Gentari: Beware of 3rd party EV charging promotions

Gentari has released a statement to address the recent discounted Gentari Go EV charging service that has been offered by certain individuals on social media. The CPO said it did not authorise any 3rd party individuals or entities to provide such an offer.

Based on our observations, the unauthorised discounted Gentari Go EV charging offer began to pop up earlier this month on multiple Facebook Groups for Malaysian EV owners. According to the postings on these online communities, you can apparently get a discounted charging rate of at least 50% through the scheme.

Despite its suspicious nature, it appears that the pickup rate was not bad, as there were over 100 members in the WhatsApp group that was set up by its proprietor. However, the invite link to the group, as well as all the Facebook Group postings, were gone shortly after we published our PSA regarding this scheme on our social media.

Is it an attempt to game the system or something more illicit?

The scheme’s modus operandi is rather simple: the proprietor would activate the Gentari charger that you want to use. You can then make the payment for the discounted charging fee once you finished charging your EV.

In fact, the scheme’s owner actually said in one of the postings that the charging is being paid using their Gentari Go account first. Given the discount rate, they probably have access to the Gentari Go Power Pass subscription plan, which was just discontinued last month.

At a glance, it may sound like someone was generous enough to allow other EV users to utilise their Gentari Go discounts. However, that sounds a little bit too good to be true for us, given that the Power Pass was priced at RM899 per year.

Hence, it seems rather plausible that this scheme might be an attempt to monetise the EV charging discounts that they get through Gentari Go’s subscription plan. Heck, it also seems possible that they may have got their hands on Gentari Go credits and are now trying to monetise them through this scheme.

Regardless of the reason, this 3rd party discounted EV charging scheme has likely breached the terms and conditions (TnC) of Gentari Go and its subscription plan. The TnC clearly prohibit users from allowing other people to access their accounts and manipulating the system for personal gain.