Suspended by Didi in Australia and NZ: Why Driver Got Deactivated and How to Reactivated

Didi has been available in Australia in mid-2018 starting from Melbourne and to date has reached more than 20 cities across the country. While in New Zealand the company officially opened its services in the fourth quarter of 2020 with Auckland as their first city. Many rideshare drivers from both countries have joined and are actively driving with Didi due to lower service fees and bonus perks.

As we know Uber charge driver a 27.5% service fee for every trip in Australia. As an example, drivers only earn $72.5 for $100 fare meanwhile, with Didi, the driver’s income will only be cut by 5%. Unfortunately, this percentage is only for newly registered drivers during their first two weeks of driving with Didi.

After that time, the driver’s service fee percentage will be determined by the driver’s level in the Didi Advance program. The top-level (Diamond) will only be charged with a 5% service fee while the lowest level (Silver) will be deducted 20% from the fare and it is still lower than Uber’s fee.

Every rideshare platform has its own advantages and disadvantages. In addition to having advantages such as the lower service fees, some drivers say that their Didi driver account is often suspended or deactivated for a variety of reasons.

As a new player, Didi certainly wants to have a good reputation among its users which expect a high quality of service from driver-partners who use the DiDi rideshare platform. That is the reason why they may suspend or deactivate a driver’s account based on poor service provided to riders.

Didi driver account deactivation reasons

Besides the driver’s quality of service, of course, there are other circumstances and behaviours that can cause temporary or even permanent deactivation from the platform, such as the user’s safety and fraudulent activity. Here are some examples of cases that are most often experienced by some drivers, especially in Australia and New Zealand.

1. Low Completion Rate (CR)
   Completion Rate (CR) is the most popular reason for suspension by drivers. It’s a percentage of trips that you complete within a specified time frame. The rate is obtained from the number of completed trips divided by the accepted trips.

   Your Completion Rate last week was 60%, which was below the Minimum Requirement of 75%. As a result, your account has been suspended for 7 days until [end date] and is now placed on our Performance Review List (PRL).

   If your Completion Rate is lower than 75% again this week, your account will be deactivated. If your Completion Rate this week exceeds 75%, your account will return to its normal status.

   

   Low CR Suspension

   The minimum CR expected by the company is around 70% – 75% depending on the region where the driver works. So if you receive 100 trip requests that week you must complete a minimum of 75 trips. But sometimes there are some obstacles to keep the completion rate high.

   Especially for drivers who work with multiple rideshare apps, they are sometimes forced to cancel Didi trips when they get a trip request from Uber or Ola afterwards considering that both platforms are paid better. As we know Didi fares are lower for riders when compared to other platforms.

2. Completing a trip without picking up a rider
   This is the second most popular suspension that is often experienced by drivers. This condition occurs usually because of a report from the rider after realizing that they haven’t been picked up yet but the trip status on their app has started or has even been completed.

   This incident usually happens to drivers who accidentally pick up the wrong passenger. It’s often happened in crowded locations where many passengers are waiting for their rideshare car coming. The problem can be avoided by confirming the passenger’s name and the application they used to book the ride.

   On [date], we notice you completed a trip without picking up the rider(s). Your account is now suspended for 72 hours until [end date].

   Such action undermines trust within Didi’s community and are should be strictly avoided.

   Should dishonest or fraudulent activity be detected again, your account may be deactivated.

   

   Suspended Due to No Pick up

3. Expired required doc
   To join any rideshare platform drivers are required to upload documents. Some of these docs have a validity period, such as driver license, driver authorization/accreditation and Visa for overseas partners. The driver is responsible to keep their docs up to date while driving with the company.

   If one of your documents is expired or to be expired in a few days, you will get a notification like an example below which was obtained by a Melbourne based driver-partner.

   Important! Your Didi account has been suspended as your Driver Accreditation is not registered or valid. Please apply for your Accreditation.

4. Usage of GPS Imitation Software
   This problem generally shows up in a driver that uses a smartphone with an Android OS that provides mock location features, although it is also possible to appear in iPhone. This is a feature that allows the user to change the GPS locations of his device. For example, you can set your GPS location in Melbourne even though you are actually in Sydney.

   This feature is commonly used by software developers for app testing purposes. So if there is a rideshare driver whose job is not related to software development and detected activating and installing this kind of software, it may trigger the Didi fraud protection system which can lead to account deactivation. The following is an example of the notification received by the driver.

   

   GPS Imitation Suspension

   Attention: use of GPS imitation software was recently detected and your account has been temporarily suspended. Using this kind of software poses a safety risk for users and it is against our Anti-Fraud Policy. Once the suspension period ends, you will be able to resume accepting requests.

   Please note: a driver’s account may be permanently deactivated for repeatedly using this type of software. To protect your account please uninstall this software as soon as possible.

   If you are using an Android device and not sure which app uses this feature, just disable the mock location feature in the developer settings. This will prevent any GPS imitation app from changing the actual location of the phone.

5. Didn’t arrive on time
   After accepting the trip request, a driver is advised to immediately drive to the pickup location. Because it turns out that cancelled trips, especially those initiated by riders, not only increase the percentage of CR but can also cause another consequence, which is account suspension.

   This problem often occurs when the pick-up location is too far and the road conditions do not let the driver arrive on time so that the rider cancels their booking. The following is the message received by a driver:

   Last week, 4 trips were cancelled because you weren’t at the pickup point on time. As result, your performance was below 99% of other drivers. Suspension duration 3 days.

   To avoid this case, it is recommended to get in touch with the rider and explain your actual condition on the road so that they can understand and not cancel the booking.

Some of the circumstances and behaviours that may result in an account deactivation as described above are only part of the Didi Suspension and Disqualification Policy that applies in Australia and New Zealand. Of course, there are some other points that you can find yourself in their application.

Some of the cases are related to driver and rider safety, such as on-trip accidents, breaking road rules, driving dangerously, vehicle ownership, insurance, driving history and several others. Actually, their deactivation policy is not too distinctive from other rideshare platforms.

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How long will the account be suspended?

How long your account will be suspended depends on the case or reason that caused you to be deactivated. For some of the cases we mentioned earlier, the suspension duration ranges from 72 hours – 7 days. It is hoped that the short suspension time will not have too much impact on drivers’ income, especially for drivers who only work on this platform.

For low Completion Rate (CR) and didn’t arrive on time the suspension duration will be 3 – 7 days, completing trip without picking up rider will be suspended for 75 hours, an attempt to use GPS imitation software will be deactivated for 3 days. As for expired docs, the driver will remain suspended until you get the new docs and uploaded them to Didi.

How to appeal a Didi suspension and get reactivated?

Most of the circumstances and behaviours that we describe here will only result in temporary account suspension or deactivation. So you don’t need to appeal since your driver’s account will be automatically reactive after passing the suspension period.

However, if you feel that you did not commit the alleged wrongdoing, then you can appeal to the Didi support team via email. You can explain the actual situation to the support agent and accompany it with supporting evidence.

Getting a temporary account suspension may not be a big problem for you. However, if you often get temporary suspensions, you need to worry a little because repeated violations can make your account permanently deactivated.