How far can you book a cab for? How about China, North Korea or better still, a cab from India to the West Coast of United States perhaps through the popular Route 66? It is a tough task but thanks to a glitch in the Ola Cabs’ Android app people are doing just that.
The glitch was spotted on March 18 when Rohit Menda - a techie - posted images of an Ola booking made by his friend Prashant Shahi from Bangalore to North Korea. The ride as per the images was booked for Rs 1,49,088 for a round-trip and it would have completed in five days.
Rohit, however, tagged Ola Cabs only to highlight the glitch and get it fixed. But this was enough for the Twitter to grab the opportunity and have a go at it themselves.
How is this possible @Olacabs a trip to North Korea?
Please check your systems.#Ola pic.twitter.com/wi92DObwGp— Rohit Menda (@dynamitedroid) March 17, 2018
Other Twitter users also started booking Ola Outstation trips to the US, China and Saudi Arabia and posted screenshots of the confirmed booking with driver details in their reply.
Still possible dear ola I am leaving USA in next one hour ! pic.twitter.com/6qPcFJC7Lt— Sumanta Panda (@PandaSumanta) March 19, 2018
Same here pic.twitter.com/fswUzNfljo— Arunchandra C (@arunchandrac) March 19, 2018
@Olacabs planning to go norway tonight. Lol..... pic.twitter.com/sdta9t1AxQ— ABHIK CHATTOPADHYAY (@getabhikonline) March 19, 2018
After seeing the Tweet Ola Support replied to Rohit saying, “This seems to be a technical glitch. Please restart the phone and try again”.
Rohit then replied to Ola Support’s account saying its happening to all phones and they should check their system. Ola Support then replied saying that they have forwarded it to relevant team to further look into this.
Today, Rohit Menda replied on the tweet again and posted pictures of another ride that was booked by his friend to the Great Wall of China.
A friend of mine book a cab from from Bangalore to the great wall of China and the driver arrived. Glitch isn't solved yet @ola_supports @Olacabs @indiatimes #Ola pic.twitter.com/BoOou3ECCK— Rohit Menda (@dynamitedroid) March 20, 2018
Moneycontrol verified the claims by booking a trip to a random location in China through Ola Cabs Android app that was processed and a driver, assigned by the system, was also off towards our location.
Amid all of this, Ola Cabs has issued an interesting statement to address the rather amusing tweets.
The company in a response to Moneycontrol said: when we said we wanted to shoot for moon, we didn't literally mean it ;) However, while we fix this issue, you can always take a flight to another country ☺
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