Zipcar Fraud, abusive practices, double charges, nonresponsive customer service, passive aggressively insulting reps Boston Nationwide

In July of 2014 I joined Zipcar to supplement and perhaps replace a high-mileage car. I live in a major urban hub. I made my first reservation for a car three weeks in the future, assuming this was good practice to ensure I would have use of a vehicle to attend an event. This was charged immediately at a rate of $115. Within 48 hours, I received an automated text that my reservation had been moved from a car to an SUV. I do not feel comfortable driving SUVs and logged into their website to see if there were other cars available. A car of the exact same make and model was available for the same day, and I changed my reservation.

Immediately my bank notified me that a second $115 charge had just been made from Zipcar, despite me only reserving ONE car on ONE day, and that this was suspicious acitvity. They denied the second charge and I immediately cancelled the original reservation because Zipcar was clearly attempting to run fraudulent charges, probably hoping most of their clientele are college students whose parents pay the bill without much analysis. I contacted customer service immediately to remedy this situation, but they did not acknowledge me for over 24 hours, which I informed them I would report them to the BBB to get my refund.

Several days later they began harassing me non-stop, despite the BBB charge already being filed. They offered me "two hours of dirivng time" (about $18 of value) for the "trouble." Too little too late. Via the BBB I requested a full refund of the reservation costs, the monthly fees, and the application fee I had paid to this bait-and-switch, abusive business.

4 weeks later the BBB contacted me to say Zipcar never acknowledged their envoy, and the case was closed and designated "Business non-responsive." Zipcar had refunded all my money in the meantime, so I was willing to drop it at this point. However, 2 weeks after the BBB window expired, Zipcar finally responded. Their response was that basically I am "too stupid" to use their service and they can't figure out why I'm upset because they did nothing wrong. But because they're such great guys, they refunded me anyway.

Zipcar is abusive, extortive, and impossible to contact. Give them your personal info at your own risk. DO NOT trust this company with your driving record and credit card number if you value your sanity.