A ride-hailing service user says his day was ruined by a driver who never showed up and then threw racial abuse at him over the phone.
The passenger, @Decibels_ilu on Instagram, filmed his encounter with the racist Gojek driver who insisted that he had arrived at the location. The driver, in a voice recalling a Flintstones character, then mocked him in gibberish meant to sound Tamil.
“Look at the location I put, block three one six Jurong West Avenue. But I’m [at] three one six and you are not here,” @Decibels_ilu said in the five-minute-plus phone call. Throughout the clip, the driver only speaks in gibberish and does not say a single word.
Gojek told Coconuts today that they were unable to verify details of those involved and declined to comment, citing privacy.
The user was trying to get a ride from Jurong West to Woodlands and received a notification saying that the driver, whose name was revealed to be Dennis Seah Miang Tiak, had arrived at the pickup location. But the passenger said he couldn’t find the driver anywhere, not even out on the main road.
According to the profile, Seah was driving a Kia Stonic and had a 4.9 out of 5-star rating.
At one point, @Decibels_ilu had enough and hit back with insults.
“I responded and told him you don’t have to be rude and don’t need to Dei Dei (Hey Hey) me all. He continued mocking the language and started being rude which was when I started scolding him and [threw] some words of my own,” the user wrote.
Decibels_ilu said Gojek reached out to say it was aware of the incident, and that the driver had refused to apologize. That led the customer to instead apologize to the driver for his “harsh words” because “someone has got to be the bigger person and do something about it.”
Eventually, Gojek got back again saying that the driver had apologized and had been punished with three demerit points. @Decibels_ilu then suggested the ride sharing service continue to monitor him.
“What if it was an older Indian person? What if the person was softer and gets scared or traumatised by [this] kind of behaviour? I sincerely hope this would be that chap’s last racist remark to anyone!” he wrote.
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