According to D., who spoke to Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper on Wednesday afternoon, her daughter N. had hailed a GrabCar ride from Kim Ma Street to Ciputra International City in the Vietnamese capital on Monday.

It was not until a few minutes after the driver had dropped N. off at her destination and driven away that the high school senior realize she had forgotten her purse in the vehicle, the mother said.

The purse contained around VND10 million (US$440) in cash among other important personal papers, D. claimed.

When her daughter tried to reach the driver via his phone number available on the Grab application, the number was out of service, she said.

D. added that she had also tried using different phone numbers to call the driver but none of them could get through.

A screengrab of the GrabCar ride that N. took on February 19, 2018

The mother and daughter contacted Grab’s customer support hotline in Hanoi twice, on Monday evening and Wednesday morning, but were told on both occasions that Grab did not manage the drivers or their vehicles.

D. went on to contact Grab’s PR department on Wednesday afternoon and was told that the response by its customer support was “misguided.”

“Grab has promised to provide support but did not go into detail about their plan,” D. said.

Grab has responded to Tuoi Tre’s request for comment in a letter sent on Wednesday, in which the company said it had reached out to the driver in question as well as the customers who rode with him after N. to ask if they had seen the girl’s purse.

None of them recalled having seen such a purse inside the vehicle.

The driver has agreed to engage in direct conversations with N. and D. to discuss the issue, according to Grab.

The ride-hailing platform operator added that it had received no complaints about the driver’s behavior since he started becoming a GrabCar partner in October 2017.

The man was noted for returning a lost phone to its owner on February 10, 2018.

“Therefore, we have advised N. to report the case to authorities. Grab commits itself to providing relevant information and to working closely with police should our cooperation be requested,” the letter reads.

Lawyer Nong Thi Hong Dung. Courtesy of Dung

Nong Thi Hong Dung, a lawyer based in Ho Chi Minh City, advises those who think they have left something in a Grab or Uber vehicle to immediately contact the respective companies’ customer support hotlines.

If a driver should be found guilty of deliberately appropriating a lost item, he or she could be sentenced to between three months and three years behind bars in accordance with the Penal Code of Vietnam, Dung said.

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