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After Car2Go eased its background checks, 75 vehicles were stolen in one day

bloomberg.com

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Re: After Car2Go eased its background checks, 75 vehicles were stolen in one day

#181

Post by timdev2 »

bluedino wrote: post #153
jsemrau wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I still can't wrap my head around it why car rental companies like Hertz and Avis don't have this market completely cornered. They have the infrastructure, the assets, the know-how. Why is it still so inconvenient to get a car through them ?

Are they that hard to use? Last time I used Avis, I did the reservation on my phone, went to pick the car up, which consisted of signing some papers and then taking any car I wanted from a certain section of the parking garage. Enterprise is just as easy and they'll even bring me the car.

Last time I rented from Avis I didn't even sign paperwork. I made the reservation, then changed it from the app on my phone in the airport before my flight. After I arrived, I went to the rental area, the app directed me to a car. I got in, and drove to the exit where I handed my driver license to an attendant who returned it with a receipt within 30 seconds and opened the gate allowing me egress. I was very pleasantly surprised at how improved the customer experience was.

Re: After Car2Go eased its background checks, 75 vehicles were stolen in one day

#182

Post by ip26 »

toasterlovin wrote: post #44
org3432 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's also due to having a population that has nothing to lose.

FWIW, there has never been an easier time to be alive. When you frame things like that, it really drives home how utterly unfit for modern life a person has to be to justify a life of crime in 2019. Life is always a struggle, but we’re not exactly living in a Dickens novel.

But wouldn't one major driver of theft be opportunity? Essentially, the relative wealth disparity between yourself and your targets, rather than your or their absolute wealth.

I would think the incentive to steal could be thought of as something like (relative reward) * (social modifier) / (probability of failure) * (consequences) or something like that.

Re: After Car2Go eased its background checks, 75 vehicles were stolen in one day

#183

Post by axaxs »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #143
lettergram wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m referring to the fact that Florida has much more expensive home insurance (and fewer home insurance companies) due to the risks associated with said region. A “neighborhood”, if you will (from the grand parent post). The insurance companies didn’t lower their standards, they offset their risks by charging more or being unavailable entirely.

Does Florida even have any non taxpayer subsidized entities offering flood insurance for homes? I thought all coastal regions were subsidized by the National Flood Insurance Program.

Ah..so I think I can answer this correctly as it's something I researched prior to moving here. So, if you are in a flood zone, you will be required to get flood insurance IF you mortgage your house, as the lender will require it. To my knowledge, it's very expensive and typically only one program exists (probably the one you are referring to).

If you do not live in a flood zone, it varies a lot. Florida requires new homes to be built to appropriate hurricane proof codes since Andrew, so newer homes insurance are about like anywhere else in the nation. Older homes are somewhat more expensive, but usually not insane.

Re: After Car2Go eased its background checks, 75 vehicles were stolen in one day

#184

Post by ceejayoz »

barbecue_sauce wrote: post #47
Spooky23 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Credit scores measure behavior, not your attributes. The issue here was fraud. My credit score doesn’t help you assess risk if someone else is impersonating me.

They also don't necessarily correlate correctly with behavior. If you actively avoid debt, for instance, you are essentially penalized with regard to credit score.

I'm not sure that doesn't correlate.

If I avoid debt for a decade, suddenly seeking debt should be a bit of a red flag, and I should have a correspondingly low credit score.

Re: After Car2Go eased its background checks, 75 vehicles were stolen in one day

#185

Post by ceejayoz »

sytelus wrote: post #130
jacurtis wrote: post #10

This is interesting because I always thought these "background checks" were just a formality. Like something needed for their insurance or to weed out a few extreme individuals (like those with multiple-DUIs or a heavy history of wrecks on their record). But the fact that they can ease up on background checks and see an immediate large bulk of car thefts is damning evidence that the background checks were truly havin…

I am doubting this data points. AirBnB has virtually no background checks and people are not robbing away houses en mass. Why AirBnB has such a different track record vs Car2Go?

The cars stolen start in the mid $30k range.

Your average AirBnB probably has under $1k worth of stuff with any sort of resale value - a TV or two, maybe the smaller appliances.

You could cause plenty of monetary damage by smashing holes in the walls, but that doesn't benefit the thief much.

Re: After Car2Go eased its background checks, 75 vehicles were stolen in one day

#186

Post by BuckRogers »

ComputerGuru wrote: post #33
Spooky23 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Translation: Keep your expensive stuff away from brown people. Kind of a disgusting attitude that isn’t acceptable for a business with aspirations of displacing personal cars. This happened in the 90s with rental cars. Organized insurance fraud (fake accidents with fake or overblown injuries) was incredibly rampant in Brooklyn, to the point that renting cars without significant deposits became difficult if you were f…

> Keep your expensive stuff away from brown people Why drag race into this? I’m sure the discussion was then same for concentrations of certain socioeconomic classes of people of any and all colors.

In defense of brown folks (whatever that means exactly, Amerindian-Caucasian / Latin American?), you get a face shot of the delivery person when using UberEats, and while anecdotal, never once had brown person steal an order. I live in the Chicago loop and have had multiple UberEats orders stolen. White folks are extremely expeditious in my experience with UberEats (speedy delivery is how you get tipped by me and I usually max it out), I've never seen a person of east Asian descent delivering.

Whenever this happens, Uber always refunds me because they track everyone and everything going on, so there's little dispute. But there's definitely not enough background checks going on there either. I've had orders picked up then taken for themselves, and orders never picked up and marked as delivered immediately.

The only way to get past it is to order during the busiest hours and hope you get one of the more professional UberEats delivery folks.

Re: After Car2Go eased its background checks, 75 vehicles were stolen in one day

#187

Post by qwsxyh »

toasterlovin wrote: post #44
org3432 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's also due to having a population that has nothing to lose.

FWIW, there has never been an easier time to be alive. When you frame things like that, it really drives home how utterly unfit for modern life a person has to be to justify a life of crime in 2019. Life is always a struggle, but we’re not exactly living in a Dickens novel.

An easier time than before doesn't mean a good time.

Re: After Car2Go eased its background checks, 75 vehicles were stolen in one day

#188

Post by vorpalhex »

habnds wrote: post #133
MagnumOpus wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> there are millions of people in deep poverty in the US. Sure, but "deep poverty" today is what "middle class" life used to be for their grandparents or great-grandparents and normal student life is like for most college students. Having to cook from scratch rather than eating out every day, or maybe even only having meat a few times a week. Having to go to a laundromat rather than having your own washing machine, a…

I think this is inaccurate and you need citations to justify the idea that those in deep poverty are better off then they were 25, 50, 100 years ago. Health outcomes, (obesity, nutrition, drug addiction ) could easily be worse. Security outcomes, (violent crime, domestic violence, police violence) could easily be worse. Economic outcomes (job security, lifetime earning expectations, minimum wage) could easily be wors…

There is no way that Health and Security outcomes are worse today than maybe 50 years ago. The crime rate has fallen dramatically since the 90s, and health outcomes are dramatically improved between advancement of medical tech and generally improved care.

Do we have an obesity problem? Sure, that's kind of a self caused issue. You could blame our food being too cheap, but the alternative is starving to death which is far less in your realm of control.

Minimum wage is at its highest in direct value, luxury goods are at their cheapest. Now instead of writing a letter or traveling significant distances, you can chat with your friends all damned day.

Is life hard and imperfect? Of course it is, but to suggest that somehow life is harder now than in the past 25 or 50 or 500 years is absolutely foolish.

Re: After Car2Go eased its background checks, 75 vehicles were stolen in one day

#189

Post by closeparen »

sytelus wrote: post #130
jacurtis wrote: post #10

This is interesting because I always thought these "background checks" were just a formality. Like something needed for their insurance or to weed out a few extreme individuals (like those with multiple-DUIs or a heavy history of wrecks on their record). But the fact that they can ease up on background checks and see an immediate large bulk of car thefts is damning evidence that the background checks were truly havin…

I am doubting this data points. AirBnB has virtually no background checks and people are not robbing away houses en mass. Why AirBnB has such a different track record vs Car2Go?

AirBnb's business is not the CRUD app. Craigslist has that. AirBnb's value add is the vetting of participants, reputation, dispute resolution, and payment escrow system.

Accounts that abuse houses can and do get negative reviews visible to future hosts, fines/fees from the homeowner enforced by the platform, or even banned (along with government IDs and Facebook accounts they have verified).

Re: After Car2Go eased its background checks, 75 vehicles were stolen in one day

#190

Post by closeparen »

AdrianB1 wrote: post #141
taejo wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It probably varies from city to city, but I always assumed that the reason car-sharing drivers are worse than others on average is just because they get less practice, are more likely to have learned to drive in a different country (with different traffic rules, layout of bike lanes, etc.) and perhaps don't know their way around as well (so they're experiencing a heavier cognitive load).

There is no reason to assume that people driving cars they don't own are as careful as driving their own cars. This makes a huge difference.

Really?

a) My main worry is hurting someone else; I will be responsible for this either way.

b) If I do damage the rental, chances are I'll be held accountable at the end of the rental, and chances are the repair fees will be extortionate compared to fixing my own car at a shop of my choosing.

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