BENGALURU: A technical glitch in taxi aggregator Ola’s mobile app allowed a 21-year-old student to book a cab to North Korea successfully, triggering a trend on social media website Twitter which led to several people emulating the method and booking cabs to far-off countries.The initial booking was done by Prashanth Shahi, a Bengaluru student who managed to book a cab to North Korea on Sunday. To his surprise, he was allotted a driver under Ola’s outstation cabs category and even got a ride estimate for Rs 1.4 lakh based on the number of kilometres. The duration shown was a five-day round trip of around 13,840 kilometres. Shahi shared the image on Twitter and it went viral.
Ola took it in stride and replied saying that they wanted to shoot for the moon but didn’t literally mean it. “However, while we fix this issue, you can always take a flight to another country,” Ola’s tweet said.Prashanth said that he chose North Korea as it was in the news. “I opened the Ola app instead of Google Maps to check North Korea’s road connectivity to South Korea. There, I noticed the option of booking a cab. I was surprised to see it possible myself.”
Others emulate, get charged cancellation costs
After Shahi’s tweet went viral, many Ola app users tried to book cabs for foreign countries. Those who went ahead and confirmed the booking and later cancelled had to pay cancellation fees. But for many, the experience was worth the charges. Cab bookings for different parts of the world, including the Andaman and Nicobar islands, Dubai and Australia were shared online. A Twitter user Babu from Bengaluru tweeted, “Who on Earth is handling the OLA Servers. I am able to book a CAB from Bangalore to Kuala Lumpur but not able to book a CAB to a place which is just 12 kms away from my home.”Uber does not allow people to book cabs in this manner. An attempt to book a cab outside India resulted in an error message.
Fare estimates
Rs 67,807
UP to Andaman and Nicobar:
Rs 54,662
Mumbai to Dubai:
Rs 3,04,798
Bengaluru to Sydney:
How it happens ?
The Ola app, which uses Google Maps as its base for choosing pick up and drop off point, initially asks users to input their destination by text. In this box, entering a non-Indian destination does not yield results. But if you enter a local destination and then drag the destination pin to another country, Ola still accepts the new location and calculates the fare based on their outstation category.