Unauthorized app allows Didi taxi drivers to cheat

One of the advantages of ride-hailing services like China’s Didi Kuaidi is that you’ll automatically be matched with a driver who’s close to your location, and you can see where they are in real time. As it turns out, though, when it comes to finding drivers – at least when using Didi’s taxi-hailing service – Didi users may no longer be able to trust their eyes.

Chinese media site Sina Tech has reported on the emergence of a mobile plugin that essentially allows taxi drivers to spoof their location within the app and confirm rides instantly. This allows drivers to (for example) set their location to a high-user area like a train station or airport even when they aren’t actually there, and then automatically book a fare there. Drivers can even select an option that allows them to automatically skip smaller fares and book only the more lucrative ones. The plugin sells for around US$30.

To be clear, this works only for taxi drivers, as Didi’s private-car ride hailing service doesn’t allow drivers to compete for fares in the same way.

It’s certainly possible drivers are doing this even if they don’t have the technical know-how themselves.

Needless to say, this is not a Didi approved service. A Didi Kuaidi representative told Tech in Asia that while the plugin doesn’t hurt passengers financially, it does give drivers who use it an unfair advantage in booking long fares. “Didi is applying its advanced anti-fraud capabilities to this issue, and taxi drivers found using the plug-in will be removed from Didi’s platform,” said the spokesman.

“Didi has worked hard to develop a fair, open and robust transportation network for the benefit of both drivers and passengers, and will continue to do so,” the Didi rep added.

In fact, not only is the app unauthorized by Didi, it’s unauthorized on stock smartphones in general. You’ll need a jailbroken iPhone or a rooted Android for the plugin to work properly. However, paying someone to root or jailbreak your device in China is relatively simple and affordable, so it’s certainly possible drivers are doing this even if they don’t have the technical know-how themselves.

Just how widespread this issue is remains unclear. Sina Tech spoke to drivers who suggested it’s quite common, but while Taobao has a number of sellers publicly offering the plugin for sale, none have registered recent sales on Taobao. The sellers say that’s because they conduct the actual transactions through other platforms like WeChat once they’ve attracted a buyer, but it’s impossible to know for sure whether that’s true or simply a case of merchants trying to rationalize low sales numbers.

Didi, for its part, says the use of the plugin is “limited to a subset of taxi drivers.”