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Aug. 27 (NBD) -- China's ride-hailing giant Didi Chuxing has suspended its carpool service after a 20-year-old female passenger was raped and killed by a Didi driver last Friday in Wenzhou, China's coastal Zhejiang province.

This came only three months after a flight attendant encountered the same tragedy, which irritated many users. To protest, some users uninstalled Didi's app.

General manager of Didi's carpool platform and vice-executive of its customer service center were removed from office.

The suspect was later arrested and found to be a 27-year-old ill-educated man. Investigations also show that the suspect lost money for his businesses and had borrowed loans from 51 online lending platforms.

It is also worth noting that a complaint was made against the suspect on Thursday, one day before the murder. A female passenger reported to the service center of Didi that the suspect asked her to sit the frontseat and took her to a remote place. But the girl hadn't received any feedback from the platform.

But Didi said on Sunday that the suspect had no prior criminal record and registered with Didi using his authentic ID. The suspect surnamed Zhong passed the facial recognition before taking the order but somehow used a fake car plate on that day, according to Didi.

Zhao Zhanling, deputy director of a Beijing-based law firm, told NBD that Didi's carpooling platform serves an agent for car drivers and passengers, which is not subject to the regulations of online ride-hailing services. However, its customer service center should bear most of the blame.

The platform was also blamed for inefficient communication with the police on this case. Didi had refused twice to provide detailed information about the car driver to the police, saying it was illegal to reveal private information and Didi's security personnel had stepped in.

NBD noticed that Didi's customer services were outsourced to third parties. The job requirement was low and the service staff could earn about 5,000 yuan (729.8 U.S. dollars) per month, according to Didi's recruiting information for customer service.

A former contractor of Didi's customer service told NBD in an interview that service procedures are set by the outsourcer and the contractor is a mere implementer. The contractor would carry out the procedure precisely as it's told, the contractor underscored.

But the contractor refused to reveal specific requirements and standards of Didi's customer services.

Email: tanyuhan@nbd.com.cn