Zip Car Gets Fort Greene Religion

zipcar is deceptive please read

zipcar has to be the worst car rental company i have ever dealt with. their cars are filthy and they are deceptive and make up their own rules. I have never rented a clean car they smell and have animal hair on the seats and garbage in the cars. If you return the car even a minute late they charge you a 50.00 late fee. they also charge your card in increments where the invoices are confusing if you have a 80 buck rental they will charge your card 4 or 5 different payments on one rental. they say they pay for gas but in the ny cars the gas card id always missing and then you pay out of pocket they tell you to fax in the receipt but when i faxed the receipts they said that i was faxing too many receipts and closed my account. My son has asthma and i had to clean the car from the animal hair and they told me after they closed my acct they would only reopen it if i didn’t fax anymore receipts. I was angry with them but no one seemed to care. The office on 32nd and bdway has rude managers who don’t care about customers. Joel Johnson general manager there and Jessica O member services manager there are not helpful at all. Jessica told me that if my son has asthma don’t put him in the car. The weekend rates are horrible around 165 bucks a day and you have to reserve far in advance. Don’t expect a clean car or a gas card in the car. The cars have major mechanical issues and are unsafe to drive. A few cars have broken down on me with my kids in the car and i had to change a tire on the highway cause roadside assistance told me it would take hours to come. I got no compensation for the mishap or even an im sorry. Jessica told me that no one asked me to change the tire. So then I called the so call corporate office and dealt with Peter director of member services who claims that he takes complaints seriously his number is 6179954224 since they don’t like to deal with their customers I am giving the number. Anyhow he told me he was keeping my acct closed because i expect too much wanting clean cars and expecting them to fix every problem. the funny part is they never fixed any problem. they tell you fax receipts call if there is damage to the car or there is a breakdown but when i follow the rules they penalize me and closed my account. I am warning everyone to use the service at your own risk just remember that you are not insured and you end up paying a lot for rules that they make up along the way. the cars are disgusting inside so just see for yourself. Remember the names Joel Johnson from 32nd street and definitely Jessica she is rude and could care less about kids. She was the one who closed my acct to begin with. People need to know the truth don’t let them fool you cause at the end you will pay way more then what they advertise now I am taking them to court for treating me like crap and closing my acct just cause they felt like it. People like zipcar can’t treat us like animals when we are paying for the rentals. see for yourselves that everything i am saying is true

I am a high intensity user of Zipcars in Park Slope. Since I spend over $5000/year on Zipcars, it’s not so much about the cost, as it is the convenience and not wanting to own a car.

The Positives:

1) If you live near a Zipcar location, its very convenient.
2) No limitation imposed by office hours. Need to return a car at 2am, no problem, you don’t have to wait til next morning.
3) Easypass is installed in cars. This is something the other rental co’s don’t offer. It’s a great feature, but note that you still pay for the tolls.
4) Gas is included in the rental.
5) They offer some interesting cars.

Negatives:

1) You are dependent on other renters being respectful, not leaving a mess in the car, not leaving the fuel on empty, returning the car on time. I have been really, really screwed over a number of times by other renters being jerks, leaving nasty crap all over the seats, not putting gas in the car, returning late, etc. I get the feeling that Zipcar does not enforce the fines for bad behavior.

2) They do a poor job of cleaning the cars in the first place – they only wipe it down a bit and don;t clean regualrly enough.

3) They don’t maintain the cars well enough. I’ve reported maintenance issues and they take their sweet time doing anything about it.

4) There is no back-up. Once, the garage attendant wrongly gave my car away to another customer. Do you think they had another on standby – NO. I was SOL.

5) You have to really reserve weekends in advance.

I could go on. Having Zipcar has given me much greater access to cars without having to own one. On the other hand, I am now spending so much on Zipcar, and have become so annoyed with the negatives that I’m now looking to buy a car. It’ll cost more, but at least I’ll know its clean, maintained, and available when I want it.

I signed up for zipcar and paid the hundred bucks or whatever, and have never used it. Their business model must depend a lot on people like me. But I will use it some day. I swear.
Although it would be nicer if the cars did not have that silly “ZIP CAR” sign on the door. It’s pretty declasse.

So, what ARE the weekend rates? The website doesn’t seem to list such specifics, and I wouldn’t sign up w/o knowing that.

More generally, if not weekends then what’s the point of this service? What would you use it for where cabs wouldn’t be more convenient? If you could get a truck I could see it being useful for in-town moves, but I can’t imagine what else…

They had a little booth set up on that triangle corner where Hanson meets Fulton meets S. Oxford meets Greene (phew!) two weekends ago. Had an SUV parked there. Now they seem to be consipcuously parking shiny new Zipcar cars around Ft. Greene. It’s like the Virgin cell phone campaign, except with a larger carbon footprint!

What the neighborhood needs is a bike shop.