Ex Grab Driver Fined For Using Passenger’s Phone Forgotten In Car To Rate Himself 5 Stars

2019-12-12 , 6:00 am

His skin very thick.

After giving himself a five-star rating on a phone that his passenger had left behind in his vehicle, 32-year-old Grab driver Alvin Ng Liang Dong threw the phone away as he felt that it would have been “a waste of time” to return it.

The irony of giving yourself a five-star rating when you’re actually a one-star human being.

So, what talking me?

Noticed Phone Left Behind

Ng picked up a 28-year-old sales manager in his Grab car on the morning of 9 September 2017.

After dropping her off at 9am, he noticed that her phone was on the back seat. As he was waiting for his next passenger, he used her phone to give himself five stars.

“A Waste Of Time”

Usually, if you’re a kind Grab driver, you would have returned the phone to the Grab office with the intention of reuniting the phone with its rightful owner.

Or maybe just return it to its owner and charge it as a trip.

Clearly, Ng isn’t a kind driver.

According to Deputy Public Prosecutor Emily Koh, he thought about the phone as he continued picking up passengers.

Keyword: Thought

Eventually, he believed that it would be “a waste of time” to hand over the phone to the Grab office and dispose of the phone.

Ng was also aware that if he were to proceed to the Grab office at Sin Ming to return the phone, Grab management would not have compensated him.

Do Singaporeans really need a reward as an incentive for us to do good?

Passenger Realised Phone Was Missing

The sales manager only realised that her phone was missing on her way home from work. However, she assumed that she had left it at her office and went back home.

I don’t know what’s worse: a 28-year-old who didn’t use her phone for the entire workday, or a 28-year-old who could survive a night without a phone?

I would have thought that this is a fake story given that no sane 28-year-old can live an hour without a phone, but anyways. Maybe it was an extra phone for her job and she’s glad to have lost it #justsaying

It was only the next day when she realised that that was not the case. She could not find her phone in the office.

She checked her Grab account using another mobile phone, only to discover that a five-star rating was given to Ng.

After suspecting that Ng had taken her phone to give himself the rating, she reported the matter to Grab and the police.

Lied To Both Grab And The Police

After being confronted by Grab personnel, Ng lied that he did not find any phone.

On 26 June last year, he went to the police station to give a statement on the matter. He told them that some Grab personnel had interviewed him about a few days after the incident.

However, he lied (again) that he had not found any phone.

Later, DPP Koh told the court that Ng himself admitted to discarding the phone due to his “laziness and bad planning”.

Involved In An Unrelated Incident

Fast forward to 26 August this year, now ex-Grab driver (thank goodness) Ng is working as a driver for a funeral parlour.

He went to the cashier at Caltex petrol station at 1 Tampines Avenue 8 after topping up petrol for his vehicle. He flashed a screenshot from a mobile application of a 20 per cent discount.

However, the cashier could only process the discount through the app and not a screenshot.

After disputes over the discount, Ng left his identity card behind, saying that he would return to make payment.

As he walked out, he heard the cashier talking about his “upbringing”.

Enraged, he picked up a metal sign that read “Next counter, please” and threw it over the counter before leaving in a moment of anger.

The cashier filed a police report the next day.

In His Defence…

Ng, who was unrepresented told the judge that he was “so sorry” for throwing the sign in a moment of anger.

It turns out, he was with his father when the cashier made the comment about his upbringing.

However, as for the phone incident, he was angry not because of the passenger but because of Grab.

He claimed that the phone had no SIM card which meant that he had no way to call her or let her call him through the phone.

Which is probably also one of the reasons why the Grab office exists – so that you can return things when the situation calls for it.

And also, how the heck could the phone be used to rate him when there was no SIM card?

Is this a fake – okay, nevermind, I’ve written so much, might as well let it continue.

Charged For Both Offences

On 10 December, Ng was ordered to pay a fine of $5,000 in addition to the $500 compensation to the passenger whose phone he took.

He pleaded guilty to three charges under the Protection from Harassment Act and the Computer Misuse and Cybersecurity Act. According to TODAYonline, another two similar charges were taken into consideration for sentencing.

Moral of the story?

There are millennials who can survive a day without a phone.