Jugnoo joins Uber to accuse Ola of bogus bookings

Jugnoo is accusing Ola of instructing its employees to create fake accounts through which they book an auto rickshaw on the company's app and then cancel it

Autorickshaw service aggregator Jugnoo, backed by Paytm, has joined Uber in accusing Ola of sabotaging its business by making bogus bookings on its platform, hurting its business and the earnings of drivers.

The Chandigarh-based company’s claims come a day after Uber, the global taxi hailing major, filed a case in the high court at Delhi against Ola, accusing it of making false bookings and seeking Rs 49.6 crore in damages.

Read more from our special coverage on "UBER"

• Uber-Ola battle might usher in transparency
• Taxi warfare: Uber drags Ola to court over false bookings
• Uber rides on Indias movie craze to win users
• Uber yet to obtain two-wheeler taxi permit
• Uber suspends bike taxi pilot in India after Karnataka govt cries foul

Jugnoo says Ola instructed its employees to create fake accounts through which they book an autorickshaw on the company’s app and then cancel it. In 10 days, Jugnoo says, it had 20,000 cancellations and has successfully tracked 800 fake accounts on its platform.

“We found this 10 days ago, when some of our cities started seeing an abnormal number of requests and then cancellations. So, their idea was to exhaust the supply and agitate the drivers. We narrowed down where these requests were coming from and found they were from Ola’s offices,” said Samar Singla, co-founder and chief executive at Jugnoo.

Singla said he made contact with Ola via micro blogging platform Twitter and to the chief executive, Bhavish Aggarwal. However, the fake requests did not stop. “We started to create a paper trail and at this point, have enough evidence. We haven’t filed a case yet because we still hope that it will stop but if it doesn’t, we’ll be forced to file a lawsuit.”

An e-mail sent to Ola on the issue did not get a response.

In December, Jugnoo had accused Ola of poaching employees and lifting its employee and driver database in Chandigarh. This was just ahead of Ola’s launch of a similar auto service in the city.

Jugnoo has a presence in 30 cities and close to 10,000 autorickshaws on its platform. It says the majority of these bogus requests were from three centres -- Gurgaon, Noida and Mysuru. Investigating into where these requests were being made revealed they were coming from Ola’s offices, it says.

While Jugnoo hasn’t reported the number of drivers quitting its platform due to these develoments, Uber claims Ola’s actions over the past six months has resulted in the loss of 20,000 driver partners. Losses for Jugnoo in terms of the cancellation charges are relatively snall but the loss of drivers on whom the company spends to train, along with the loss of business, would make it a significant amount, if the charges are true.