The Nissan leaf was not fit for purpose Rented a Nissa Leaf and it ran down to empty twice in 70 miles of driving, despite charging it to 80% both time. Ridiculous that this car is on the road. LP72ORS is the reg. AVOID read more

I signed up for Zipcar, paid the membership fee, and my account was never even approved. Despite that, I was still charged. I can't access the app because the verification messages never arrive (neither by phone nor email), and I can't cancel my account through the website because it shows an error. I tried contacting customer support multiple times, but no one resolved my issue or even responded properly. It's unacceptable to charge customers for a service they can't use, and can't even cancel. I'll be disputing the charge with my bank and reporting this situation to the appropriate authorities. Avoid this company at all costs, it's unreliable and offers zero support. read more

I've had a very bad experience with Zipcar and want to warn others. While using one of their cars, the in-car GPS directed me onto a restricted road. Within just 4 minutes I ended up with two penalties, which together with Zipcar's "processing fees" cost me £220 in total. To make matters worse, Zipcar immediately paid the fines on my behalf, added £30 per penalty, and by doing so removed my right to dispute the PCNs directly with the council. Had I been able to handle them myself, I could have paid at the reduced rate and saved money. The only reason I ended up on the restricted road in the first place was because Zipcar's in-car GPS navigation directed me there. As a foreign driver in London, I rely on safe and dependable navigation -- and the cars don't even come with a phone holder, making it unsafe to use my own device. I trusted their system and was penalized for it. When I raised my concerns, the responses I received from customer service felt dismissive and simply pointed back to the terms and conditions. There was no acknowledgement of the unfairness of the situation or the fact that the in-car system itself directly contributed to the fines. On top of that, I was later told that Zipcar "advises members to use their own navigation." But I never once saw any warning, notice, or advertisement about this. As a paying customer, if a service is included in the car (like GPS), I naturally expect it to be reliable. Instead, it led me straight into fines. Honestly, it feels like Zipcar doesn't bother updating their GPS -- and that only benefits them when members get fined, because they can add their fees on top. As a driver with over 12 years of clean driving experience, this whole experience has been incredibly frustrating. I will no longer be using Zipcar and will be switching to new competitors as soon as they become available. read more

Honestly anyone considering joining zip car i advise you not to bother. It's become more hassle then it's worth. Cars not parked where they should be so you end up searching for them which waste time, you then can't park when you get back meaning you again waste time. Zip says it includes fuel however the fuel cards are rarely available in vehicles now days meaning you have to pay out of your pocket, you then send the receipt and get refunded days later. Customer services now take much longer to answer phones and aren't always helpful. Extra charges for some tolls now I.e congestion charge, when it used to be included.. I uses to support the company but sadly it's failing now days for the reasons listed and there are alternatives now. read more

Accused me weeks after a short London booking (02 Aug 2025, Nissan Leaf "Sartre") of front-bumper damage with no time-stamped before/after proof or telematics tied to my trip. When I asked for evidence I got "managerial decision-case closed," threats re debt collectors/credit, and an attempted £601.97 charge anyway. Ticket-only support, no transparency. Bully tactics: pay first, prove later. read more

This company is a joke. I have not had any response from them about violation notices and just told 'it's all off shore so we can do nothing'. I have called and emailed nonstop for nearly a week even though I was told I'll get a response in 48 hours. DO NOT hire from them read more

Provided misinformation and made no effort to remove a car blocking a residential driveway

Outrageous customer service, do not use! They're trying to bill me £162 to recover a van which their own agent told me to abandon as it was unsafe to drive. I had the misfortune to hire a van, which shortly after setting off came up with a buzzing message: "SOS. Oil pressure fault. STOP!" - this kept flashing at me, so of course I stopped as soon as I could. I called their customer service, explained the situation, and was told to abandon the vehicle, which I did. I was expecting Zipcar to reimburse me for the stress and inconvenience of having to hire another van, adding an hour to my trip. But instead, a few days later they tried to charge me £162 for a 'recovery fee', as they claim there's nothing wrong with the van. When I explained again to customer services what happened, they replied almost a week later, doubling down - essentially gaslighting me and calling me a liar. I'm still waiting for a response of how to appeal this, and to complain. I've completely lost confidence in this company, this could happen to anyone. I feel this is disgraceful customer service - and feel a burning sense of anger against this injustice. read more

Unreliable car, frustrating experience dealing with them, waste of time and inconvenience

If I could give 0 stars, I would. Absolutely terrible company. We booked a car for the morning only to be emailed in the middle of the night that the car was cancelled and no alternatives were offered. This happened to us 4 times by now. We missed and/or were delayed to various events and things that were important to us. It's terribly inconvenient for a service that's supposed to be the opposite. The customer service is terrible, as well. We just cancelled our membership this morning after waking up to yet another cancellation, with no other cars available. I would say don't bother. read more

Zipcar is a scam. They stopped me from using cars and then continued to charge me and when I wanted my account back they asked me to pay and when I did pay they still refused to give me back my account and the money and refused to stop charging me per month even I was not able to use the account. I had to ask the bank to block Zipcar and to claim the £200 back. The customer service members were rude and the managers refuse to do anything about it. read more

Zipcar failed to notify me about a penalty ticket which was then passed to DEBT COLLECTORS. Which I found out 12 months (!!!) after the incident. I ended up paying c.£300 for the offence I was not even aware of. August 2021: I had a rental with Zipcar. Apparently, had a traffic offence which I was not notified about back then. August 2022: I'm getting a paper letter from a debt collector agency saying I have an outstanding debt of c.£300. It turned out that Zipcar failed to notify me about the penalty ticket back in 2021. Therefore, it was not paid on time and ended up with debt collectors. Which I figured out only in August 2022, 1 year after the incident. Zipcar support was absolutely horrendous. First, they general support were taking ages to connect me to the relevant team (violations), even though I had a hard deadline with the collectors (1 week left) which I emphasised to them several times. And them the violations team showed no interest in and understanding of my situation, even though it was clearly caused by a flaw in their notification procedure. Needless to say, it took us 5-6 email interactions until I finally saw the scanned copy of the actual penalty ticket I had to pay for. CONCLUSION: I have been Zipcar customer for nearly 4 years, using them very often and spreading a good word within my circle. They've now effectively robbed me for £300, and have made me through humiliating experience of having and paying the collectors' debt. The worst of all, they did not even admit any flaws from their side, and showed no respect and compassion. With regret, I'm now closing my account and will make sure my case is known to as many existing users as possible, so that they are aware of what risks they are actually exposed to. I'm happy to provide the debt collectors' enforcement notice and the penalty ticket with dates and all the details upon request. read more

Zipcar UK - Car Rental Near Me

I had my first trip with Zipcar a few months ago - smooth one. On the next day, I cannot find my driving license, and thought I forgot it in the car. I immediately rang the customer service team, who promised me a quick follow-up. Thinking that I wasn't the first customer forgetting an item in a car, I wasn't too worried about it - there must be a process for you to recover the item, right? On the next day, I rang the customer service team again, and got another promise of a quick follow up - which never happened. I then found my misplaced driving license, so I happily forgot all about the incident. Today, when trying to get another Zipcar, I found out that my account has been suspended "for security reasons" and cannot be reactivated. I feel very luck I had actually not left anything valuable in there, and wanted to share about this wonderful customer experience. read more

Zipcar customer service is incompetent, rude and idiotic. They pursue a pcn from me that was totally their responsibility. with threatening and factually incorrect emails. Shame on you Zipcar. Despite a clear email explanation and telephone calls they pursue me with idiotic and pompous legalese read more

Was hoping to rent a van and got swayed by the "thousands of vehicles to choose from". Unfortunately though they don't let you look at the map until you've coughed up a £10 admin fee which I stupidly did and then found no vans remotely nearby. Within 5 minutes of signing up I requested that they cancel my application and refund me to which they are refusing to do. Be careful with these crooks! read more

Literally the biggest crooks in the business. They have tried charging me for parking tickets issued 12 hours or more, after my trip ended. As if I'm responsible for the frequency of trips for a given vehicle. I spent all summer using their service, became a fan, told friends, and this is how it ends. - zero response from customer service - repeatedly tried charging my car during an open dispute read more

Horrible experience. Dirty car. Dirty is an understatement, more like disgusting beyond what I've ever seen for a rental. To add insult to injury they don't even pick up the phone and we couldn't cancel! Ridiculous. read more

Be ready to be suspended any moment with no particular reason. they treat you like a little kid on the phone and always with attitude. there staff must be on £5/hr and they do not care much. My account was suspended and i have kindly emailed and called to ask why but they have never explained why! took several £1s until i managed to sign up,also when i had a problem with the car i was on the phone to the asistant and i was also charged further for the time trying to solving out the problem. DO NOT COMPLAIN OTHERWISE THE STAFF HAS AUTHORITY TO SUSPEND YOU . Just accept to pay charges and let them steal your money. They find loops to steal money from you and when you ask why till you know your suspended. read more

Application rejected based on email... Application rejected based on email address, but keep your money Rejected application because my perfectly valid and standard email address didn't exactly match name on driving license, but bizarrely it was accepted by their system when creating account and letting me pay non-refundable deposit. Only way to proceed is to create brand new email account just for Zipcar, send photos of passport and utility bills (not asked for initially) as well as new photos of driving licence. Also they won't delete data as required by GDPR even though not going to use their services. read more

Have been a customer since 2015. Had my last trip back on October 2019. Then COVID kicked in etc. In 2021, I had an email from Zipcar asking me to update my payment method. I tried to update my payment method multiple times but never worked, as it said my account was suspended. I am on the basic plan which there is no monthly payment. I have asked them to restore my account but they have shut down my account and have provided no specific reason but just security risk. I emailed them and explained the situation and Zipcar just replied with an automated email every time. You cannot even challenge the decision. My account got closed in 2023 due to being a security risk although my last trip was in 2019. Definitely stay away! They just decide whatever to do they want and don't even reply without using automated messages. Horrible treatment to a customer that has been with them for 7 years. They'll just shut your account and keep your personal data. It seems like the account security team is based abroad where I got email out of hours so not sure if they even complying with UK law data if teams abroad are handling my account. read more

Pleas please please don't use Zipcar they don't handle at all well with any road violations that happens to you PERSONALLY! They charge you on top of your other payments i.e tickets you pay. They will charge you more! Don't understand why they would charge you extra after YOU! get a fine/ticket. Just don't use don't recommend at all. read more

Terrible service I recently got two payments (apparent fines) deducted from my account by zip car. Apparently I got fined for parking somewhere where the signage was not clear. However the council said if I paid within 21 days I would pay half of the fine. I didn't realise I had parked wrongly as I missed the cameras. Zipcar would have received notifications immediately. But Zipcar only informed me of the violations 3 months later,l! by then the fine had doubled, plus Zipcar charged me an admin fee if £15. I called and complained and even wrote to them an email to say their delay in informing has cost me money. They did not respond. What a useless company! Avoid if possible. read more

The 1 star goes for the service used so far. Please avoid it at all costs if you end up in disputable fines. The Zipcar violation service basically doesn't work. For the past three months, I have been waiting for a refund after providing proof that the fine has been cancelled. There is no transparency or form of getting in contact apart from e-mail. They might reply to the e-mail once but with no further follow-up. I will stop using the service forever. I would recommend you do the same. The other reviews attest to my experience as well. read more

I would leave 0 stars if I could. I got a parking violation, which was a mixup from the parking lot and got it cancelled right away. I sent all the documentation proof to zipcar immediately and for a month and a half - and counting I called 10 times maybe and got 0 response, except that they have a queue. The supervisor of their customer support dept refused to take my call and I have filed a chargeback via my bank now. The worst customer experience of my life. read more

Absolutely evil people! We rented a car for an entire day. A wheel exploded mid ride, which was extremely dangerous and could have been fatal. We later realised the wheel had been recorded as damaged by a previous driver and Zipcar had failed to repair it. Zipcar left us stranded 3h away from our home for an entire day, did not send a recovery team. At 11pm and after a million calls from us to them they told us to arrange for our own train tickets back. They gave us instructions on how to leave and lock the car, ended our ride on our behalf and told us we would be compensated for our expenses in connection with this. We asked them to put all in writing but they said they could not do this, but reassured us there was no need to worry as all was logged into our account. A few days later we receive an email notifying us that they are charging us over £300 for 'abandoning the car against Zipcar's rules'. Disgusting treatment for business clients! We had paid the full insurance which clearly said £0 out of pocket in case of any issue. read more

Disappointing! I initially found Zipcar to be very good but have since vouched to never use them again!! I was hit with a parking ticket as the bay i picked the car up from and therefore naturally dropped the car back to had a parking suspnsion in place, although this wasnt obvious. Having handed the car back, the next day the vehicle got yet another ticket as it was still parked in the same bay which Zipcar said i was also responsible for!! However, i was not notified of either of these tickets until after 14 days had passed and therefore i was left with a bill of over £300. I have contacted zipcar many times about this and was promised a call back on the last call.. that was over a year ago and i'm still waiting! Zipcar used to be good value but they have since hiked their prices up and clearly dont care about their customers. My advice would be to save your money and use Hiya car instead.. read more

Horrible service - paid £10 to start my account which allegedly goes towards "ride credit" upon acceptance. They then declined my application and provided no reason why. I hold a full drivers license, have never lost it and never had any major violations. They also won't refund the £10. Scamming thieves. read more

We've received attrocious customer service from Zipcar. They recently cancelled our car the evening before we were due to travel and wouldn't try to find us an alternative car. This ruined our plans for the weekend (visiting relatives we hadn't seen for over a year). It's simply not possible to rely on ZipCar, so would strongly suggest using an alternative. read more

I reserved. I unlocked. I zipped. Seriously, it was that easy. For those of you living under a rock who might not know what Zipcar is, it's the chance to reserve a car online, pick it up in tons of different locations around London, hop in for either an hour or the entire day, and go about your business as if it were your own. Oh, except you don't have to pay for fuel ... or London congestion charge... or insurance... yes, seriously. And you might just want to be a baller and drive a BMW for the day, or save the planet and drive a Prius, or be quintessentially British buzzing around in your mini cooper, or obnoxious as all get out with a big white van... you get the idea. You have lots of options here. Good news for me, all of the hybrids are automatics. Lord knows I have enough trouble staying on the right, er, left side of the road... then add in shifting with the right, erm, make that the left hand, while still hitting the clutch with the left foot... right? in other words, automatics for this one all the way! Plans range from £25 to £50/year based on how often you drive, and then you just pay an hourly rate (around the £3.75 range) to reserve any car, any time. I was a loyal zipster in Portland, Oregon and I couldn't be more thrilled that they've brought the brand across the pond. It's heaven sent. (Unfortunately for you and the safety of Londoners everywhere, this means I will be on the road a lot more often. I'll try to stay on the right (er, left?) side of the road. BEEP BEEP!) read more

Zipcar UK - Logo from Website - Car Rental Near Me

Horrible assistance today from a service member named Ashley who hung up on me as she did not want to assist me further. Despite me trying to understand the Zipcar procedure (she had two different version, procedure seemed to change halfway through the call) for disputing parking violations. She clearly did not know what needed to be done and did not want to transfer me further to someone who did. After this conversation and her hanging up on me, I called again and was told I would be forwarded to a manger, but was not (this service representative disconnected the call instead of passing me on as promised). I was also told I would receive some sort of notice of the escalation as I never seem to get one when these violations have been "escalated". But of course did not receive that again. After two parking violations that should not have been charged to my account have not been resolved after months of disputes, escalating, calls and waiting. No response to my emails. And according to Ashley nothing can be done and a Zipcar violations team has no number. This is odd, theres a whole team working on violations, yet they don't respond and have no number... Horrible service and complete scam when it comes to the parking violations. Please note, I don't have an issue paying for parking violations that are my mistake or valid (as I have in the past) - but I am not paying for Zipcars mistakes. One of the tickets was due to a flat tyre on the car when I got in it, I was told by Zipcar to pull over to the side of the road (away from traffic) and to leave the car there. I asked if I should wait and they said no. To then send me £145 fee with no proof of charge and automatically charge for it. The other was a driving violation (driving in a bus lane) same ticket was given to me with one minute apart. Clearly a mistake. By the time I got it from zipcar, I was unable to dispute and they had already paid both matching violations. Clearly no one even checked before paying. Where is this mystical violations team? And what do they even do? Complete scam! Thought this company was useful, but will never use again. And know that they will not protect your funds or help if you are wrongly charged even if it is their fault. Horrible customer service and system. I have been using zipcar for years, but dealing with this for months has totally put me off. There are so many competitors and I will be moving on. read more

Great until something goes wrong.. I lost a VW Polo key, because I accidentally dropped it down a drain where I was parked, and they charged me £264 for a replacement key... When i reported the issue on the phone they told me the charge is £150, which I accepted and paid. 3 weeks later they send me another email saying that they are charging me an extra £114 based on a quote they got... absurd charges! All this while on their website, their support page says that if that happens the cost is £75 + cost of labour and labour, creating totally unrealistic expectations to someone signing up believe they know what the costs are when something goes wrong!! (https://support.zipcar.co.uk/hc/en-gb/articles/115008085367-Fees-Overview) read more

DO NOT TRY IT Zipcar is a SCAM! I've been a member since 2018. At the time they were not that bad. Since a year ago I had so many issues with them. The service is terrible, they kept on charging me for parking tickets (especially) without never sending a proof of evidence that i was the person driving at that time. Support team can only assist for locking and unlocking cars, every other matter has to be emailed which they will never reply. ALL THEY CARE IS TAKING YOUR MONEY. DO NOT sing up with zipcar or otherwise you will be dissapointed badly read more

DO NOT USE THIS APP OR SERVICE! They rejected my application because I renewed my license recently and it only shows 6 months of driving. I am 61 years old and have been driving for 40+ years. But how do I prove it? They refuse to refund my application fee. I wonder how much money they make from taking fees and rejecting the application? DO NOT USE! read more

I am still waiting on a reply from them regarding my application which was refused for no real reasons. They keep sending automatic replies which don't help with my query. Is anyone going to contact me so my application is going to be sorted or you rather lose a customer? I really don't understand. Customer service is awful. read more

Was overcharged. Contacted the support team who said that they would refund me the excess amount. Have been chasing for more than two months and they still have not refunded me. They straight up are just ignoring my emails now. read more

Rude, unhelpful, expensive and generally broken or filthy. if you want a car rental experience whose only selling point should be convenience then look elsewhere. read more

Useless customer service who waste customer's unnecessary time. Not the way to run business in 2022. 1) Paid over £100 to rent a van 2) Returned car to designated parking space. Someone else occupied the parking space. Called Zipcar - was advised to park somewhere with 'permit only' or 'pay and park' within 1 mile of designated parking space. 3) Spent at least 30 minutes looking for alternative spaces to park following Zipcar's instruction, but with no success. Parked somewhere 1.3 mile away as everywhere was full. Called Zipcar. Explained to Zipcar I know the area + this is Stratford + there is World Cup + it is Sunday evening + if there were spaces the person probably wouldn't park in the Zipcar's parking space - which meant it is normal for all parking spaces within 1 mile to be full. Zipcar ignored common sense and I was still advised that I needed to try again to park within 1 mile. 4) Tried again, no luck. Called Zipcar again. Staff agreed that I could park at Stratford International Car Park and leave the car there. Staff said Zipcar would sort out the parking charge at the car park. 5) Arrived at Stratford International Car Park. Called Zipcar again. This time the staff said I couldn't park at Stratford International Car Park. Explained to staff I have tried in the past 1.5 hours looking for a space to park but I couldn't find any. Tried to problem solve with Zipcar but all my logical suggestions were rejected. Staff agreed that if I tried one more time to designated parking space and the space was still occupied, I could call them to discuss alternative solution. Staff said it was a decision from the supervisor but when I asked to talk to supervisor directly staff said supervisor was away from desk. Asked staff to explain logic behind their stubborn decision but staff couldn't give one. 6) Arrived at designated parking space. Space still occupied. Called Zipcar again. Staff now said I just had to keep trying to find a space. I explained again there were just no free parking space but staff said there was nothing else I could do. 7) After nearly 2 hours, owner of car occupying the designated parking space arrived. My Zipcar returned to Zipcar's parking space. Conclusions - Based on the info given by staff at 4), I parked at Stratford International Car Park for over 20 minutes while taking to Zipcar customer service, £6.6 parking charge was involved. - Inconsistent info was given when you compare 4) and 5), unnecessary customer's time wasted - In 5) customer services said if I tried one more time, they could offer offer alternative solution. In 6) customer service didn't offer alternative solution but insisted the original solution that didn't work. - In 5), customer service talked to supervisor but within a minute when customer asked to talk to supervisor the supervisor was busy. What a coincidence, very interesting. If you don't dare to speak to your customer explaining your rationale, just close your business. - Customers wasted 2 hours looking for a space to park. Dinner plan cancelled, couldn't attend a house warming party. - Customer's 2 friends came and drove their car around to help customer looking for parking space, but couldn't find any. Friends' time wasted. read more

This is an awful company. Customer service doesn't exist. They are literally - literally - using excuses along the lines of "computer says no" and dealing with actual people is impossible. If you want to talk to someone, you'll be directed to some clueless person far away from these shores who read off cue cards and who are quite open in that they can provide absolutely no help at all. Trying to get answers to simple queries is nigh-on impossible. Simply put, this is a service provider you should avoid like the plague. Don't say you weren't warned! read more

I used Zipcar for a whole year and recently had a very small incident in a parking garage. Even though I had purchased an insurance with them, which I've been paying monthly, Zipcar decided to permanently suspend my account for good without any appeal process. After searching online, I found out that Zipcar will kick out anyone with an incident/accident. I don't understand why they don't make this clear from the get go; why they suspend you right after one (even tiny) incident; and why they make you pay for insurance in the first place. Zipcar also failed to reimburse my membership fees, which I wasn't able to use since they had suspended my account. I sent them an email a couple weeks ago and never received a response. I would definitely not recommend Zipcar due to their questionable ethics. read more

My partner was a member of Streetcar since we moved to London 4 years ago. We got on fine with Streetcar. Then Zipcar bought out Streetcar. We got on fine with Zipcar too. Once our Zipcar broke down in the middle of the A12 out in Essex, and Zipcar (once we got a mobile signal and could call them) sorted things out - sent a recovery lorry and gave us a tow all the way back to London. Pretty good service, all things considered. For the last 4 years, my partner has been driving me around in Zipcars because my US license expired about the same time I moved to the UK. I finally started to feel bad, so embarked on getting my UK driver's license - no easy feat for anyone who's done it. I spent numerous hours behind the wheel with a driving instructor learning the UK road rules and the tricks of the trade to pass that damned UK driving test. Being the astute driver that I am, I passed my UK driving test with only 1 minor fault - a fault that was instructor induced (as he admitted after the test was over), I might add. I was well pleased, and as soon as my photocard driving license arrived in the post, my partner went to add me to his account so that we could share out the driving - and likely hire Zipcars more often for this reason. Someone called me to do my DVLA checks and realised my license was new. He asked if I held a driver's license anywhere else previously, and I told him I had - nearly 10 years' daily driving experience in the USA. He asked if I had proof, but unfortunately I didn't have my old, expired photocard driving license. I went to great lengths to get documentation of my previous driving experience (trawling through old emails to try to find insurance statements and finally going to the Florida DMV's website to call up my driver's license record). I returned this information to Zipcar only to be told that unfortunately it wasn't proof enough of my previous driving experience. I wasn't even angry at this point. I wasn't able to provide solid, photocard evidence of my previous driving experience - that's on me. But the person I spoke with offered to let me speak to his manager. I didn't really think it necessary, but I figured I might as well since he had offered. Well, when his manager got on the phone, she told me that - actually - they couldn't set me up with a Zipcar account because my UK driving license was less than a year old; it had nothing to do with the fact that I had a license previously, that even if I could provide my previous photocard driving license it wouldn't matter. I was shocked. And proceeded to walk her through the ludicrousness of her statement: 1) Americans can join Zipcar in the UK with only their US driver's licenses, with no experience or training on UK road rules. 2) I had an American driver's license for 10 years. 3) I went out of my way to undergo training and pass the UK driving test (which is notoriously difficult) 4) But since my *UK* driver's license was less than a year old, I could not join Zipcar. She unabashedly consented that these are the rules. I pointed out that I knew of Americans who were members of Zipcar in the UK who had been members of Zipcar for more than a year and asked her if she knew that it was, in fact, ILLEGAL to drive on a foreign driver's license in the UK for MORE THAN A YEAR. Now, this is the point where I got really angry... She simply replied, 'That's none of our business.' There you have it, folks. It's none of their business whether they aid and abet their customers in breaking the law, but it is their business to keep a woman with over 10 years' driving experience abroad who went out of her way to become a legal driver in the UK from driving on the streets of London. Awful policies. Awful customer service from management. read more