Similar Location, Different Price?
“Everyone who uses Grab, you should probably stop scrolling and listen to this”. – TikToker Edoardo
This correspondent, who did as they were told, ended up writing this article instead of just watching the video. The video, which has garnered more than 100,000 views in just 7 hours, also attracted hundreds of comments. Most people who commented were either shocked, confused, or enraged.
The video was based on 2 experiments, one conducted by Edoardo himself and the other by his friend. These experiments were also replicated by many other users in the comments section. Following the 2 experiments set out in his video, Edoardo asked:
Why am I getting charged 7$ more for the same trip ?
In essence, Edoardo noticed that Grab charged more for travelling to a pre-saved location than to travel to a location that you manually type out.
The First Case Study
In his video, Edoardo made reference to 2 screenshots which were published on his friend’s Instagram story.
In the first screenshot, Edoardo’s friend who was travelling to a pre-saved location titled “Work” from their home in the East observed that JustGrab was priced at S$26.80. The address saved under Work was “407 Havelock Road”, which is just next to Furama Riverfront at 405 Havelock Road.
The user then manually typed in Furama Riverfront and found that the price for JustGrab had decreased by no less than S$5.
The user tagged Grab on their stories, which were published at around 10.00am on 27 July 2022, to seek clarification. As of 1.00am on 28 July 2022, they have yet to receive a response.
They informed Wake Up Singapore that they “went back and forth to make sure several times” to check. After 20 minutes, they “checked back and the surge was less, but still 1 dollar difference for “work” and typed in the address.”
This correspondent has had sight of the original and unredacted screenshots provided by the user, which were both taken at 9.35am. They are appended below, with necessary redactions:
For avoidance of doubt, 405 Havelock Road (which was manually typed) and 407 Havelock Road (which was saved) are only 4 to 15 meters apart according to Google Maps. The two locations appear to share the same drop-off point as well.
The Second Case Study
Having seen his friend’s Instagram stories, Edoardo decided to test the theory himself.
When he tried booking a Grab for the pre-saved “Work” location situated at 27 Ann Siang Road, he was quoted S$23.80.
Then, when he manually typed in 28 Ann Siang Road, he was quoted only S$16.80. Based on his screenshot, the surge pricing seemed to have ceased too.
The 2 screenshots in Edoardo’s video were taken a minute apart.
In case you were wondering, 27 and 28 Ann Siang Road are 3 meters apart according to Google Maps.
After his video went viral, Edoardo stated that he was sure that there was a technical explanation for why this happened and asked people not to “send hate to Grab“.
He also reminded everyone to check their settings to get the cheapest option.
Others experience similar results
Several TikTok users repeated the same experiment and yielded similar results. 2 users claimed that the prices they were quoted differed by S$6 – S$9.
Many asked Grab to provide an explanation for the differences in prices.
One person observed that it was $1 more expensive to go to a saved location than to go to a unit next door to his saved location.
Some find no difference between quotations for saved and manually typed locations
However, not everyone found that heading to a saved location was cheaper. One user found that it was actually cheaper to go to his saved location than to a manually typed location.
Cheryl Neo stated that she had tried keying in 3 different nearby units, but the prices were still the same. Rivr, another Tiktoker, postulated that timing may be the factor that distinguishes the prices, not the locations.
If you are headed to a pre-saved location, and have some time to spare, do test this theory out and let us know the results you receive.
You may watch Edoardo’s video in full here.
@mozzarellapapi Why am i getting charged 7$ more for the same trip 🤔 #sgtiktok #singaporelife
We have reached out to Grab for comment.
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