Grab working to reimburse remaining P6.66 million

Grab Philippines is working to release P6.66 million worth of pending reimbursement to affected customers, an official of the ride-hailing app said on Tuesday.

The announcement came a day after the Philippine Competition Commission (PCC) slapped the company with another P9-million fine over its failure to fully refund customers.

The PCC on Monday announced that Grab has been fined for violating three separate orders for the company to return P25.45 million to its customers, based on a resolution dated February 2, 2023.

The PCC ordered Grab to refund P5.05 million for overcharges and P14.15 million for violation of voluntary commitments in 2019, and P6.25 million due to pricing issues in 2020.

Grab Philippines director for public affairs Atty. Sherielysse Bonifacio said that Grab had successfully refunded P18.78 million to riders, representing 73.8% of the P25.4 million that the company had been ordered to pay.

Bonifacio said that Grab had been in constant communication with the PCC and had filed several motions requesting the PCC for guidance as to how to return the remaining P6.66 million.

“Never po namin tinalikuran ang aming obligasyon na ibalik po ang P25 million na ito sa pasaherong affected (we never abandoned our obligation to refund the P25 million to affected passengers).”

The Grab official said the company was “working on the implementation and will be ready to implement as early as Friday.”

Bonifacio said that Grab had earlier said that it was facing difficulties with reimbursing users that did not have GrabPay wallets or were no longer in the country using the Grab application.

She said that the affected other users were tourists in the Philippines who visited the country in 2018 and 2019, downloaded the app when they were in the country, but have now discontinued use of the app.

The PCC ordered Grab to put in place an alternative refund mechanism to allow customers to claim remaining refunds.

In its resolution, the PCC has directed Grab to take the necessary steps to notify affected riders of their unclaimed refunds by publishing the notice once a week for four consecutive weeks in a newspaper of general circulation and through the Grab App.

Affected customers are then given 60 days from the initial publication of the first notice to claim their refunds.

Within 10 days from the lapse of the 60 days to claim refunds, Grab shall submit a report on the claimed and unclaimed amounts. Should there be remaining unclaimed amounts, Grab shall convey the said amounts to the PCC for remittance to the National Treasury. —NB, GMA Integrated News