The recent arrival of Gojek was widely anticipated to bring in some much-needed competition to the private-hire scene, especially after Uber's exit 10 months ago.

However, in my personal experience, Gojek's arrival here has been something of an operations and public relations failure.

In the span of 10 days, I experienced the following:

• Low volume of cars on the ride-hailing platform, so it is difficult to obtain a ride.
• Drivers accepting a booking when they are much too far away. I noticed that the drivers were 15 to 20 minutes away but I could not cancel the rides because of the cancellation fee.
• Conversely, drivers have cancelled on me at least five or six times. They accepted a booking, but about 10 minutes later cancelled it for no apparent reason and did not respond to calls.

Two weeks ago, a driver accepted my booking but did not show up. Then instead of cancelling the ride, he pressed the "ride completed" button and I was charged for the full ride.

Gojek has still failed to reimburse me even though it was obvious that it was a fake ride as the duration of the ride from Novena to Sentosa was recorded as four minutes.

It appears Gojek has bitten off more than it can chew by trying to simultaneously expand across South-east Asia.

I await a response and a refund from the Gojek team.

Andrew Wetton