A Malaysian woman took on to social media platform Threads to share how a Grab driver told her to “reword” her message, then proceeded to cancel the ride.

According to her post, she initially secured a driver who cancelled immediately, which she said she understood.

After waiting some time to be matched with another driver, she finally secured a booking with an estimated waiting time of over 10 minutes. By then, it was around 7.20am.

Fearing another cancellation after already waiting a while, she sent a brief message through the in-app chat:

Please don’t cancel. Thanks!

– The Grab user’s message to the driver

Shortly after, the driver reportedly responded with a message asking her to “reword” her text, suggesting:

You should reword your message a bit.

“Sir, please don’t cancel. Hopefully I will tip okay. Thank you very much.”

You can copy this and use to the next driver.

– The Grab driver’s reply to the user

The driver then cancelled the ride.

“I will write email-style with ‘best regards’ next time”

The woman later posted a witty follow-up on Threads, apologising to the driver and saying she would send a “full email-style” message with “best regards” next time. She added that she had been rushing that morning while preparing her child’s belongings and that the cancellation caused her to be late for work.

“Thank you bang cancel order Grab adik. Abang punca adik lambat sampai ofis hari ni. Selamat berpuasa bang!” she wrote, then adding that she was “definitely not” going to include an exclamation mark.

Most netizens defended the Grab user

Her post drew a wave of reactions from other users, many of whom defended her message.

One commenter suggested the driver might have been from an older generation and misunderstood the tone. Another said there was nothing rude about using an exclamation mark, describing the message as a “cry of help” from someone urgently needing a ride.

Others criticised the driver’s conduct, especially the mention of tips. One commenter said that when drivers ask for tips outright, it discourages them from tipping at all.

Amid the online discussion, Grab responded publicly to the woman’s post

“We are deeply sorry for this. We understand you must be disappointed when a driver cancels without clear reason,” the company wrote, apologising for the incident and requesting her registered phone number via direct message to investigate the ride and follow up with the relevant team.

Grab added: “‘Thanks!’ is appropriate and polite,” affirming that the use of an exclamation mark in her message was appropriate.

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