Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Turo Requires a Driver's License Number and Credit Card to Show Full Price

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 136 posts

Re: Turo Requires a Driver's License Number and Credit Card to Show Full Price

#31

Post by Cederfjard »

ellard wrote: post #25
FireBeyond wrote: post #7

Turo is a haven for money laundering. In my area you can "find" multiple Chrysler 300Cs for rent for $600/day. I say "find" because many of them are unavailable for days or even weeks on end as being rented. Good scam if you're, say, a dealer. Have one of your customers "rent" your car through Turo at an inflated rate. Bonus: you don't even have to let them have your car. They're just paying you and saying they rente…

Maybe I just haven't had enough coffee this morning, but I don't understand the scenario you're describing. Could you elaborate?

If you read ”dealer” as ”car dealer”, think instead ”drug dealer” or similar.

Re: Turo Requires a Driver's License Number and Credit Card to Show Full Price

#32

Post by AcerbicZero »

I'm a bit of a car guy, so I thought it might be worth trying Turo.....however even in larger areas I would rarely see anything reasonable to rent, and even the base cars seem a bit pricey. Then I read a few horror stories of getting scammed on Turo (via pet fees or other vague airBnb style scams) and running into Kafkaesque "modern customer support" from Turo which scared me off for good.

Re: Turo Requires a Driver's License Number and Credit Card to Show Full Price

#33

Post by trollied »

Other fees at checkout aside, regarding requiring a driving license no: Surely they require your license number so that they can check if you have any violations/tickets/etc? Wouldn’t you get a cheaper rental with a clean license? Makes sense to me, I must be missing something.

Re: Turo Requires a Driver's License Number and Credit Card to Show Full Price

#34

Post by crooked-v »

standyro wrote: post #3
megafauna wrote: post #2

Last week I went through the tedium of providing all of the requisite information when trying to book a 2014 Toyota Prius for 1 day @ $50.40 through Turo. On the final step of the reservation flow, Turo revealed an additional $50.40 service fee. Seeing the total price double didn't sit well. I promptly exited the reservation flow and deleted my account. I agree with your sentiment - if the app shared the service fee…

My trick with their system is to just look at every car, click through to the final receipt screen and then go back to find the cheapest one. It's a bit tedious and deceptive to the customer to present variable fee at the last part of the checkout process. Probably the worst modern "dark pattern" that I hope regulators take a look at.

The same happens with hotels and "resort fees", especially in places like Las Vegas.

Re: Turo Requires a Driver's License Number and Credit Card to Show Full Price

#35

Post by smelendez »

saddestcatever wrote: post #17

It's an interesting dark pattern... I understand when products are compared directly: Uber vs. Lyft, Uber Eats vs. Grubhub, etc. Often consumers are looking at the exact same product and purely deciding based on price. I can see what a company would add that dark pattern to squeeze every dollar they can get. AirBnb, Turo? I don't get it, are folks comparing the purchases directly to "other" products?

> AirBnb, Turo? I don't get it, are folks comparing the purchases directly to "other" products?

Sometimes to hotels and car rental chains. But also people glance at these sites to ballpark the cost of a vacation, get their hearts set, and come back later (maybe after booking flights) and only then see the full price.

Re: Turo Requires a Driver's License Number and Credit Card to Show Full Price

#36

Post by jayrot »

nickpinkston wrote: post #16
FireBeyond wrote: post #7

Turo is a haven for money laundering. In my area you can "find" multiple Chrysler 300Cs for rent for $600/day. I say "find" because many of them are unavailable for days or even weeks on end as being rented. Good scam if you're, say, a dealer. Have one of your customers "rent" your car through Turo at an inflated rate. Bonus: you don't even have to let them have your car. They're just paying you and saying they rente…

How would that be different that doing this on any eComm platform? I don't understand what's unique about doing it through Turo.

It's not all that unique, it's just that "daily car rentals" are pretty amorphous. Similar to how the car wash was the go-to money launder on Breaking Bad.

If you have some other eComm platform telling T-shirts or whatever, sure there could be fake orders but it wouldn't be all that hard to track down that these THINGS were never sent/made. But anything involving a service...well, it's much harder to prove that those things DIDN'T happen.

Re: Turo Requires a Driver's License Number and Credit Card to Show Full Price

#37

Post by educaysean »

saddestcatever wrote: post #17

It's an interesting dark pattern... I understand when products are compared directly: Uber vs. Lyft, Uber Eats vs. Grubhub, etc. Often consumers are looking at the exact same product and purely deciding based on price. I can see what a company would add that dark pattern to squeeze every dollar they can get. AirBnb, Turo? I don't get it, are folks comparing the purchases directly to "other" products?

My haphazard guess from zero evidence: they may have ran some A/B testing on their platform that compared showing full price vs hiding the fees, and have come away with the conclusion that their conversion rate is x% higher when deploying the dark pattern. What such studies fail to measure is the cost of eroding brand trust, but this is just one possible scenario.

Re: Turo Requires a Driver's License Number and Credit Card to Show Full Price

#38

Post by meetups323 »

In a recent Airbnb thread employees [1] were justifying their work by discussing how each individual patch looks minuscule, but via employing a bandit with sufficient arms the changes aggregate to yield fantastic returns for investors. This is that.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30928349

Re: Turo Requires a Driver's License Number and Credit Card to Show Full Price

#39

Post by Kon-Peki »

tyrfing wrote: post #14
forgotmysn wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I share your sentiment, but I'm not sure there are any legislators I trust to understand or regulate dark patterns effectively.

https://www.adlawaccess.com/2022/02/articles/dark-patterns-a... https://www.adlawaccess.com/2022/02/articles/dark-patterns-a... Marriott has settled a lawsuit over similar pricing "dark patterns": https://www.travelweekly.com/Travel-News/Hotel-News/Marriott... > Among other provisions, the agreement requires Marriott to prominently disclose the total price of a hotel stay, including room rate and all other mandatory…

As everyone already knows, a large percentage of "major brand" hotels are owned and operated independently (like a franchised restaurant, for example).

If you ever get a Marriott that tries to add fees that you didn't expect, call up corporate Marriott and complain about a violation of their legal settlement regarding hidden fees. They will absolutely lay the hammer down on the hotel and you'll end up with credits far in excess of the attempted hidden fee ;)

Re: Turo Requires a Driver's License Number and Credit Card to Show Full Price

#40

Post by JumpCrisscross »

ellard wrote: post #25
FireBeyond wrote: post #7

Turo is a haven for money laundering. In my area you can "find" multiple Chrysler 300Cs for rent for $600/day. I say "find" because many of them are unavailable for days or even weeks on end as being rented. Good scam if you're, say, a dealer. Have one of your customers "rent" your car through Turo at an inflated rate. Bonus: you don't even have to let them have your car. They're just paying you and saying they rente…

Maybe I just haven't had enough coffee this morning, but I don't understand the scenario you're describing. Could you elaborate?

> Maybe I just haven't had enough coffee this morning, but I don't understand the scenario you're describing. Could you elaborate?

Beth has dirty money. Bob, a friend of Beth’s, “rents” her car. (There is no car. Maybe Bob pays Beth over Turo and then Beth gives Bob the dirty cash.) Beth now has the appearance of legitimate income.

Post reply on HN