Zipcar member since 2008. 3 years ago, I was excited and happy when I found out LA is finally getting zipcar. Living and working downtown, I saw no need to own a car so I got rid of it. Reinstated my membership since I had such a wonderful experience with zipcar Chicago (moved to LA 5 years ago) AND used zipcar in NY and DC. 1) LA has a LOOOOONG WAY TO GO when it comes to customer service; 2) not enough locations; 3) most of the time the gas card does not work. I've had to use my own card several times to purchase gas and they're SLOOOOOW to reimburse. oh yeah, here's a $5 credit for your next zipcar. NO THANKS. give me the full price for what I paid for the gas. read more

Car-sharing is such a great notion. This is a valuable service. HOWEVER... I wish Zipcar wasn't such a godd**m nightmare! So many headaches. I've gotten into cars only to realize their batteries were dead... They promise refunds but I have to call them multiple times to get the refunds processed... and that's just the tip of the iceberg. Is Maven up and running yet? Because I love car sharing but I'd rather throw money at a service that has its act together. ZIPCAR I WAS ROOTING FOR YOU! THERE'S STILL TIME TO WIN BACK MY AFFECTIONS! HIRE A BETTER CEO? I DONT KNOW! THE FISH ROTS FROM THE HEAD MAYBE YOU NEED A BETTER HELMER! You've got the concept, now just get the system in place to execute properly FOR THE LOVE OF GOD read more

This company has to be the absolute worse company that I have ever had to deal with. Their customer service SUCKS, their phone representatives barely speak English, they give you bs run around answers with no solutions, and worse off, this company is just unprofessionally ran although. They have made even just signing up with them a nightmare, & I haven't even used any of their cars yet! I warn you to please stay away, these folks will make your life a living h**l with how poorly they treat you. read more

Zip car is a huge rip off I made a reservation last week talked on the phone with the operator a few hours later I called to cancel the reservation and zip car charge my credit card $126 for a cancellation fee. I've only been a member for two weeks and I've already spent over $220 with this company and I have not rented one zip car vehicle read more

Paid for membership for my daughter. She has not received her card and when I called to find out when she would receive it, they refused to tell me. According to them, I am not their customer.I paid them and they charged my credit card but I am not their customer. The supervisor, Ishmael, was no help. He told me not to have an attitude when all I did was ask a question. He was smug and rude. Zipcar needs to hire better people if they want to stay in business. I, their customer, will be cancelling my membership. read more

Zipcar is unequivocally the most inept company with which I've ever dealt. I've experienced every problem previously described in other reviews. Cars not starting, bad customer service, slow customer service and cars not present in the lot. Worst. Company. Ever. read more

After zipping 6 months I decided to give it up altogether. Many of the cars don't have insurance proof and I was fined $500 for that, which is supposedly to be included in THEIR service and what I paid them for. What makes me angrier is their reluctance to cooperate with you to deal with the issue. They kept making all kinds of excuses to avoid dismissing the ticket. This company is so poorly-managed and its staff are so irresponsible. I paid the fine and end of story -- I will never ever use Zipcar. Think carefully before you join this trap. read more

I reserved a Zipcar today because I had to go to an interview. I was so excited because 1) after having terrible luck with jobs, I landed a nice interview for a job that seems like a game changer and 2) after not driving for a few months, it was nice to be able to drive, again. I took the bus to the pick up location, walk up to the car I reserved and it looks clean inside and out. I go to open the door with my card and it won't open. Now, at this point, some of you may ask why I didn't just call them. I do not have the luxury of owning a cell phone. I was hoping when I got this job, I could get my family some nice phones. I ended up NOT making it to the interview and no, I cannot reschedule. It's ENTIRELY Zipcar's fault why I will NOT be getting this job. I'm going to call in to get a refund but also to cancel my service. I will NEVER suggest Zipcar to anyone, EVER! read more

Worst experience ever. Customer service is a joke. Couldn't cancel the membership fast enough. read more

This is my first Yelp-review, but I unfortunately have to report what I experienced this morning. I would have hoped it to be a nice review, because I have been very satisfied with several zipcar experiences the past few months, and I think the concept is very good. After a Sunday trip, I had booked the car overnight so I could save time on transport to UCLA for a buzy work day. When I got there, another Zipcar was parked at my spot! (where I picked up the car the day before). I called 24/7 service line (long waiting time) and was told that I had to find a free parking spot without restrictions or payment and call them back and tell them where the car is. Okay, that s not possible within several miles within and around UCLA campus unless you live there. After a round in the neighborhood (they re all restricted with residential parking permits), I called them back (another long wait). A slightly more helpful person tried to help me find a spot through google maps via cell phone. The first place she suggested turned out to be restricted when I eventually found it, but after having spent 1 1/2 hour she managed to direct me to a spot I could park. So instead of being at work 9.15 I was parked at 10.40. But the most dissapointing was the service: They said I would be waived for the 70$ or so late fee for the extra time I drove around (oh, thank you!), and I could get 1 hour driving credit worth 7 dollars. That s not at all compensating for lost hours of work. Why couldn t I be allowed to park at a UCLA spot for 11$ and they could charge the person who parked the car in the wrong place? Because I certainly hope it wasn t Zipcar that had double booked the spot! I can tolerate 1/2 hour delay or so, but this is beyond reasonable in my opinion. I like Zipcar because you don t have to worry about parking, but unfortunately they re not reliable and you don t get any compensation if they mess up. Don t rely on Zipcar if you have important appointments or appreciate your time. That s my advice. read more

ok, to be fair I should update from 1 to "2.5" stars, as I did finally get a hold of someone over the phone and they cleared the extra charge right away... Still, don't think the issue mentioned below is good business practice! ~~~~(previous...)~~~~~~ What kind of a business MAKES you call to cancel membership nowadays...!?... and when my when credit info changed, instead of just canceling my account, they sent to a collection agency! That is some serious BS ! Forget these wanks! read more

I've been trying to close my Zipcar account for over a week and a half, almost two weeks now. I first emailed them because I was close to my renewal period - I have a car and wanted to cancel before my membership renewed. They've simply not answered my emails, which is horribly disappointing - either their customer service department doesn't exist or they purposefully did not cancel my account in order to charge me the membership fee. Thank god I've cancelled the card they have on file for me so I don't have to try and get a refund. I used their cars when I lived in Santa Barbara because I received a discount through my university. I had no problems with the cars themselves, but as you can see from multiple other reviews, this business is run incredibly poorly and has no customer service to speak of. Do not, no matter how desperate, give this company your credit card or personal info. If I ever have the need in the future, I'll just pay extra for a rental car or an Uber/Lyft. Exhaust all other alternatives before doing business with Zipcar. read more

I reserved a car 5 hours . Picked it up stopped to get food , got back in and the car wouldn't start . I called zip car they say I don't have a reservation . Well how can I use my card to unlock a door without a reservation was my next question . She put me in hold and comes back asking for the car location and they are coming to tow it . read more

I've been a long-time Zipcar user, and I must say their service has deteriorated meaningfully. In particular, every time I've called them over the last few months, the wait times have been excruciatingly long. It's as if they don't care about their customers. read more

Needed to drive up to USC for the day with a friend of mine, so I thought, why not get a Zipcar account? That seems pretty useful! Well, here's how the first reservation went. 7:15am: Arrive at Zipcar location. No car to be found. Call Zipcar, they say the other person should have returned it by now. 7:30am: Put on hold three times with a Zipcar agent by now, and still on the phone. My reservation was supposed to have started by now. They offer a couple of choices: 1) Reimbursement up to $200 for a taxi ride (that can't even get me to USC let alone back) 2) Cancel my reservation (which would mean canceling all my plans) 3) Reserve the last car on campus, a 2-seater smart car. No, I'm not allowed to get a taxi ride off campus to rent another Zipcar. No, there are no other options. Fine, I'll take the smart car. I tell my other two friends that I can't pick them up, and I head over with my other friend to the smart car. 8:00am: Finally on my way. 45 minutes with Zipcar agents. Not only that, they didn't tell me the smart car doesn't have a daily rate. A month later I check my zipcar account, and they billed me $77 when it should have only been $66 had I gotten the car I originally reserved. DId they tell me? No. Do they ever tell you when they're going to charge you extra? I guess not. Only after calling and spending another 20 minutes on the phone with another agent did they refund my $11. If you can bring your own car to campus, do it. A Zipcar account is not worth all the hassle. read more

I occasionally used my zipcar membership in SF and LA, and in general it was a good experience. The reason why I give them 1 star is because of them wasting 15 minutes of my life by requiring me to call in, wait on the hotline, to cancel my membership. That's shady business tactics, which means for me that I will never reopen an account with them again. Luckily, these days there is uber and lyft, so services like zipcar lose a lot their appeal. read more

I use zipcar 1 or 2 times a month when I am in LA and like the service. Only three stars because of: 1) 2 times the cars weren't there. Their cars have GPS's and they should know when the cars are not where they are supposed to be and it that case, they should at least call me in advance. Otherwise, it's a big waste of my time. 2) $50 fine when you are late even if no one else has the car after (although one time they waived the late fee upon request). If no one else has the car after, another hour charge would be appropriate. 3) Expensive- I can rent a car for a day for the ZipCar cost of a few hours. But overall, the convenience is good and I will keep using them for that reason. read more

BOOOOOOOOO Zipcar! They charged me $25 for the pleasure of filling out their online application then immediately (minutes later) I called them to cancel when it became apparent their service doesn't fit my needs. read more

If I had to simply tell you how I feel about Zipcar... it's that I HATE IT. I only use it when I absolutely need to because I don't have my own car. Plus, an organization that I am affiliated with pays for my membership to drive our organization members to events. Those are the only two reasons why I use it. On my campus, Zipcar tries to appeal to students by offering a student discount. Regardless, it's still SO expensive. When I first got my membership, it used to be $7/hr to rent a car on top of a $25/year student membership. Now that it has gotten more popular, they raised their prices and it's close to $8.50~9.50/hr. Also, there's tax, reservation fees, etc. It all adds up. This is not suited for college students. It's too expensive. Second, customer service is terrible. Their representatives over the phone are never very enthusiastic to help; a lot of the times it just sounds like they want to get off the phone as soon as possible. Aside from that, they still don't really try to help you with your problems. They are more concerned about taking your money than trying to establish a good employee-customer relationship. So whenever you run into an inconvenience, never expect Zipcar to help you out or even compensate. These representatives are extremely frustrating; they cause me so much stress and anxiety in such a short span of time. I absolutely hate dealing with 99% of their representatives (with the occasionally 1% that really does try to help me out.) Be cautious that some times the fuel card won't work or it's already missing. Several times I've had to pay for gas out of pocket. Zipcar's procedure to getting a reimbursement is to simply email them. I did that and after the first time, no one got back to me. I emailed them again and one of their representatives called while I was working. I couldn't pick up so I was hoping to call back as soon as I finished. The representative failed to leave a message so I called back numerous times only to be told that they would call me back after reviewing the file. It's been 3 months AND I STILL HAVEN'T gotten reimbursed for the one incident I had to pay for gas. OH, and sometimes they will change your car up to 30 minutes before your reservation. Sometimes it's not a big deal if the car is in the same lot or a lot that's not too far away. But once, my reservation was changed 30 minutes prior to my reservation from a sedan to a smartcar. Mind you, I'm not very comfortable driving smartcars because they're so small. Also, the notice was so short that when I got to the parking lot, I didn't even know my reservation was changed. I called the company to tell them to switch me to another car because I wasn't comfortable driving the smartcar and I absolutely needed to get to work. The representative told me that all the cars were reserved during my time frame and that they couldn't do anything about it... which is ridiculous. I reserved the sedan first and should have had priority. I do not understand why the car I reserved was given to someone else when a Zipcar representative had never cut me any slack or tried to help me out at all. This is my second year of being a Zipcar member. I REALLY REALLY REALLY tried to give them the benefit of the doubt and I put up with so much crap from them. They're a horrible company and scam so many students out of their money. After this year, I am canceling my membership. After constantly being so frustrated with this company, my friends who were going to register will not be anymore. In addition to that, all my friends who were members before cancelled their membership out of the ridiculousness of this program. read more

Using Zipcar was an absolute FIASCO. First, I couldn't book via the app. I called and they said they were having technical issues with the app and booked my car over the phone. When I arrived where the car was supposed to be it WASN'T THERE. I called again, and the woman on the phone at Zipcar told me the phone number I was giving her for my account was incorrect (it wasn't) and HUNG UP ON ME. Finally, they booked me a different car nearby. When I got there the car had obviously been smoked in. When I tried to fill up the gas tank the card was DENIED. I had to spend my own money, submitted for a refund, which wasn't processed until I called customer a MONTH LATER. I will never use Zipcar again. My experience was a complete disaster. Their customer service and infrastructure is a joke. read more

I have been with Zipcar for 8 months and spent about $1500 on the service in Los Angeles, renting almost weekly. It has its uses, but I would not recommend Zipcar to a friend unless it is their only option. Here some things you may not know: 1.. If you return the car 9 minutes late you will be fined $50 instantly. 2. Scratch the car and you are liable for up to a $750 deductable. Also cars are usually not checked daily so you are risking being liable for someone else's problem (driver before you). 3. Customer service reserves the right to move your reservation anytime. This has happened to me twice, a bit difficult when I had a knee injury and couldn't walk a mile to another zipcar. 4. Majority of local gas stations don't accept the zipcar gas card and they malfunction often since you have to enter driver ID and mileage after swiping card... If you can't gas it up (happened to me 3 times haha, you have to pay out of pocket and get reimbursed, which took about 2 weeks. Not so fun. 5. It gets expensive: If you are renting for 2 hours, Zipcar is a good deal, but if you want a day, that is $85, which is double the price of a rental car from Enterprise. Most of the time you end up reserving 4-8 hours which is $40-$80. The issue is you always have to reserve longer so you aren;t rushing back through traffic and get $50 in late fees. You then end up reserving buffer times. There are no refunds for time you didn't use. Example: Going to a movie? -- not sure if you are going to eat with friends afterwards? well you have to reserve it ahead of time plus buffer at the end of the reservatoin for traffic. Now The move is a 6 hour rental, not 3. 6. If the person before you don't show up on time, you are supposed to call Zipcar and they are supposed to offer you a taxi, but this happened to me twice and apparently the we customer have to pay for it haha. ----- Overall, Zipcar has its uses for short tripsoccasionally, just don't use if if you need something reliable, dependable, or a reservation more than a few hours. Also I must say the customer service stinks. They can't help that much and basically just read scripts. There is a national call center, and a local office, which don't communicate so things like gas reimbursements take weeks. No fun. read more

Such a bad experience signing up with them. Customer Service: Shitty Prices: Base charge is already exorbitant compared to other car rental services. Add on to that additional charges that the company somehow finds an excuse to add on and you find yourself paying a fortune for what was just 1 hr of use I'd give it no stars. But their advertisement must be really good to sucker people into this so I'll give em 1 star for still managing to have SOME customers read more

Forgot to update my credit card with them, and although the service was actually too inconvenient to actually use, I still paid every month for a "backup". They sent me to collections for $15. Never again. read more

Avoid at all costs. There are so many car-share companies now that it's easy to do so. Horrendous experience where everything that possibly COULD go wrong with the zipcar hire DID go wrong. And upon reporting the incidents to their customer service received NO reimbursement or response. Absolutely disgusting. Ended up costing me a fortune too. read more

This is the worst company ever my daughter zip card stopped working close to six weeks ago they've told her three separate times they have sent her a new card and she still hasn't gotten one don't ever trust this company they are the worst ever read more

I am quite appalled. They had the nerve to charge me monthly even after my account was cancelled. Not only did they do that they had the audacity to send my account to collections. I have never in my life ONCE used this service. They charged me 7.62 per month along with an extra 9 dollar fee. These online businesses and policies are actually a major scam. The American form of capitalism is no longer taking hold of me. NEVER AGAIN. I would never reccomend this service to anyone. Use SKURT. They are much better than this piece of crap company zipcar. read more

I've been a Zipcar member since 2010 and overall must say I am very impressed with the service, and this includes somewhere in the neighborhood of 60 to 75 rentals across Chicago and Los Angeles. Cars have been available where I've needed them, luxury cars are available if you need to class it up a touch, mileage per diem is fair, and cars for the most part have been clean and in good condition. I also like their new(er) invoicing summary that gets sent out a few hours after the rental is completed. An exceptional alternative to owning a car. read more

what a terrible service. I entered my payment information, pressed continue, and it said my payment info was not authorize yet STILL charged me a dollar every time I tried (even though it clearly says underneath the continue button that you will not be charged). Now I've been on hold for 20 minutes to get this resolved, I'm deleting my account the second I can. Hey Zipcar, Figure your Sh*t OUT read more

I wish I could give this company 0 stars. Horrible customer service - very rude and ineffective. I applied on July 5th and have still not received my Zipcard (it's July 23rd), although I have already been charged a membership fee. Every time I call support (after being on hold for 45+ minutes) the representatives guarantee me different delivery dates, etc. 0/10 service. Very upset and disappointed. read more

Zipcar is the biggest scam known to man. I would give it a negative score if I can but one star is the lowest yelp can give. It's way more overpriced than renting a normal car because zipcar finds all sort of hidden fees to get you with afterwards. They also keep your payment pending and if for some reason they don't like the credit card you use, they won't tell you for MONTHS that it's not valid. My work pays for most travel expenses and zipcar sent out an email to everyone claiming they supported that company. They added a little asterisk a couple montsh later basically saying they don't support them and they are threatening most people at my company with a collections bill now. Their customer service is also really incompetent. read more

Though I wish the hourly cost was lower, zip car is a great service. I hope that the prices go down as they grow. There have been a few hiccups like awful prior users smoking or leaving the car dirty (it takes time to weed out the bad users). Users should pay attention to the additional fees in some locations. I almost used the service in NYC and discovered the exorbitant fees. I know this is not zip car's fault but this kind of thing hurts their business. read more

Atrocious service. My friend and I rented a car but when we went to the pick up location there was no car in sight. He called zipcar asking where the car was and they said "due to unforeseen circumstances the car can't be there. The next nearest car is 4 miles away". They didn't even think to TELL us that their car had inexplicably vanished. Needless to say the rest of the plans for our day were ruined. Worst service EVER. read more

Zipcar customer care representatives are really disappointing! I once used Zipcar! I had called the customer care representative requesting them to extend my deadline! and she did! I was charged 50$ late fee when I already called and informed them! And the customer care representatives were too rude in their response! I had to call them over 5 times to talk to a person who could give me a proper reasoning! And they kept telling me each time that someone would contact me which none did! Really disappointing! I wish there were negative ratings! If there were ,the only service I would give them is Zipcar! read more

If there is a worse company out there, I'd be shocked. I had Zipcar 5 days, and in that time they lost the car I reserved, put me in an SUV I would never drive as a replacement, double-billed me, issued no refunds on cancellations, did not respond to any inquiries for a refund until I filed a complaint with the BBB to get the double charge for a rental that was still over two weeks away refunded. They still have not acknowledged the BBB or my issue, just quietly put the money back. I'm still in dispute of their "30 day guarantee" on the monthly fee. If you're thinking about joining Zipcar, bash your head on a brick wall a few times instead. Same experience but cheaper. ETA: How ironic Zipcar responds on Yelp before they have acknowledged the BBB. Shows all they care about is public image/advertising and not one ounce about customer service. Just hook in those non-refundable $25 application fees! Zipcar: biggest scam ever. ETA2: Zipcar is now trying to offer me "2 free hours" credit outside of the formal complaint I filed. What a joke. THE EXCITING CONCLUSION! ~ Thought I'd wrap here with the final chapter (I hope) in the Zipcar Saga. They ended up refunding everything, including the $25 "non-refundable" application fee. I don't see how they had any choice, as it is extremely abusive business practice to forcibly switch a car reservation to an SUV and charge you twice to switch back to a car! However, they never even acknowledged the BBB complaint. How unprofessional! As for me, I smogged and re-registered my old car I was going to sell and use Zipcar instead. Much more reliable at 150K miles than Zipcar any day of the week. Epilogue, 9.5.14 - Zipcar finally responded to the BBB, long after the file was closed and the business deemed non-responsive. Their answer? A long-winded passive-aggressive diatribe that I am essentially too stupid to use their service. Bravo for being the worst business I have ever dealt with, Zipcar. read more

We rented a zip car while in San Diego. It was conveniently located in the parking lot of the NBC building. It was easy.

They're getting worse, not better. I reserved a car several days in advance for an evening pick-up. Had to take a Lyft to get to the car, there's nothing even remotely close to me. Fine. When I get there the car isn't there. Call Zipcar, FINALLY get a person who ways they'll just move me to another car that IS there. But that car doesn't start. After a half an hour in a cold, practially deserted Metro parking lot it turns out that the guy who had the car before me didn't feel like returning it, and now he was too busy and if I wanted to wait another couple of hours he might be able to bring it back. No exagerration, that WAS the actual explanation. They couldn't force him to return the car. It was 7pm and the car MIGHT be back by 9! Oh, but there were sure "sorry for the inconvenience". read more

Their website says literally: "there is no mileage limit on reservations"... but not at all!, they charge you after 60 miles PER EVERY 24 HOURS,... absolutely unacceptable. read more

So, I love the idea of a car share service and the first time I used Zipcar it was great. Easy and fast. The next time I couldn't unlock my car with my phone because I had recently deleted and the re-downloaded their app because it kept getting stuck on the searching screen and I could not get through to make a reservation. I didn't have a key card with me. When I called, they couldn't unlock the car for me and they couldn't re-authorize my device. My device could never be re-authorized, I was told. Same device I used to sign up for the service. Same phone. Same phone number. Same email. Same address. Same person. Didn't matter. I was SOL. I missed a very important appointment because of this and will never forget it. If they had their tech in order and if their customer service had been even remotely understanding or accountable, I would have appreciated it. As it is, I'm reluctant to ever use them again and recommending to friends and family that they avoid this company. read more

UPDATE: I would like to thank the folks at ZipCar for taking my complaint to heart. They contacted me immediately and took care of the outstanding issue. They allowed me to go into more detail and invited any suggestions I could offer based on my experience. I had a bad day with them, but I will continue to use their service, because as i had mentioned in my previous review...up to that point, their service had provided me with convenience. I recommend them for getting it right 99% of the time. And resolving the issues that might occur the other 1% of the time. read more

By far the worst customer service I have ever experienced in my life. I applied about a week ago. Finally got my card today and tried to activate it. Went online paid the monthly fee and then it stated thank you for your payment but your account has been suspended please contact us for further assistance. Ok. So I called and asked them to remove the suspension, I had already paid for the monthly fee and I had just gotten by Zipcar in the mail. Apparently the only people that can remove the suspension is their accounting department AFTER 3-7 business day. WHAT!!! So it's ok for them to take my money when I haven't even used the service and suspend my account. This company is a JOKE. I even asked to speak to a supervisor and all I got is IM SORRY YOU FEEL THAT WAY(pretty much saying WE DONT CARE). I have never heard of a company that needs 3-7 business day to un-suspend your account nor have I heard of a company that will suspend your account prior to you using it. Please think twice before you give away your money to a joke of a company. I wish there was a negative rating because I truly am appalled and disgusted. read more