Grab later clarified in a post by the Police and to a query by one of its customers that the QR code is not sent by them.
The police on 23 February confirmed that a printed flyer featuring a Grab food voucher giveaway and a QR code that leads to requesting of your personal details is fake. The Police in a Facebook post said, “Grab has clarified that the flyer is not created or endorsed by them and that they do not have any promotion which requires users to scan a QR code for voucher redemption.”
The Grab food voucher phishing scam has been shared virally in several social media platforms at least since 18 February, before the Police responded.
One Facebook user who responded to the Police’s Facebook post said that they were surprised that Grab’s Help Centre gave her a different answer when she checked with them about the fake Grab Food Voucher. She shared a screengrab of her conversation with the Help Centre.
The Grab Help Centre replied to its customer advising her to “use that voucher in your next booking and the voucher is limited use per day only.”
The Help Centre also told her to do the survey and give away the customer’s details to the fake voucher phishing scam as it “is part of the steps in availing the voucher.”
The Police responding to the post by the Facebook user reminder her “not to disclose any personal or banking details through any unsolicited sources.” The Facebook user said that she is surprised that Grab told her that the “survey (is) from them.” The police replied to the Facebook user asking them to provide the “information through Grab feedback.”
Grab also responded to the same Facebook post, to its customer, that this QR code is not sent by them.
“Please do not scan the QR code and submit your personal information. We would also like to investigate the above so that we can remind the support agent on the proper procedure and improve the handling of suspected phishing scenarios next time.”
The Grab Customer Support Agent who identified herself as Heather, asked its customer to talk to a ‘live agent’ on Facebook.
“Please drop us a PM on our Facebook at m.me/Grab (type ‘live agent’ to bypass our chatbot) so that a live agent can look into this asap. Thank you!”
The Facebook user asked Grab to remind its customer support agent on how to handle suspected phishing scam when customers report such issues.