After Uber, Jugnoo accuses Ola of unethical practices

 New Delhi: After taxi aggregator Uber, auto-booking app Jugnoo has also alleged Ola of using “unethical practices to sabotage” its business.

The company also warned Ola of legal action if the online taxi aggregator continues alleged unethical practices.

“We witnessed this trend almost 10 days back when all of a sudden there was a surge in booking and the cancellation rate was equally high. We started mapping the areas where the bookings were being made from and invariably pointed at places close to Ola’s office premise,” Jugnoo co-founder and CEO Samar Singla said in a statement.

Jugnoo has alleged that Ola employees have been creating fake accounts over the last 10 days to book and cancel on Jugnoo’s app, leading not only to loss of revenue but also affecting the auto rickshaw drivers income and bonus on daily basis.

About 20,000 cancellations through 800 fake accounts have been reported to occur during this period, the statement said.

“We noticed this across three locations Gurgaon, Noida and Mysore where this activity was highly being employed.

We have evidence to support our claims and will be more than happy to furnish the details if required. We are planning to take suitable legal action against Ola for the same but will refrain from doing so if they cease to do this,” Singla said.

Email query send to Ola elicited no reply.

Ola’s competitor Uber has dragged it to the court alleging similar malpractices.

Uber has filed plea before the Delhi High Court today sought seeking Rs 49.61 crore as damages from Ola for allegedly interfering in its business by making fake accounts to book rides and then cancel them.

Ola denied the allegations made by Uber and told the court it has no intention of indulging in any of the actions attributed to it by its competitor.

Uber in its plea alleged that Ola’s employees have created over 93,000 fake accounts across India on Uber’s platform and were using them to make false bookings which were later cancelled and thus, causing loss to Uber which has to pay the cancellation charges.

It has claimed to have paid over Rs five lakh as cancellation charges and alleged that by making false bookings, Ola was “squatting” on cabs associated with Uber.

Ola, on the other hand, contended in the court that Uber’s plea is an “offshoot” of the contempt petition filed against it by Ola for allegedly not complying with court directions to phase out diesel cabs.