Getting screwed by Getaround

A VC’s experience with the sharing economy

I have always loved the premise of the sharing economy and it’s potential to help people unlock the value of their underused assets — houses, cars, closets and skills. I want it to work because in theory, it makes the world a more productive and efficient place. As a venture capital investor, I have tried every sharing economy platform I can find and reasonably use. I’ve had a wide range of experiences from good to bad as a user and as a lender.

Getaround was by far the worst. And their callousness towards their “community” of car owners continues to sadden me.

I listed my car on Getaround in Oct 2014. I was only using it once a week and was slightly embarrassed by how wasteful that was. The on-boarding experience was fine and folks started using my car a few hours every week. You could make ~$300/mo with a high end car. Surprisingly less money than they seemed to promise their average car owner but for me, it was all for a good cause. Months went by. I really, really wanted to like Getaround - not the least because they have a female cofounder — but frequently had some minor annoyance or the other. Often it was because my customers were using Getaround for the first time so I gave them a pass. As Buzzfeed might say, you won’t believe what happened next.

On Oct 4, 2015, my renter ran over some glass and had a flat tire. Getaround towed my BMW twice, to two different body shops, and kept my car for 25 days despite me following up frequently for it. They charged my renter $748 for replacing two tires that I had warranty on and sent my car back with the comment “possible suspension damage”.

I was shocked. Getaround charges 40% commission on every ride to cover their insurance costs. They advertise a $1M insurance policy per car (blind copy Airbnb). Despite these promises, they had billed this customer the full $748 cost of repair and not investigated serious damage to my car. They were ok with me driving around a car that had “possible suspension damage”!!

I realized that whoever led the company’s “community” team or was responsible for repairs must be seriously checked out. Their strategy was to leave their customers and car owners wide open to unanticipated costs? No wonder their business wasn’t growing faster.

I no longer wanted to have my car listed on this platform. I had to dip into my own insurance to fix the suspension damage — which ended up costing thousands of dollars — and asked Getaround to deactivate my listing. It was costing me much duress and money to share my car.

Five months later, they are still billing me $20/mo. Without an active listing.

This is the kind of terrible user experience that makes the difference between a company that dies despite a good value proposition and a company that gets stronger over time as customers double down on their choices. Good ideas only get you so far.