BlueSG users face 'ghost vehicles', difficulty ending rentals days after firm apologises for 'glitch'

SINGAPORE: As a frequent user of electric car-sharing service BlueSG here, Ms Jane H did not expect that a 35-minute drive from Pasir Ris to Woodlands would result in a rental charge of more than S$700 (US$539). 

Due to a glitch in the car-sharing application last Saturday (Dec 23), Ms Jane, a 29-year-old analyst who declined to give her full name, said that the app showed a rental duration of 36 hours even though it was actually less than one hour.

She was one of several BlueSG users who expressed frustration over ongoing system disruptions to the car-sharing services platform that have been reported since Dec 19. 

On Dec 22, the company apologised on its Facebook page for inconveniences caused by glitches in its “systems migration update”. 

It said then that “immediate action” had been taken to address the problem and identify affected trips that had exceeded 48 hours, for which rental fees would be waived as part of its “service recovery process”.

However, BlueSG users reported that the problems have persisted over the Christmas weekend, and many took to user groups on Facebook and Telegram to air their concerns. 

Some users took to social media to post screenshots of them being billed more than S$1,000 for over 48 hours even though they had rented only for short periods.

In response to TODAY’s queries, Mr Kelvin Tay, BlueSG's chief executive officer, said that the firm had been experiencing service disruptions arising from “recent glitches" in its new app. 

“This was due to unexpected technical complexities stemming from the systems migration updates from Dec 19, 2023 alongside integration challenges with some of our external vendors, including incidents during this festive peak season,” he added. 

Mr Tay apologised for the frustration and inconvenience that some users faced, and added that BlueSG card payments for affected trips would not be processed until they were individually reviewed to ensure no overcharging occurred.

On Tuesday, TODAY spoke to eight BlueSG users who said that the recent service disruptions had caused inconveniences to them such as reserved cars and parking spaces being unavailable, rental overcharging and unresponsive customer service. 

"GHOST VEHICLES", TROUBLE ENDING RENTAL 

Mr Jacob Bong, 29, who works in the entertainment industry, relies on the car-sharing service to shorten the two-hour commute from his Sembawang home to his Sentosa workplace.

However, on Dec 21, he realised that he was overcharged S$50 for his drive, which reflected a total rental of 67 minutes despite him using the service for only 32 minutes. 

As this “occasionally occurs”, Mr Bong said that he called the customer service hotline to end the rental service but did not reach a resolution over the calls, the messages over the BlueSG live chat and by email. 

Another user, 25-year-old student Nicholas Chong, arrived at Plaza Singapura mall to find the car that he had booked was not there.

Instead, there were four BlueSG cars parked in the designated parking spaces, with two more taking up normal parking lots since other users’ reserved parking spots were occupied.

None of the cars matched his reservation, so he resorted to taking a ride with ride-hailing service Grab after failing to start a BlueSG car for 10 minutes, for which he was charged S$34. He was given a refund two days later after filling out an incident form.

Mr Shahir Ismail, who has been a BlueSG member for three years, said that service disruptions are “not new” and most have been previously resolved within a few hours. 

“This disruption, however, is the worst ever and completely changed my opinion of BlueSG as a reliable service,” the 28-year-old assistant engineer said. 

In message groups with other BlueSG users, Mr Shahir has seen other reports of “ghost vehicles” on the app, where users reserve an available car but the vehicle is not there.

“Because of this disruption, even when the stations have BlueSG vehicles present, it is unavailable on the app. I believe this is because of those users who could not successfully end rentals,” Mr Shahir said.

He himself could not park his rental vehicle at his reserved lot on Dec 19 because he found another vehicle already parked there. 

He was unable to reach a customer service officer through multiple calls and was automatically redirected to voicemail after 10 minutes. 

He resolved the problem on his own after another user drove off with a new rental vehicle, allowing him to park. So far, he has been unable to receive compensation for the extra time and parking charges incurred.  

Mr Eugene Khaw, 39, a marketing communications consultant, was unable to end his rental due to the breakdown at the charging stations and he could not reach a customer service officer after waiting for more than 35 minutes on the call.

He added that waiting times while using BlueSG’s hotline had recently increased from five to 10 minutes on average to more than 30 minutes a call, or not even getting a response. 

Even though one has to be “mentally prepared for disruptions”, Mr Khaw said that these disruptions leave a “bad taste in mouths” and new BlueSG features such as ending the rental on the app still have “teething problems” because some reservations continue after being ended on the app. 

USERS KEPT "IN THE DARK"

Some BlueSG users said that they were reconsidering their subscription or had already sought to terminate it, whereas some others said that they would still want to continue their subscription if the disruptions were addressed. 

Mr Bong, for example, would like to keep using the service since he “heavily relies” on it. This is even though there were past inconveniences such as his reserved vehicle being different from the one in the lot or finding no car despite his reservation with BlueSG.

For Ms Jane, she was “very disappointed” by the disruption, but she would continue to use BlueSG because she has “no choice”.

BlueSG is the only service offering point-to-point car rental at a “much lower price point” than other apps, she added.

Mr Muhammad Aiman, a 43-year-old security supervisor, said that he had started using BlueSG this year after getting rid of his own car. 

He also uses other car-sharing services GetGo and Drive Lah, but BlueSG is appealing because it provides “point A to B travel” and is “time efficient”, especially when travelling as a family with three children. 

However, since he was unable to reserve a car over the long weekend on BlueSG due to a glitch, Mr Aiman used GetGo, which incurred a higher cost with weekend peak charges. 

“We are encouraged to use public transport and be a car-less society. How can we be one when the system we want to depend on remains unreliable? How can we plan the day if we can't tell what is working and available?”

Due to the recent "very disruptive" experience and "futile" attempts to reach BlueSG’s customer support, he has asked to terminate his subscription. 

Other users said that they relied on the advice of other affected users to navigate the disruptions when the customer service hotline was unresponsive.

Mr Chong said that he received “close to nothing” in support besides “standardised template answers” from the chatbot that did not apply to his situation, so he had to eventually lock his card to prevent any extra overcharging. 

“Most of the information given could not be applied to users who were affected and the company's social media was only filled with apologies and no helpful answers. We were basically in the dark with how our situation would improve.”

Mr Shahir said that users are still reporting difficulties in starting and ending rentals, and there had been little communication from the firm besides a post on BlueSG’s Facebook on Dec 22. 

“As monthly paying customers, on top of the unavailability of vehicles for use and instability of the app, I am more upset at the level of service recovery and assistance BlueSG is providing,” he added.

“While technical difficulties are unexpected, how BlueSG handled this disruption is totally disappointing. Today is the seventh day since disruption, we still have no update on whether the app has stabilised or what is being done to resolve this problem.”

This article was originally published in TODAY.