Ola Outstation erodes my trust in OlaCabs

So, here’s what happened. In Feb 2019, I booked an Ola outstation cab for a 3-day trip to take my parents to a temple trip to Kanchi in neighbouring Tamil Nadu. The booking was straight forward and the estimated bill was around Rs 13,000. The night before, I transferred Rs 10,000 into Ola Money wallet since that was the wallet limit. On the day of the trip, the driver arrived on time and we were preparing to start. This is when the trouble started.

After I gave the OTP (one-time-password) to the driver, the Ola system revealed the destination to the driver! The driver was taken aback that it was a 3 -day trip to another state. He did not have original license papers to cross state boundaries. This was the driver’s first outstation trip and yet he had 4.5+ stars on his profile. He did not even bring an extra pair of clothes for the trip. He was that unprepared.

Since the OTP was entered, Ola considered the trip as started. For an outstation trip, the driver needs to enter the odometer reading which the customer has to confirm — at the start of the trip and at the end of the trip. The driver incorrectly entered the OTP (4-digit) instead of the odometer reading (113000+) — in other words, the Ola system considered that I already travelled 100,000 km before even starting at home!! Given this misstep, we panicked about its implications. There is no way to call Ola help from the app. So the driver called the partner number and after a long discussion on what to do, the support person said the start odometer cannot be changed at this point, and the help centre should be called after the trip ended to iron this out. I was very concerned about this.

The driver was getting concerned that he did not have the original license papers in the car. He was hesitant to cross the border because the vehicle could be impounded. He wanted to cancel the trip. So we call back the partner service centre and they try to dissuade me from doing it. Instead, they wanted me to take a 1-hour detour to the driver’s house to pick up the papers. I didn’t want my parents to sit in the car for an additional 2 hours for a total of 9-hour journey. After talking back and forth, they inform us about the procedure to cancel the trip. So the trip was ended before it even started. And lo and behold, I was charged Rs 13000 for the trip — Rs 10,000 was deducted from my Ola Money account, Rs 500 from a postpaid account. I was asked to pay the rest in cash to the driver!! This stunned me.

So we call the customer care again and ask them what to do. After a long discussion, I was told not to pay the remaining in cash to the driver. But the obligation of collecting the remaining Rs 3000 from me and giving it to Ola would still remain on the driver’s account — in other words, no more rides would be assigned to him until he clears his dues! He also became another victim in this Ola outstation mess.

The customer service person told me that a refund would be processed and both my account and the driver’s account would be cleared up. Now, if you know how things work in India, this is easier said than done. Companies don’t return money easily.

I called the customer service centre every day to inquire about the status. Every customer service rep would assure me the highest priority in handling the refund and it would be done in just 1 day, 2 days, 48 hours etc. But I realized the first line of customer service agents is not there to help solve the problem. Their objective is to tire the customer so that they would simply go away. When I insisted to talk to the next level, the next level is mysteriously not available or cannot be contacted. They would promise to call back and that never happens. This is the sorry state of Ola customer service.

Anyway, given the amount involved, I had no choice but to be patient and persistent. Eventually, I was able to reach a supervisor who promised that it would be refunded in 48 hours. It didn’t happen. Ola has a long list of excuses for bad customer service. I kept on persisting and after 2 weeks, the first attempt was made to refund. It turned out that they could not refund because of KYC limits which only allows Rs 10,000 a month to be added to Ola Money (I had added Rs 10,000 earlier in the month for the outstation trip. Apparently, the reversal counts as another addition which makes no sense). Having hit the limit, the only option is to either complete the KYC or wait for the following month. I planned to do both in parallel.

Ola outsources KYC verification to third parties. The KYC verification can either be done in the car or an in-person verification. I opted for in-person verification and I was in for another rude shock. I get a call one day from a person with a threatening voice to give him the OTP on the phone for KYC verification. I asked him why. I expected a person to visit me, but no such thing happened. Ola is, knowingly or unknowingly, being scammed by the KYC verification operators. There is absolutely no check of the documents whatsoever. I called the Ola Security team about this, and they said they will look into this and that was the last I heard about it. Yet another area where Ola is seriously failing. It raises serious questions on what kinds of verification is being done on drivers too.

Eventually, the new month comes around, and I expected a refund on March 1. It didn’t happen. After calling a few times, the refund finally happened. After more than 2 weeks of persistent follow-ups.

Now that Rs 10,000 has been credited to the Ola Money account, what do I do with so much balance? I would have to a whole lot of local trips. I looked to see if I could withdraw it to my bank. Turns out it is not free — I have to pay almost 5% to withdraw my own money. So I am looking at where else I could use Ola Money wallet. Ola Money app lists a bunch of companies that accept it but the list is outdated and nobody has bothered to update it. For example, I tried to use it for my ACT Fibernet account and Ola Money was refused. So the reach of Ola Money wallet is rather limited at this point. I am still on the hunt for opportunities to use Ola Money and reduce my balance to zero.

So that was my saga with Ola Outstation. The purpose of this article is to highlight issues and propose some ideas on what Ola could do, and how the customers can protect themselves.

Ola Outstation is a new offering from Ola but my experience with it has revealed several flaws. While designing complex systems, companies like Ola must be paranoid about worst-case scenarios and prepare adequately. Only then they will excel in customer satisfaction. Otherwise, they will always be in fire fighting mode. All the issues I have highlighted are fixable. If fixed, Ola will gain customer loyalty, trust, and stickiness.

What say you, Ola? Will you fix these issues?

PS: You might be wondering whether we made the temple trip finally. Yes, we did. In my own car. So much for Ola Outstation.

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