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Zipcar will charge your credit card for no reason

news.ycombinator.com

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Re: Zipcar will charge your credit card for no reason

#11

Post by pcthrowaway »

sebastien_b wrote: post #10
somenewaccount1 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Next time your on the phone trying to get it resolved, ask them for their "corporate address for legal correspondence" in order to file your small claims suit. They will resist giving it to you, likely by telling you "it's online on their website". or they will send you to a "contact us" page on their website that doesn't display their corporate address. This is when you know you are winning. They may still not resol…

I’ve done something similar before (asking for “your company legal counsel’s contact info”), to which I also indicated that any further time of mine taken up by this matter (resolving their fuck ups) would be charged to the company at a rate of $75/hr with a 5 hr minimum, calculated by the minute.

Do you need to be a contractor with an hourly rate to get away with charging companies for time wasted of yours?

Re: Zipcar will charge your credit card for no reason

#12

Post by actually_a_dog »

donmcronald wrote: post #9

> If my company had charged someone and found there was no trace of it in our system, I would be very concerned. I saw this happen to a business once and they never got any answers when they tried to engage their payment provider. It was a franchise, so they didn't have a direct enough relationship to really push the issue. What would happen is a customer debit card would fail a transaction, so they'd redo it and it…

Although most of the other comments seem to want to blame ZipCar for doing something unethical here, I have to say this kind of "random glitch" scenario makes the most sense to me. No sane company would want to rack up disputes with their payment processor for such little potential gain.

Re: Zipcar will charge your credit card for no reason

#13

Post by sebastien_b »

pcthrowaway wrote: post #11
sebastien_b wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve done something similar before (asking for “your company legal counsel’s contact info”), to which I also indicated that any further time of mine taken up by this matter (resolving their fuck ups) would be charged to the company at a rate of $75/hr with a 5 hr minimum, calculated by the minute.

Do you need to be a contractor with an hourly rate to get away with charging companies for time wasted of yours?

Not in my jurisdiction - but it should be a simple matter of registering a numbered company / sole proprietor / LLC if that’s actually legally required (I never needed to even take it that far).

I guess the other thing to consider is potentially claiming it as income if you do end up charging them.

The fun part is insinuating you’ll also send it to collections if they don’t pay.

Re: Zipcar will charge your credit card for no reason

#16

Post by londons_explore »

I have the reverse situation. I have had a Zipcar account for ~5 years, and despite the website being pretty clear that I'm on a paid monthly plan, I haven't been charged for a single month ever.

I'm still charged for the actual hires I make though.

Re: Zipcar will charge your credit card for no reason

#17

Post by schainks »

Ugh, Zipcar. The company whose management demanded a new CRM integration go live on a Friday before a holiday weekend, and didn’t coordinate with support team.

Naturally, something messed up because the project was rushed out the door, stranding my partner and I when our car wouldn’t unlock.

Support team was backed up because they never knew to staff up, so we were stuck on hold for an hour. In that time, I secured another car, started driving and then they told me they can’t see my current rental because the CRM changeover migrated half the fleet data before getting stuck. This was nationwide.

Due to this snafu we had to deal with multiple calls, all with awful wait times. One of the lower level support people _thanked me for not yelling at them_. That’s how badly they execute.

This company is full on Blockbuster for cars. They take as much money as they can while managing as piss poor an experience as possible. They’ll refund you to your account (not your credit card!) for their mistakes as long as you chase them, then eventually take the money back anyway because their refunds have expiry dates.

Re: Zipcar will charge your credit card for no reason

#19

Post by sveiss »

somenewaccount1 wrote: post #8
spookybones wrote: post #6

They just did this to me, doubling the price without informing me. However, the card I have on file has expired. They are threatening to send it to a collection agency if I don't pay it.

Next time your on the phone trying to get it resolved, ask them for their "corporate address for legal correspondence" in order to file your small claims suit. They will resist giving it to you, likely by telling you "it's online on their website". or they will send you to a "contact us" page on their website that doesn't display their corporate address. This is when you know you are winning. They may still not resol…

If you do this, be prepared for the company to call your bluff.

Many places have a policy that invoking legal is a one way street, and once you’ve threatened to sue they will give you the contact details for legal and then refuse to speak to you through normal customer service channels for any reason.

You’re now stuck dealing with the people who’s job it is to mitigate risk, and not those who’s job it is to keep customers happy.

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