Wednesday, January 23, 2008

ZipCar denying downtown San Diego residents

I have been an avid supporter and user of FlexCar which recently merged with ZipCar. I was hesitent when I first heard of the merger, but the promise of better customer support and the chance for more cars encouraged me to wait it out. Today I received the following email from ZipCar announcing that they are removing cars from downtown and surrounding areas and keeping them at the college. This meaning if I want to rent a car I have to take the trolley/bus to SDSU and then rent a car(which is crazy).


Car sharing is an evolving category of transportation, and we are working hard to pioneer the industry. We are constantly learning more about the best way to operate our service, and sometimes what we learn results in a tough decision.

In Southern California, we have decided to remove our vehicles from areas outside of the universities we serve (cars will remain at UCLA, USC, Pomona, UCSB, UCSD and UCI).

This was a difficult decision for us, and we understand it may present significant inconvenience for you. We apologize for that.

Reservations for all affected locations have been canceled and fully credited. Further, we have refunded annual membership fees for all members who paid an annual fee within the past nine months. Your refund will appear in your account automatically. If you have questions about your refund, please contact us at info@zipcar.com.

We realize that you recently activated your Zipcard. We'd like to encourage you to use it by placing a *new* $25 driving credit into your account. Hopefully, you'll reserve a vehicle at one of our university locations in Southern California or in any other city where we provide service. If you have further questions, do not hesitate to contact us at info@zipcar.com.

The team at Zipcar

I'm outraged by this decision of ZipCar to do this and encourage anyone with a FlexCar Acocunt/ZipCar Acocunt/ or anyone that was thinking about it to email: info@zipcar.com letting them know how this is a gross misjudgment on their behalf.

Help support Car sharing and the environment.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Found the same email in my inbox this morning :-(

Do you know if they are removing the vehicles in downtown San Diego immediately?

Corey Ganser said...

They have already removed them

Anonymous said...

Unreal that they gave zero warning. We had sold our primary vehicle and relied upon flexcar for our occasional vehicular needs.

How about at least giving some notice so people may find alternative means of transport?

Flexcar was too good to be true I guess.

Shame on zipcar. Stinks of caring more for profits than customers.

Farmlander said...

It was interesting as things developed that it was impossible to reserve cars via Flexcar or Zipcar . . . they should have simply told us that the merger meant that Zipcar would not be serving San Diego! Rather Zipcar actually mails me a WELCOME PACKAGE and writes that I should sign up as quickly as possible . . . only to learn a week later that there are no cars in San Diego other than on the UCSD campus!

Corey Ganser said...

Yeah...what a waste of time and energy

Anonymous said...

We are outraged by the removal of the flex cars from downtown San Diego. When we visit relatives there, we count on the flex cars as our way to get down to Tijuana!

D&R