Zipcar’s App Suffered a Black Friday Outage That Left Drivers Stranded

Zipcar, the app-based, low-cost automotive rental service, suffered a serious technical fumble over the weekend that, by all accounts, was a complete catastrophe for the shoppers impacted. 404 Media reports that the corporate’s app and web site suffered outages on Friday that, in some instances, massively inconvenienced customers and, within the worst instances, reportedly left them stranded in chilly, wintery climate, unable to unlock or drive their autos.

Zipcar, which was based in 2000, technically considers itself a “car sharing” service and permits customers to lease autos for low costs and with comparatively little legwork. The company’s app is the important thing to a lot of its success. It permits customers to make reservations in addition to lock and unlock their autos and talk with customer support representatives. It’s the key to every part.

On Friday, the web site and the app suffered outages that disrupted prospects’ plans. 404’s report is basically based mostly on consumer grievances aired on Zipcar’s social media pages, although Zipcar has additionally confirmed that it suffered technical difficulties on Friday. In lots of instances, it seems that the app wouldn’t let customers lock the automobile that they had rented, which led prospects to fret that the vehicles could be stolen in the event that they left them. In different, extra extreme instances, prospects reported app failures that left them stranded. One such report goes as follows:

“Rented a automotive and went to purchase a fast drink to the shop and the entire sudden the automotive is locked. I’ve been ready over 4 hours within the chilly. No assist by any means, completely different solutions and caught ready for an hour to talk with somebody and no assist. All my issues inside, even my home keys and no means of getting them. That is so loopy and irritating.”

One other comparable report reads:

“I used to be stranded for 4 hours, tried [to] log into the account solely to get locked out as a result of a ‘safety measure,’” one other says. “I known as you guys and the folks working hung up on me 3 occasions! Spend 2 hours ready on the telephone only for that to occur. The audacity!”

Zipcar has beforehand been criticized for having poor customer support, although the app’s meltdown provides appreciable inconvenience. When reached for remark by Gizmodo, a Zipcar consultant mentioned: “Throughout a part of Friday afternoon, we skilled a uncommon outage associated to elevated website site visitors and SMS requests to authenticate login. SMS requests have been delayed as a result of mobile community congestion, which intensified as customers repeatedly requested authentication. For a small proportion of our members who weren’t already logged into our cell app, this resulted in login difficulties, impacting their reservations. Whereas this situation is resolved, we’re additionally working to stop it from reoccurring.”

I’ve used Zipcar earlier than and wish to word that the expertise shouldn’t be nice, even if you happen to haven’t been locked out of your automobile. This additionally isn’t the primary controversy the corporate has suffered. Final yr, the corporate was fined for letting customers lease vehicles that had been recalled for security causes. It was additionally previously accused of charging New York prospects unlawful harm charges for returned autos.