I have a very bad experience with Zipcar and I hope all members would learn from it.

I have just picked up my family from the Airport in a zipcar, when I failed to restart the engine. It did not strike me that I have to flash my card with the activator again, since I did not lock the car and have simply cut the engine.

Having a dead engine at the airport makes me the centre of attention with all the police, and I could not find a way to restart the engine. Anyway, I called the zipcar customer service (and ZIPCAR charged me $2) and she could not tell me the solution. She says she can tell from her screen I have a dead battery, and wants me to get a jumpstart, and restart some ZIPCAR electronics.

The policeman came, and then the tow truck came, and I got a jumpstart. It did not work, and the ZIPCAR customer service could not tell me where is the zipcar electronics, but kept reminding me that I would be responsible for the tow fee.

Anyhow, she connected me to another engineer after the car has been towed, who then ask me to flash my zipcar card with the activator again.... Since when does a person need to do that to start the car engine ?

Anyway, I am charged $2 for calling zipcar when there is a flaw in your business model, and I was charged more money for exceeding my period of rental. Over the phone, the engineer said he would extend the period of rental for free, but I was charged later.

I am cancelling my membership immediately before I am charged for more failures in Zipcar's business model.

Zipcar's failure of helping me

-- Anonymous, November 15, 2003

Answers

Definately a bad experience, I am sorry and we will look into it. I'm referring this issue to our Boston city director who will follow up with you personally.

-- Anonymous, November 17, 2003

i think it's fairly well documented that the card reader is linked to the engine. this is how theft is prevented--the engine won't start unless a valid card is swiped against the card reader. i don't know where you're from, but in boston, you should always lock the car if you're going to go away from the car.

there is no flaw in their "business model". at worst, this situation involved a zipcar user who basically forgot some fundamentals things about how zipcar works and an incompetent zipcar customer service rep who did a poor job of troubleshooting the problem. i would try to contact zipcar instead of posting a message like this--i've found that they are very reasonable people.

-- Anonymous, November 17, 2003

1. The engine was locked without me locking the car. Can someone tell me what would happen if you pass the card close to the activator while the car is running ?

2. Can someone tell me how to claim my $2 and extended hours due to the customer service directing me to the wrong problem ? By calling them again and get charged $2 ?

Good business model.

-- Anonymous, November 17, 2003

I'm sorry that you had this unpleasant experience. I recently had a similar problem with the engine locking. I stopped to pump gas, and the car would not turn over when I tried to start it up (I didn't lock the car, as I was standing right beside it at the pump). Luckily I realized that the problem was electrical and not mechanical. I swiped the Zipcard to lock and unlock the car, and that reactivated the engine. Zipcar customer service agents should be aware of this, so that they can advise members with a "dead" car to start first by swiping the Zipcard rather than calling a tow truck.

-- Anonymous, November 17, 2003

I think this information would have been helpful to have in the "welcome packet" that Zipcar sends out, flaunting that it contains all the information needed to use their cars. I browsed the website for almost 2 hours reading information prior to becoming a Zipcar member and using my first car reservation. I saw no information in that time explaining that each time the car is shut off, the card has to be swiped to reactivate the system. I am thankful the "dead" battery did not happen to me, I had enough other problems to deal with during my reservation. Thanks for the tip!

-- Anonymous, December 17, 2003