‘A Total Meltdown’: Black Friday Zipcar Outage Strands Customers in Random Places
A Zipcar app and website outage on Black Friday created a clusterfuck nationwide with many customers stranded and locked out of the cars they had rented, unable to return or lock them, or otherwise unable to access them or get through to Zipcar technical support for hours at a time. When the service came back online, many customers were hit with surprise charges for hundreds of dollars that will take days to refund.
Zipcar is a car share service that allows people to rent cars from specific garages and parking spots for several hours or days at a time. The entire process is managed through an app that is required for customers to lock and unlock the cars and to start and end rental periods. Because the app was down for much of Friday, people who had reservations were unable to access cars they had reserved, and people who had already rented cars were unable to return them, were locked out of cars they had already rented, or were unable to officially end the ride within the app.
Zipcar’s Instagram and Facebook are filled with people who say they were stranded in random places for hours, were stuck on hold, missed flights, and who had to be rescued because of the outage. Zipcar also tweeted about the issue on X and later tweeted that the problem had been fixed; it has since deleted both of those tweets.
404 Media spoke with five Zipcar customers who showed screenshots from their apps or other verifying information to show that they were affected by the outage.
“This is insane,” one Instagram comment reads. “Rented a car and went to buy a quick drink to the store and all of the sudden the car is locked. I’ve been waiting over 4 hours in the cold. No help whatsoever, different answers and stuck waiting for an hour to speak with someone and no help. All my things inside, even my house keys and no way of getting them. This is so crazy and frustrating.”
“We’ve been stranded out here for 4 hours in the cold,” another says.
“Finally got in contact after hours on hold and told the car will be picked up by someone and I’ll be refunded, after I had to leave it and take the most expensive and longest Uber of my life, and then I wake up to a $54 late fee charged to me as well and an email of my trip as if it was just a normal experience and I’m the one who drove it home???,” another says.
“I was stranded for 4 hours, tried [to] log into the account only to get locked out due to a ‘security measure,’” another says. “I called you guys and the people working hung up on me 3 times! Spend 2 hours waiting on the phone just for that to happen. The audacity!”
The problems ranged from the inconvenient to the dangerous. One customer who spoke to 404 Media but did not want to use his name said he and his friends flew to Los Angeles and rented a Zipcar there, then drove it to an outlet mall two hours outside the city. “When we were ready to drive back at noon we couldn’t login to the Zipcar app,” he said. He and his friends called customer service and waited for hours to talk to someone but couldn’t solve the problem. “My two friends waited at the outlet until dark and had to pay over a hundred dollars for a taxi back to our Airbnb because they were afraid it wasn’t safe. My friend’s passport was locked in the car. My friend missed his flight last night and his final exam today because of this.” They were initially charged full price and have been posting “WE NEED FULL REFUND” on Zipcar’s Instagram alongside dozens of other people over the last few days.
A customer named Sarah Hart told me she rented a Zipcar in Portland and drove it to Olympia, Washington for Thanksgiving weekend, drove it to a shopping center, and realized she couldn’t lock the car. “I think it was luck on our part that we were still with the car and hadn’t locked it when the outage happened. We could [still] drive the car, but it was drivable by ANYONE who got in, so we could not leave it, either. If we locked it, we would have been stranded.”
“My partner spent all afternoon on hold with Zipcar. Got through once and they told us we would be responsible if the car got stolen, even though all systems were down,” she added. “We abandoned plans and went to another friend’s home because they had a gate we could lock the car behind. [Customer service] wait times were HOURS long at best, dropped calls and busy signals at worst. When we did get through the reps only said ‘We can’t do anything, but don’t leave the car.’”
A user named Shawn who spoke to 404 Media and showed messages with Zipcar customer support said that he locked the car he rented in its designated spot in a parking garage and left. “I thought it was successful, and after I had dinner and checked again the app said my trip had still not ended. I called them for nearly two hours and no one answered,” he said. He was hit with a $213 charge that Zipcar told him would take “3-5 business days to process” and eventually had to Uber back to the garage to lock the car after the problem was fixed.
Zipcar has still not said what the issue actually was. “Heads up—We’re experiencing some technical issues on our website and app. As a result, this may temporarily impact your ability to search, book, or access your reservation,” the company posted on Instagram and Facebook. “We’re working quickly on a fix. If you have a reservation and need immediate assistance, please call Member Services … our hold times may be longer than usual. We’re so sorry for the inconvenience.”
After this story was originally published, Zipcar said in a statement that the outage was "related to increased site traffic" from Black Friday and a problem with its SMS service.
"We know that our members rely on our service for a wide variety of trips, and we take issues that affect their experience very seriously. During part of Friday afternoon, we experienced a rare outage related to increased site traffic. Interest in our Black Friday promotion caused SMS delivery service constraints on the SMS/MMS network for our site and many others, unfortunately," Zipcar said. "For a small percentage of our members who were not already logged into our mobile app, this resulted in login difficulties, impacting their reservations. While this issue is resolved, we’re also working to prevent it from reoccurring."
"We recognize a disruption in travel plans can be very frustrating, and we’re committed to working with affected members to remedy this situation," Zipcar added. "Our responses have varied by case but include refunding reservations, providing driving credit for future trips, and refunding alternate transportation."
On those posts, there are a total of hundreds of comments, many of which tell stories similar to the ones I heard from customers. “I missed work because of this,” a person on Facebook said. “Been on hold an hour sitting in 25 degree weather and cannot lock the car so I can leave. Please confirm what to do,” another said.
“This feels like a total meltdown and a single point of failure for the Zipcar fleet,” another said.
The incidents are a reminder that the app-ification of everything can lead to some pretty absurd scenarios.
Update: This article has been updated with comment from Zipcar.
