8 ms·

Using Zipcar may damage your credit

140 points by kmfrk 16y ago

tokenadult 16y ago
An epic fail that a company that is still so new in many markets (I was considering Zipcar for having a second car for the winter in my town when the biking weather becomes bad) would be so customer-unfriendly. I'll never be a customer for the first time if this is how the company treats early adopters.
_delirium 16y ago
This does seem somewhat unusual. Forcing auto-renewal upon customers (and providing no way to turn it off short of actually cancelling the account) is, alas, common, but most companies won't go so far as to turn the auto-renewal over to collections. They'll send you an email or two complaining, then cancel the account. I think all the times it's happened to me it's actually been stated like that in the emails pretty explicitly; something like, your credit card is no longer valid, please log in and provide new details within X days or your account will be canceled. Does this kind of thing meaningfully damage your credit, though? I wouldn't think that someone sizing you up for something like a car loan would consider a $50 dispute over an annual fee to be a very good predictor of your creditworthiness.
- mgkimsal 16y ago
  Problem is, it's usually not 'someone' sizing you up - it's an algorithm like a FICO score that gets spit back to anyone looking you up for credit considerations. When dealing face to face with someone reviewing a report for a score, they might take that in to consideration, but it's not always (or usually?) the case.
  - _delirium 16y ago
    Hmm, yeah, I can buy that. If I were designing an algorithm, I think I would attempt to differentiate different types of disputes, so something like a dispute with Newsweek over a subscription renewal doesn't get much weight, while skipping credit-card or mortgage payments does. But maybe they've run the numbers and found that these small disputes actually are predictive of bigger defaults? Although, alternately, I could believe that the FICO folks don't care that much about predictive accuracy, since they're basically a monopoly with a good moat.
    - barrkel 16y ago
      I missed a credit card payment a few months back. The reason? I didn't have direct debit set up on the bill, because I normally paid it in full manually before the bill date. Why manually? Because I actually overpay in order to increase the effective credit limit, since I'm new to the bank (moved to the UK fairly recently) and hence have a low limit. So, for the sake of a 50 GBP missed payment, I'll have that mark on my credit score for the next few years.
      - mgkimsal 16y ago
        If you do it fast enough, the bank may remove the charge. They might not be able to easily remove the mark on your credit report now - but you won't know without asking. I've had my branch remove a couple of 'late payments' because they were truly just 'late' by a day or two, and generally just a bit of misplanning on my part. I can always move my money elsewhere, and they'll lose a decent customer for the sake of a $30 fine - they've removed the charges in both cases.
        _delirium 16y ago
        I don't know if it's unusual, but none of the credit cards I've had have even reported late payments that were only a few days late. Discussion on places like Fatwallet suggests that most companies report payments that are 30+ days late, with additional badness tiers at 60+ and 120+ days late.
        barrkel 16y ago
        It's interesting that you point that out, I'll probably contact my bank about it tomorrow. This isn't the place for discussion of my personal credit record, but it may be interesting for someone. I had a charge of 237 GBP on 11th April (the one that pushed the balance into debit at all), and the bill on 12th April, with a due date of 11th May (according to the credit card website). The next payment was when I noticed (thought) it had been missed - but was on the 10th of May, 1000GBP pushing the account a few hundred back into credit (i.e. negative balance). So judging by what appears on their website, it was actually before the due date. Yet it showed up in a credit report (Experian's creditexpert.co.uk free trial)...
  - brc 16y ago
    I remember writing an app that took a FICO score into account. It was pretty much a range - if your number fell below the range, rejected (or price increase). While the person using the system could see the qualitative reports, the whole thing was very much driven by your number.
- plusbryan 16y ago
  Bills sent to collections for as little as $15 can severely affect your credit score (personal experience). Since most car dealerships these days use the score as indicative of credit worthiness, even a small dispute can lead to annoying situations.
- barrkel 16y ago
  Well, if you're so hard up you can't afford 50 bucks, why should anyone lend to you? (For the sarcasm-deaf downvoters out there, I'm pointing out the perspective of the algorithm reviewing the credit score, not stating my personal opinion.)
- gxti 16y ago
  I had this happen for a domain renewal at "1&1 Internet Inc.". The card expired and it failed to autorenew, except that A) I wasn't expecting an auto-renewal and B) no notification was ever sent from the company that the domain was expiring or that there was a billing issue. 6 months later the domain actually stopped working (with 6 months left on the registration, of course) and I got a collections notice for $40. I tried to reconcile with the registrar but they told me to pay up to the collector before they'd do anything, so I walked. No domain for 6 months until it expired. I check my credit yearly and have yet to see any mention of it. Of course the normal thing for domain registrars is to let it expire if no payment is received by the expiration date, but this company seems to be geared for web hosting and buddied up with an apparently shady collections agency.
  - jauer 16y ago
    It is actually very common for hosts to automatically renew and charge if you don't explicitly cancel the domain. Customers get upset if their domain expires, someone snaps it up, and their widely publicized email addresses stop working. Getting a late payment notice is preferable. Of course, if 1&1 never notified you there is no excuse for them sending you to a collection agency. Still, every web hosting company that I've seen sells their packages as a recurring service. If you want the service to not auto-renew then you need to explicitly cancel the service.
owyn 16y ago
FWIW, I don't use zipcar, but this blog post is 18 months old... The plural of anecdote is not research.
itistoday 16y ago
If you live in the Bay Area, a nonprofit alternative is City CarShare: http://www.citycarshare.org/ http://www.citycarshare.org/
- dotBen 16y ago
  I'm totally into non-profit schemes but from the math I did it seemed that CityCarShare came out more expensive than ZipCar if you want to take the car out of the city because they charge you $0.35c/mile in addition to the hourly rental. (ZipCar don't charge per mile just per hour). I also have appreciated being able to use my ZipCar membership in other cities in America and Europe, esp in emergences/unexpectedly.
  - gcheong 16y ago
    Their liability coverage is better - up to $1mil per incident vs. $300,000 with zipcar. I know at least one person who chose CityCarShare for this reason.
- gcheong 16y ago
  I wouldn't say that being a nonprofit makes them any better from a customer service point of view. When I closed an account with them, they continued to charge my card and didn't refund my deposit until almost 2 months later.
PStamatiou 16y ago
Heh, I've been a zipcar user since the flexcar days and this happened to me but I just ignored it all. I ended up renewing some months later but Im hope they didnt report me me. Though I did a credit check a while ago while apt hunting and nothing odd showed up.
a4agarwal 16y ago
This doesn't seem so terrible to me. You entered a contract with Zipcar where you pay them an annual fee for their services. Failing to pay the fee doesn't automatically break that contract. Think of this way: what if you could simply stop paying rent when you want to move out of an apartment? Or you just stopped paying your cell phone bill when you want to cancel it? What if you forgot to pay your health care premium and you lost your health insurance?? Clearly these aren't acceptable ways to break out of a contract. The author's trick to "lose" your card to prevent auto billing is inviting issues like this. It seems so much smarter to just check your credit card statement each month. That would be much less work than having to update your credit card number everywhere you do want to renew a service. Your credit card failed processing and Zipcar kept your service up and prompted you to update the card. That seems like a great way to go. If they had simply cancelled your account, I could imagine this blog post going the other way. "I forgot to update my card and zipcar cancelled my account, leaving me stranded when I really needed a car!!" With critical accounts like your car, apartment, cell phone... it seems best to be explicit when you want to cancel your account.
- barrkel 16y ago
  I think damage to your credit score is worse than being stranded without a car. The policy seems bad from a PR perspective to me, quite apart from any notion of right and wrong. Besides, you seldom get far in business victimizing your customers.
- dannyr 16y ago
  I don't see the correlation to apartment renting. For me, it's more of like magazine subscription. If you don't renew, they can just stop sending you magazines. With apartment renting, you continue to use the service/product. If you stop paying your rent, they need to kick you out of your apartment. If you don't renew, what is the cost for Zipcar since you can't avail of the service anyway?
  - barrkel 16y ago
    I expect the cost to Zipcar is that they rely on oversubscription and underuse, a bit like porn sites.
kscaldef 16y ago
I “lose” my credit cards yearly to avoid sneaky auto-renewals just like this. Doesn't this also damage your credit? Length that accounts are open factors into your credit score, and people who cycle through cards typically see it go down.
- _delirium 16y ago
  If you just your card stolen, they send you a new card with a new number on the same account, which I don't believe shows up on the credit report at all (it still counts as the same account).
  - kscaldef 16y ago
    I don't believe that's how most banks handle lost cards, and I don't see how that would avoid the auto-renewals as the original author was trying to do. I assumed the the author was talking about closing the account and re-opening with a new number. EDIT: I'm sorry, I mis-read your comment originally and thought you said the same number, not a new number. That said, I've been through this a couple times, and each number shows up individually on my credit reports.
    - _delirium 16y ago
      That's how my banks have handled it, at least. When my Citibank card was stolen, they sent me a card with a new number, but it was still the same online login, same "years open" on my credit statement, etc. It stops auto-renewals because merchants only have the old number, which they can no longer charge. In my case that was mostly unwanted, because I had to go update the auto-renewals I did want with the new number (as well as updating it in places like Amazon), but it'd stop auto-renewals that you didn't want as well.
  - graywh 16y ago
    I've never received a new CC# for a lost card. The 3-digit security code on the back did change, though.
- gcheong 16y ago
kscaldef 16y ago
This is sort of off-topic, but does anyone know how Zipcar affect your insurance record, since you don't have an individual insurance policy? If you use Zipcar exclusively for a couple years, then stop and go back to a private vehicle and private insurance, do insurance companies consider you "continuously insured" or are you going to get hit for having a break in your insurance record? (I've tried to ask this question of Zipcar representatives in the past, and no one has been able to give me an answer. Their FAQ on insurance doesn't help either: http://www.zipcar.com/how/faqs/one-faq?faq_number=28 http://www.zipcar.com/how/faqs/one-faq?faq_number=28)
- dotBen 16y ago
  I asked a similar question about building up a no-claims bonus for using ZipCar. The short answer is no, it's technically ZipCar that is insured and so from a personal capacity you have no car insurance if you only use ZipCars and don't run your own car (and personal insurance). I'm not clear why that is a problem - you just loose your no claims bonus but surely that's reasonable?
  - kscaldef 16y ago
    I'm not clear why that is a problem - you just loose your no claims bonus but surely that's reasonable? Typically your rates are higher if you haven't been continuously insured over the past N years, where N is something in the range of 5-10.
  - gamble 16y ago
    > you just loose your no claims bonus but surely that's reasonable? Unfortunately not. In my experience, the slightest break in insurance coverage is an excuse to push you into the highest-risk pool. It's completely ridiculous. Perhaps the policy made sense before every piece of information relevant to insurance was tracked by computers, but now it seems like something that only exists to punish people who want to go car-free for awhile.
    - dotBen 16y ago
      I see. I've only held a license in the US for 2.5 years so that's probably why I pay $200/month for insurance!
dotBen 16y ago
A few thoughts (I'm a ZipCar member btw): I don't pay an annual fee because I used a company code I found on a discount site that gave me no annual fee (use Google to find one). They wrote and said that he was several weeks overdue paying for his annual subscription but I wonder if he'd tried to book a car whether they'd have let him without a valid credit card on file? Point is, if they wouldn't have let him rent a car then I think it's crap to say he was overdue because the membership was still in effect. I think his MO on the "loosing his card" is crappy, but this seems equally crappy. Finally as an FYI, Felix Salmon wrote (admittedly a while back, but then this OP link is old too) that ZipCar insurance is very weak in places, see http://www.felixsalmon.com/000855.html http://www.felixsalmon.com/000855.html. I'm not aware they've done much to improve the situation
jfager 16y ago
My ZipCar experience: I rented a car for a full weekend last October, and returned it several hours before it was due back. I forgot to "tap out", though, and ZipCar sent me a late return notification and charged my credit card. No big deal, just a simple mix-up, so I called customer service. Unbelievably, they couldn't do anything about it from the national help line, and when I was redirected to the NY office, I got more runaround. It got to the point where I called my credit card company to do a stop payment, as it was clear that I wasn't going to get help from ZipCar. Then I tweeted about it. Someone at ZipCar saw the tweet, and the whole problem got fixed pretty much immediately - I got an email saying my case had been reviewed, that the computer showed I did in fact return the car on time, and that if I could cancel the stop-payment, I'd get my money back (which I did). It was awesome to get the problem fixed with just a simple tweet, but I wasted hours on the phone and would have wasted hours more dealing with the stop-payment fallout, when they already had the information that I hadn't actually returned the car late. I'm still a member, but I think I've used them only once or twice since. The whole experience left me pretty soured on them. The takeaway is: if you're only giving good customer service to the people who complain publicly, you're doing it wrong.
- lsc 16y ago
  >The takeaway is: if you're only giving good customer service to the people who complain publicly, you're doing it wrong. Speaking as a provider who has been in that situation before (e.g. losing a ticket, then responding to a public complaint) I agree completely. First off, 98% of your customers are not going to complain publicly. They are simply going to leave. And as I keep saying, the people who don't complain are the cash cows... the silent majority, from whom you get most of your money. Now, I'm not saying you should ignore public complaints... that would be bad business. Respond publicly and solve the problem, or at least give a refund. But you must treat the complainers like canaries. for every valid complaint (and yeah, you will get invalid complaints... respond to those too, and offer a refund, but it's okay to say "I'm sorry my service does not meet your needs." - you can't be all things to all people.) you need to review your processes, and figure out why the complaint wasn't resolved through normal channels.
kungfu1 16y ago
This is his own fault. Zipcar could have done a better job handling it, but please note how he says letters became increasingly more menacing. Why did he not attempt to do anything about this until they were trying to send him to collections? Come on. you arent a victim. If i start to get calls about something, im going to return them, and figure out what is going on here. If he would have simply called them he could have avoided this. Zipcar saw that he "owed" 50 bucks, they saw him not returning their calls, and finally they sent his ass to collections. Pretty straight forward to me. Its his fault for making sure that they wernt trying to bill him any longer, and to have done something PRIOR to them sending him to collections. Sit back a moment and ask yourself how Zipcar makes money.. hint: its not on the mileage I use zipcar, and ive never had any issues.
- barrkel 16y ago
  I don't know what it is about stories like this that make commenters here start thinking in terms of fault. It's not about fault. It's about the customer always being right, even when they're wrong.
yannk 16y ago
There is good and ugly with zipcar. I have my share to say about the ugly. They increased their fare when gas price went up, but didn't lower it when the prices dropped significantly. http://blog.cyberion.net/2008/12/zipcar-please-lower-your-prices-gas-is-cheap.html http://blog.cyberion.net/2008/12/zipcar-please-lower-your-pr... Besides, a Marketing Executive noticed this post above and dropped me a line saying he would get back to me the next day at the latest (I thought, yeah, cool a 2.0 company or whatever. My expectations were lower, I just wanted to vent out publicly about zipcar not listening). I never heard of him again. In short? I'm not surprised one bit about their poor customer practice.
jarin 16y ago
The grim reality thing about questionably ethical business practices like this is the increased profits usually outweigh the drawbacks, as long as they can keep the outrage down to background noise. Seems like nobody checks BBB listings before buying anymore.
eli 16y ago
I agree this is dumb of ZipCar from a PR standpoint, but that is a ridiculously hyperbolic title. Using ZipCar won't damage your credit. Canceling ZipCar won't damage your credit. Failing to cancel ZipCar while also failing to pay for ZipCar could indeed damage your credit.
nickpinkston 16y ago
I couldn't even get past the "you have too many speeding tickets phase" - nor could my girlfriend...
jrockway 16y ago
I've read my credit card agreements. It says that if you authorized a recurring charge before you cancel your account, and that charge shows up again, you are responsible for it. (If it's erroneous, you can dispute it, of course.) The way to cancel services is to call up the provider and tell them you want to cancel. If they charge you after that, dispute it. If they won't close your account, sue them or write a letter to your state's attorneys general office. Now ideally, there would be a way to cancel everything online... but that is apparently not good for business, and it's something that the government is going to have to mandate. (Honestly, it surprises me how people manage their finances. Losing your credit card to avoid paying for things that auto-renew!? This reminds me of some hate mail I read that was directed at my employer; apparently this person kept a $0 balance in her checking account, bought a $5 sandwich everyday with her debit card, ate it, and then went to the bank and deposited exactly $5 in cash. Since overdraft fees were calculated overnight instead of intraday, she never paid overdraft fees. Then the algorithm changed, and she got charged the overdraft fees. This apparently was because the bank was evil, and not because it's stupid to go into debt to buy a sandwich when you are carrying the cash with you anyway. But I digress...)
mmt 16y ago
I do something similar, but, arguably, lower-effort than outright cancelling my cards yearly. I use disposable card numbers. I only wish every single one of my cards offered this service, but, most notably, Amex doesn't[1]. Currently, only Citi[2] and Bofa[3] (from their MBNA acquisition) offer it on reward cards I'm willing to use[4]. If anyone knows of other issuers who offer this on such a card or who offer it on an otherwise full-featured[5] business card, with all cardholders having access to this feature, I'd be very interested in knowing. [1] They had it under the mark "Private Payments" but discontinued it. I don't think they ever offered it on the Costco co-branded cards, so I never tried it. [2] "Virtual Account Numbers" [3] "ShopSafe" [4] At least 1% kickback payable as cash. Miles and "points" don't do it for me. [5] Employee cards with spending limits settable online is the critical one.

140 points by kmfrk 16y ago

An epic fail that a company that is still so new in many markets (I was considering Zipcar for having a second car for the winter in my town when the biking weather becomes bad) would be so customer-unfriendly. I'll never be a customer for the first time if this is how the company treats early adopters.

_delirium 16y ago

This does seem somewhat unusual. Forcing auto-renewal upon customers (and providing no way to turn it off short of actually cancelling the account) is, alas, common, but most companies won't go so far as to turn the auto-renewal over to collections. They'll send you an email or two complaining, then cancel the account. I think all the times it's happened to me it's actually been stated like that in the emails pretty explicitly; something like, your credit card is no longer valid, please log in and provide new details within X days or your account will be canceled. Does this kind of thing meaningfully damage your credit, though? I wouldn't think that someone sizing you up for something like a car loan would consider a $50 dispute over an annual fee to be a very good predictor of your creditworthiness.

mgkimsal 16y ago
Problem is, it's usually not 'someone' sizing you up - it's an algorithm like a FICO score that gets spit back to anyone looking you up for credit considerations. When dealing face to face with someone reviewing a report for a score, they might take that in to consideration, but it's not always (or usually?) the case.
- _delirium 16y ago
  Hmm, yeah, I can buy that. If I were designing an algorithm, I think I would attempt to differentiate different types of disputes, so something like a dispute with Newsweek over a subscription renewal doesn't get much weight, while skipping credit-card or mortgage payments does. But maybe they've run the numbers and found that these small disputes actually are predictive of bigger defaults? Although, alternately, I could believe that the FICO folks don't care that much about predictive accuracy, since they're basically a monopoly with a good moat.
  - barrkel 16y ago
    I missed a credit card payment a few months back. The reason? I didn't have direct debit set up on the bill, because I normally paid it in full manually before the bill date. Why manually? Because I actually overpay in order to increase the effective credit limit, since I'm new to the bank (moved to the UK fairly recently) and hence have a low limit. So, for the sake of a 50 GBP missed payment, I'll have that mark on my credit score for the next few years.
    - mgkimsal 16y ago
      If you do it fast enough, the bank may remove the charge. They might not be able to easily remove the mark on your credit report now - but you won't know without asking. I've had my branch remove a couple of 'late payments' because they were truly just 'late' by a day or two, and generally just a bit of misplanning on my part. I can always move my money elsewhere, and they'll lose a decent customer for the sake of a $30 fine - they've removed the charges in both cases.
      - _delirium 16y ago
        I don't know if it's unusual, but none of the credit cards I've had have even reported late payments that were only a few days late. Discussion on places like Fatwallet suggests that most companies report payments that are 30+ days late, with additional badness tiers at 60+ and 120+ days late.
        barrkel 16y ago
        It's interesting that you point that out, I'll probably contact my bank about it tomorrow. This isn't the place for discussion of my personal credit record, but it may be interesting for someone. I had a charge of 237 GBP on 11th April (the one that pushed the balance into debit at all), and the bill on 12th April, with a due date of 11th May (according to the credit card website). The next payment was when I noticed (thought) it had been missed - but was on the 10th of May, 1000GBP pushing the account a few hundred back into credit (i.e. negative balance). So judging by what appears on their website, it was actually before the due date. Yet it showed up in a credit report (Experian's creditexpert.co.uk free trial)...
- brc 16y ago
  I remember writing an app that took a FICO score into account. It was pretty much a range - if your number fell below the range, rejected (or price increase). While the person using the system could see the qualitative reports, the whole thing was very much driven by your number.
plusbryan 16y ago
Bills sent to collections for as little as $15 can severely affect your credit score (personal experience). Since most car dealerships these days use the score as indicative of credit worthiness, even a small dispute can lead to annoying situations.
barrkel 16y ago
Well, if you're so hard up you can't afford 50 bucks, why should anyone lend to you? (For the sarcasm-deaf downvoters out there, I'm pointing out the perspective of the algorithm reviewing the credit score, not stating my personal opinion.)
gxti 16y ago
I had this happen for a domain renewal at "1&1 Internet Inc.". The card expired and it failed to autorenew, except that A) I wasn't expecting an auto-renewal and B) no notification was ever sent from the company that the domain was expiring or that there was a billing issue. 6 months later the domain actually stopped working (with 6 months left on the registration, of course) and I got a collections notice for $40. I tried to reconcile with the registrar but they told me to pay up to the collector before they'd do anything, so I walked. No domain for 6 months until it expired. I check my credit yearly and have yet to see any mention of it. Of course the normal thing for domain registrars is to let it expire if no payment is received by the expiration date, but this company seems to be geared for web hosting and buddied up with an apparently shady collections agency.
- jauer 16y ago
  It is actually very common for hosts to automatically renew and charge if you don't explicitly cancel the domain. Customers get upset if their domain expires, someone snaps it up, and their widely publicized email addresses stop working. Getting a late payment notice is preferable. Of course, if 1&1 never notified you there is no excuse for them sending you to a collection agency. Still, every web hosting company that I've seen sells their packages as a recurring service. If you want the service to not auto-renew then you need to explicitly cancel the service.

owyn 16y ago

FWIW, I don't use zipcar, but this blog post is 18 months old... The plural of anecdote is not research.

itistoday 16y ago

If you live in the Bay Area, a nonprofit alternative is City CarShare: http://www.citycarshare.org/ http://www.citycarshare.org/

dotBen 16y ago
I'm totally into non-profit schemes but from the math I did it seemed that CityCarShare came out more expensive than ZipCar if you want to take the car out of the city because they charge you $0.35c/mile in addition to the hourly rental. (ZipCar don't charge per mile just per hour). I also have appreciated being able to use my ZipCar membership in other cities in America and Europe, esp in emergences/unexpectedly.
- gcheong 16y ago
  Their liability coverage is better - up to $1mil per incident vs. $300,000 with zipcar. I know at least one person who chose CityCarShare for this reason.
gcheong 16y ago
I wouldn't say that being a nonprofit makes them any better from a customer service point of view. When I closed an account with them, they continued to charge my card and didn't refund my deposit until almost 2 months later.

PStamatiou 16y ago

Heh, I've been a zipcar user since the flexcar days and this happened to me but I just ignored it all. I ended up renewing some months later but Im hope they didnt report me me. Though I did a credit check a while ago while apt hunting and nothing odd showed up.

a4agarwal 16y ago

This doesn't seem so terrible to me. You entered a contract with Zipcar where you pay them an annual fee for their services. Failing to pay the fee doesn't automatically break that contract. Think of this way: what if you could simply stop paying rent when you want to move out of an apartment? Or you just stopped paying your cell phone bill when you want to cancel it? What if you forgot to pay your health care premium and you lost your health insurance?? Clearly these aren't acceptable ways to break out of a contract. The author's trick to "lose" your card to prevent auto billing is inviting issues like this. It seems so much smarter to just check your credit card statement each month. That would be much less work than having to update your credit card number everywhere you do want to renew a service. Your credit card failed processing and Zipcar kept your service up and prompted you to update the card. That seems like a great way to go. If they had simply cancelled your account, I could imagine this blog post going the other way. "I forgot to update my card and zipcar cancelled my account, leaving me stranded when I really needed a car!!" With critical accounts like your car, apartment, cell phone... it seems best to be explicit when you want to cancel your account.

barrkel 16y ago
I think damage to your credit score is worse than being stranded without a car. The policy seems bad from a PR perspective to me, quite apart from any notion of right and wrong. Besides, you seldom get far in business victimizing your customers.
dannyr 16y ago
I don't see the correlation to apartment renting. For me, it's more of like magazine subscription. If you don't renew, they can just stop sending you magazines. With apartment renting, you continue to use the service/product. If you stop paying your rent, they need to kick you out of your apartment. If you don't renew, what is the cost for Zipcar since you can't avail of the service anyway?
- barrkel 16y ago
  I expect the cost to Zipcar is that they rely on oversubscription and underuse, a bit like porn sites.

kscaldef 16y ago

I “lose” my credit cards yearly to avoid sneaky auto-renewals just like this. Doesn't this also damage your credit? Length that accounts are open factors into your credit score, and people who cycle through cards typically see it go down.

_delirium 16y ago
If you just your card stolen, they send you a new card with a new number on the same account, which I don't believe shows up on the credit report at all (it still counts as the same account).
- kscaldef 16y ago
  I don't believe that's how most banks handle lost cards, and I don't see how that would avoid the auto-renewals as the original author was trying to do. I assumed the the author was talking about closing the account and re-opening with a new number. EDIT: I'm sorry, I mis-read your comment originally and thought you said the same number, not a new number. That said, I've been through this a couple times, and each number shows up individually on my credit reports.
  - _delirium 16y ago
    That's how my banks have handled it, at least. When my Citibank card was stolen, they sent me a card with a new number, but it was still the same online login, same "years open" on my credit statement, etc. It stops auto-renewals because merchants only have the old number, which they can no longer charge. In my case that was mostly unwanted, because I had to go update the auto-renewals I did want with the new number (as well as updating it in places like Amazon), but it'd stop auto-renewals that you didn't want as well.
- graywh 16y ago
  I've never received a new CC# for a lost card. The 3-digit security code on the back did change, though.
gcheong 16y ago

kscaldef 16y ago

This is sort of off-topic, but does anyone know how Zipcar affect your insurance record, since you don't have an individual insurance policy? If you use Zipcar exclusively for a couple years, then stop and go back to a private vehicle and private insurance, do insurance companies consider you "continuously insured" or are you going to get hit for having a break in your insurance record? (I've tried to ask this question of Zipcar representatives in the past, and no one has been able to give me an answer. Their FAQ on insurance doesn't help either: http://www.zipcar.com/how/faqs/one-faq?faq_number=28 http://www.zipcar.com/how/faqs/one-faq?faq_number=28)

dotBen 16y ago
I asked a similar question about building up a no-claims bonus for using ZipCar. The short answer is no, it's technically ZipCar that is insured and so from a personal capacity you have no car insurance if you only use ZipCars and don't run your own car (and personal insurance). I'm not clear why that is a problem - you just loose your no claims bonus but surely that's reasonable?
- kscaldef 16y ago
  I'm not clear why that is a problem - you just loose your no claims bonus but surely that's reasonable? Typically your rates are higher if you haven't been continuously insured over the past N years, where N is something in the range of 5-10.
- gamble 16y ago
  > you just loose your no claims bonus but surely that's reasonable? Unfortunately not. In my experience, the slightest break in insurance coverage is an excuse to push you into the highest-risk pool. It's completely ridiculous. Perhaps the policy made sense before every piece of information relevant to insurance was tracked by computers, but now it seems like something that only exists to punish people who want to go car-free for awhile.
  - dotBen 16y ago
    I see. I've only held a license in the US for 2.5 years so that's probably why I pay $200/month for insurance!

dotBen 16y ago

A few thoughts (I'm a ZipCar member btw): I don't pay an annual fee because I used a company code I found on a discount site that gave me no annual fee (use Google to find one). They wrote and said that he was several weeks overdue paying for his annual subscription but I wonder if he'd tried to book a car whether they'd have let him without a valid credit card on file? Point is, if they wouldn't have let him rent a car then I think it's crap to say he was overdue because the membership was still in effect. I think his MO on the "loosing his card" is crappy, but this seems equally crappy. Finally as an FYI, Felix Salmon wrote (admittedly a while back, but then this OP link is old too) that ZipCar insurance is very weak in places, see http://www.felixsalmon.com/000855.html http://www.felixsalmon.com/000855.html. I'm not aware they've done much to improve the situation

jfager 16y ago

My ZipCar experience: I rented a car for a full weekend last October, and returned it several hours before it was due back. I forgot to "tap out", though, and ZipCar sent me a late return notification and charged my credit card. No big deal, just a simple mix-up, so I called customer service. Unbelievably, they couldn't do anything about it from the national help line, and when I was redirected to the NY office, I got more runaround. It got to the point where I called my credit card company to do a stop payment, as it was clear that I wasn't going to get help from ZipCar. Then I tweeted about it. Someone at ZipCar saw the tweet, and the whole problem got fixed pretty much immediately - I got an email saying my case had been reviewed, that the computer showed I did in fact return the car on time, and that if I could cancel the stop-payment, I'd get my money back (which I did). It was awesome to get the problem fixed with just a simple tweet, but I wasted hours on the phone and would have wasted hours more dealing with the stop-payment fallout, when they already had the information that I hadn't actually returned the car late. I'm still a member, but I think I've used them only once or twice since. The whole experience left me pretty soured on them. The takeaway is: if you're only giving good customer service to the people who complain publicly, you're doing it wrong.

lsc 16y ago
>The takeaway is: if you're only giving good customer service to the people who complain publicly, you're doing it wrong. Speaking as a provider who has been in that situation before (e.g. losing a ticket, then responding to a public complaint) I agree completely. First off, 98% of your customers are not going to complain publicly. They are simply going to leave. And as I keep saying, the people who don't complain are the cash cows... the silent majority, from whom you get most of your money. Now, I'm not saying you should ignore public complaints... that would be bad business. Respond publicly and solve the problem, or at least give a refund. But you must treat the complainers like canaries. for every valid complaint (and yeah, you will get invalid complaints... respond to those too, and offer a refund, but it's okay to say "I'm sorry my service does not meet your needs." - you can't be all things to all people.) you need to review your processes, and figure out why the complaint wasn't resolved through normal channels.

kungfu1 16y ago

This is his own fault. Zipcar could have done a better job handling it, but please note how he says letters became increasingly more menacing. Why did he not attempt to do anything about this until they were trying to send him to collections? Come on. you arent a victim. If i start to get calls about something, im going to return them, and figure out what is going on here. If he would have simply called them he could have avoided this. Zipcar saw that he "owed" 50 bucks, they saw him not returning their calls, and finally they sent his ass to collections. Pretty straight forward to me. Its his fault for making sure that they wernt trying to bill him any longer, and to have done something PRIOR to them sending him to collections. Sit back a moment and ask yourself how Zipcar makes money.. hint: its not on the mileage I use zipcar, and ive never had any issues.

barrkel 16y ago
I don't know what it is about stories like this that make commenters here start thinking in terms of fault. It's not about fault. It's about the customer always being right, even when they're wrong.

yannk 16y ago

There is good and ugly with zipcar. I have my share to say about the ugly. They increased their fare when gas price went up, but didn't lower it when the prices dropped significantly. http://blog.cyberion.net/2008/12/zipcar-please-lower-your-prices-gas-is-cheap.html http://blog.cyberion.net/2008/12/zipcar-please-lower-your-pr... Besides, a Marketing Executive noticed this post above and dropped me a line saying he would get back to me the next day at the latest (I thought, yeah, cool a 2.0 company or whatever. My expectations were lower, I just wanted to vent out publicly about zipcar not listening). I never heard of him again. In short? I'm not surprised one bit about their poor customer practice.

jarin 16y ago

The grim reality thing about questionably ethical business practices like this is the increased profits usually outweigh the drawbacks, as long as they can keep the outrage down to background noise. Seems like nobody checks BBB listings before buying anymore.

eli 16y ago

I agree this is dumb of ZipCar from a PR standpoint, but that is a ridiculously hyperbolic title. Using ZipCar won't damage your credit. Canceling ZipCar won't damage your credit. Failing to cancel ZipCar while also failing to pay for ZipCar could indeed damage your credit.

nickpinkston 16y ago

I couldn't even get past the "you have too many speeding tickets phase" - nor could my girlfriend...

jrockway 16y ago

I've read my credit card agreements. It says that if you authorized a recurring charge before you cancel your account, and that charge shows up again, you are responsible for it. (If it's erroneous, you can dispute it, of course.) The way to cancel services is to call up the provider and tell them you want to cancel. If they charge you after that, dispute it. If they won't close your account, sue them or write a letter to your state's attorneys general office. Now ideally, there would be a way to cancel everything online... but that is apparently not good for business, and it's something that the government is going to have to mandate. (Honestly, it surprises me how people manage their finances. Losing your credit card to avoid paying for things that auto-renew!? This reminds me of some hate mail I read that was directed at my employer; apparently this person kept a $0 balance in her checking account, bought a $5 sandwich everyday with her debit card, ate it, and then went to the bank and deposited exactly $5 in cash. Since overdraft fees were calculated overnight instead of intraday, she never paid overdraft fees. Then the algorithm changed, and she got charged the overdraft fees. This apparently was because the bank was evil, and not because it's stupid to go into debt to buy a sandwich when you are carrying the cash with you anyway. But I digress...)

mmt 16y ago

I do something similar, but, arguably, lower-effort than outright cancelling my cards yearly. I use disposable card numbers. I only wish every single one of my cards offered this service, but, most notably, Amex doesn't[1]. Currently, only Citi[2] and Bofa[3] (from their MBNA acquisition) offer it on reward cards I'm willing to use[4]. If anyone knows of other issuers who offer this on such a card or who offer it on an otherwise full-featured[5] business card, with all cardholders having access to this feature, I'd be very interested in knowing. [1] They had it under the mark "Private Payments" but discontinued it. I don't think they ever offered it on the Costco co-branded cards, so I never tried it. [2] "Virtual Account Numbers" [3] "ShopSafe" [4] At least 1% kickback payable as cash. Miles and "points" don't do it for me. [5] Employee cards with spending limits settable online is the critical one.