Can you believe that it's already July? We are now entering the second half of 2019 and...there isn't a lot going on except for many 7.7 sales, especially on Shopee's platform. Aside from that, another worthy sale promotion that's going on is Huawei's Online IT Fair which is offering a 2-year warranty and up to RM400 discount on its mobile phones now, Samsung is also teaming up with MBO offering Malaysians a Buy 1 Free 1 promo for movie fans, and the Galaxy Note 10 will officially be UNPACKED on 7 August 2019. 

So....yeah I think I'm talking here. Told you there isn't much going on haha. Anyway, the most exciting part is probably looking out for sales on Shopee's 7.7 Orange Madness campaign so do standby if you're planning to buy anything. Anyway, onto this week's NewsBytes. 

Starting from 12 July 2019, it will necessary for riders to send a selfie to Grab via the app to be used as a form of verification. Without the said verification, Grab app usage is presumably limited and they will not be able to book rides via the application.

To ensure a better ride experience on its rideshare service, Grab is adding yet another security feature to the service called Passenger Verification. It requires new users to verify their identity via live selfie with the help of facial recognition technology.

No, this isn’t an early April Fools joke. JPJ now requires all e-hailing drivers such as Grab to register for a PSV (Public Service Vehicle) license, starting from the first of April 2019. The PSV training module would cost a maximum of RM200, and it requires up to 6 hours to complete. Once the training has been completed, the driver required to display a designated e-hailing sticker on their vehicle as per the orders of JPJ.

Starting 25 March 2019, Grab drivers will be eligible to collect a small fee of RM3 whenever a passenger cancels their booking after 5 minutes or does not show up at all. That’s not all, drivers who had their riders cancelled on them after the allocated time will not affect their Cancellation rate at all. However, it is best to take note that the drivers will not be compensated if they do not move towards the rider or took too long to reach their rider.

How's is it going, my homies! It's been a while since we did our #NewsBytes but due to the recent Chinese New Year break, there wasn't so much news. So what's in the loop? Aside from the casual news below, there are a couple of interesting tech stuff to talk about - the upcoming Samsung Galaxy S10 series livestream has been announced, Energizer came out of nowhere with a 18000mAh + dual pop-up front camera smartphone, Xiaomi Mi 9 has been teased and might be revealed in MWC 2019, we got our first look at the vivo V15 Pro in Malaysia, and other minor stuff that isn't that important. 

While many think it is safer to travel by ridesharing services like Grab, it is quite the contrary nowadays. A woman was almost raped by a person impersonating a Grab driver when she failed to check the licence plate of the car before getting into the vehicle in KL.

If you’re constantly on the move and ordering food with Grab, you can now save 55% on your rides and orders with GrabClub. It is a monthly subscription plan and so far it has only one plan, the Grab-it-All Pass, which is priced at RM50 but is actually valued at RM110.