[Tony2298]

Hello all

A couple of weeks ago I was super happy when I was finally able to fulfill my long awaited leisure trip to Uttrakhand. Since I wanted to explore multiple places viz Hrishikesh, Haridwar, Mussoorie etc from Dehradun, I was interested towards hiring a self driven rental car rather than traditional chauffeur driven one since I wanted to explore the places at my own pace.

Although there were numerous options available I zeroed on ZoomCars since they looked somewhat professional and offered their services across many places in India.

Therefore via their application I booked a self driven rental car, Toyota Glanza, HR55AM8232 for a period of 24hours starting from 28Jan 8:00AM to 29Jan 8:00AM.

The specific car wasn't owned by ZoomCars but rather MyChoize self rentals which is a subsidiary of Orix India and the car itself was parked at a local tours&travel office which goes by the name of Dehradun Cabs from whom I collected the car.

They also laid out some strict instructions for me viz not crossing 40kmph on city and 80kmph on highway and many other traffic rules as if it's the 1st time I'm driving a car, still I assured them I will fully oblige with their rules since my only motive of this visit is to make some memories and not create any unwanted instances.

Their whole paperwork and verification process itself consumed more than half an hour and since the car was parked quite far away from my hotel one entire hour was wasted in this ordeal itself but still I didn't create an issue and accepted the things.

Secondly, they sent me a RazorPay link and said to me in quite a rude fashion to pay 1200INR for FasTag recharge and the remaining unused balance would be credited to me back after 10DAYS!! Still, since I had to use the car, I agreed and paid.

Forget about their rules I myself, being quite an experienced driver, never went above 20kmph on city and 60kmph on highway, also in hills carefully drove the car, never rode the clutch and drove it even more carefully than my own cars.

En route from Hrishikesh to Haridwar we pulled up at a fuel station and even though the car was average at best still decided I would extend the rental agreement since I wasn't interested in going through the process of getting another car all over again and waste my precious time and therefore filled fuel worth of 1000INR.

Post the fillup on the highway, all of a sudden, the gearbox got stuck and clutch became free, I was at around 40kmph at 3rd gear when this happened, somehow pulled up the car to side of the road and tried to analyse the issue, it was clearly a case of blown clutch assembly as far as my knowledge is concerned.

Now starts the entire ordeal and apathetic response of all the parties involved.

ZoomCars have defunct customer care number and email ID, only way you can ask for support is through an useless AI chatbot which is hopeless and just doesn't have any useful support. Typical of a loss making company.

The local aggregator, Dehradun Cabs, was RUDE. They just didn't even try to support or even listen to me and hung up the phone. Pathetic.

MyChoize, of whom the car belongs to, offered me two options:

1. Repair the car, at my own expenses and later ask them for reimbursement. What do these people think of when they say this to a customer who has paid money for a car to use it on an hourly basis. Am I responsible for upkeep of your car?. REJECTED STRAIGHT AWAY.
   
   
2. Co-ordinate with their tow truck and get the car towed away and make my own arrangements for transportation at my OWN EXPENSES. It entirely means ONE THING, I'm responsible for everything that happened.

This made me really disappointed and I felt CHEATED by everyone and was feeling that I made a BLUNDER by choosing self drive rentals instead of traditional chauffeur driven ones.

Forget about exploring Haridwar, I got stuck on the highway, middle of nowhere, making multiple calls to towing agency explaining them the whereabouts of the car which is not even mine and has broken down not due to any fault of mine.

It was getting dark and cold to a point at which I was really scared and my paranoia was getting out of control. I was calling endlessly to tow agency, to hasten up the process so that I could just leave from that God forsaken area to somewhere safe.

Many hours later, during which the whole place became cold and dark, a tow truck showed up, who finally towed away the car, I took plenty of photos of car and tow truck, a short video and also a recorded call between the truck driver and MyChoize highlighting I'm not having any responsibilities of the car henceforth.

Somehow arranged a taxi which agreed to take me back to my hotel but charged a bomb for that, since I had no options had to agree to him.

Post that night, every day I've been trying to reach out to everyone whom I could possibly contact to at least refund the cab fare(at least on a pro-rata basis for unused hours), the 1000INR fuel(I've had receipt and photos as evidence) and unused prepaid toll charges when in reality I also deserve a compensation for my travelling expense and mental harassment.

As of now I've been able to only recieve 1000INR for fuel since I had enough evidence of the same but not a single penny more.

ZoomCars are TOTALLY FRAUDULENT, whoever is reading my post please beware, never to avail their services, they're quick to charge you for everything but when it comes to them, they don't even bother about you.

Also, as of now in India, please AVOID self-driven rentals, there are no standards and cars are poorly maintained which will definitely fail on middle of the road to which the aggregators will be quick to point finger at you. Once you part with your money, you'll never be able to recover a single penny from these guys.

I've done enough, go through their chatbots, send them e-mails, tweeted against them but never ever received a SINGLE PHONE CALL from these guys.

The only intention of creating this thread is to create awareness regarding the ground reality of self driven cars in India and apathetic response of the respective aggregators.


Thank you
Tony

[wheelspinner]

Don't use Zoomcar. Their cars are very poorly maintained. They will blame you for even minor scratches. My friend used them and had a harrowing experience. The car already had multiple damages. Now when he went back to give the car they started blaming him for scratching the car, all of which was pre-existing. This happened with Zoomcar Kolkata. They will make lots of excuses to not give back your security deposit. God forbid if you have an accident.

It is not worth the mental hassle to note down every scratch and dent in the car by taking video. Fill petrol, and check how much petrol was already there, etc. They even ask you to pay for extra fuel consumption if they had given it from their end so you have to note that down also. Lots of terms and conditions are there.

For mental peace, just book a cab. It is sometimes cheaper to go for full day rental if you need that.

[NomadSK]

Oh man, I completely feel for you.

2012 to 2018, every time I visited India, I used to rent their cars for few weeks to a month or so. During that time, the cars were owned by zoom cars. Yellow numbers on black plate and Zoom car written on side doors.

Initial few years, they had the pick up and drop facility at the Mumbai Airport, which was a breeze and worked seamlessly. Cars can be locked/unlocked with their app and generally keys were kept inside the car. So you find the car and zoom out and drop it at the airport and lock it with the app and fly out.

With time, I could see their services seriously going down the drain, till I stopped using them forever in 2018.

What happened in 2018 which made me say it's enough,

I had booked the car for a week for my usage, payment made, like on previous occasions and the deposit was reduced from 5K to zero during booking, I guess that was to capture some market share.

I landed at the airport, to think that I will find the car at the usual parking location, but to my surprise, I come to know that they don't park the cars there anymore and the drama begins, I came to know they have started parking in the basement of some office building some 1.5kms away from the airport. Now the problem was it was monsoons and I was traveling a bit heavy, somehow with luggage and walking in rains for maybe around half an hour, while completely drenched, I found the location and the car. It was more embarrassing than being funny.

There was a guy, who handed over me the keys and since its was the basement, it was quiet dark to check the car. Somehow I managed to inspect the car in that dim light of mobile and it was piece of sh*t. Called their customer care and they upgraded me to Ciaz (I guess). Had a heated argument with the guy and the person on the phone, at the end felt like I'm dealing with deadwoods, so took the keys and drove off the car.

The infrastructure was changing quite fast near the airport and I encountered a red signal, I had to take a right, stopped there briefly and as soon as it went green, stepped on the accelerator to turn and what next, I had a 360 degree spin on the axis, it was a scary moment, after getting my bearings right, I slowly went at the edge of the street to find that the tyres were completely bald and no way I could drive this car in monsoons for that duration. It would be highly unsafe to drive this, not only for me but for others on the road too.

So again called the customer care and asked them to provide me with I20 and take this junk back, that conversation went for 5-10 minutes, he said I20 would be available in few days, so I can drop the car there and pick I20. Hardly drove the car for those days, Even I had to get the coolant hose replaced, since it burst open while driving to my friends place few km away and returned the car in few days to pick up I20.

If Ciaz was a piece of junk this I20 was ready to be scrapped. I wasted 30 mins of my life dealing with these nincompoops and since I needed the car for the duration, I just took it with dejected emotions.

Next day, I was supposed to travel to Pune for some work, initially it was not raining when I started, but as soon as I crossed new Bombay near entry of expressway, it started pouring, and I slotted the wipers to come to know that these wipers don't have any rubber on them. Damn, I drove all the way on expressway at 40/50 may be, with hazards on, luckily it was day time till I put new wipers at the first available shop.

While during my drive back, Panvel was still 56kms away, I had flat tyre, so went into the boot to retrieve the spare and to my shock, the steel rim was welded to the car floor . That was a dam breach moment for me.

This was the ultimate limit, dragged the car on flat tire for few kms to a parking spot near some college on the highway, I parked the car there, kept the keys inside, Yes at Panvel, called their customer care and told them the location of the car and pick it yourself. Booked an Ola, went home and that was the end of miseries and the business relationship. If someone has question that they could charge my credit card, I blocked it and applied for the new one. I was so pissed off.

Eventually having millions of calls from them, they blacklisted me from renting cars from their portal and I never availed their services again.

Now I know many would think, I should have checked all of this before taking the car, but who checks the radiator hoses and the tires before taking the car on rent from a company who is in a business to make money through car rental. It's not ethically done, but its a moral degradation, if someone get injured due to their sham cars. Not using selfdrive car rentals anymore in India. Its economical and safer to have a chauffeur driven car. Self drive car rental are in India are not worth the headache, atleast where Zoom is the service provided.

Later after reading so many sham stories from Zoom, I never even batted an eyelid. And now I come to know they rent the cars through some third party, I don't know how this system works for insurance.

Lastly, when in Rome, do as the Romans do !!

[ram.iyer95]

That's quite an ordeal you've faced, hope you get a quick resolution.

Not trying to blame you, but I'm surprised that you chose to avail their services despite plenty of posts here in our forum itself, warning people against it. Not just ZoomCar, I have completely stopped using any of the car rental services due to the pathetic condition of the cars they rent out, along with the entirely one-sided terms and conditions. In one such company's T&C, it was even written that the customer has to bear the entire repair costs (without an upper limit) out of his/her pocket in case of an accident, despite the car being insured.

It is far better to hire a good taxi from a popular tour operator. I too had been to Uttarakhand last month on a week long trip, and entirely used taxis to avoid any hassles; used google reviews to filter out the good operators and pre-booked with them. In the rare occurrence of a cab breaking down, atleast the driver cannot point fingers at you, and you are absolved of any responsibility to fix it.

[omranga98]

That is a bummer what you had to experience. This goes to show how these bigger aggregators do not have or care about decent customer support.

I have used Zoom a very handful number of times. Most recently in the first week of this Feb in Chennai. For me, the experience was spotless. The guy who owned the car, cooridinated clearly, came and dropped off the car spick and span at the airport. Explained how the aftermarket screens in the car worked and everything else. Whole process was less than 3 mins.

It was a 1.0 Magnite. A very very boring car to drive but got the job done!

Dropped it off at the airport next day when the owner of the car was at the airport gate waiting for me. The whole drop off process took 2-3 mins again.

[Joe367]

Originally Posted by Tony2298

Also, as of now in India, please AVOID self-driven rentals, there are no standards and cars are poorly maintained which will definitely fail on middle of the road to which the aggregators will be quick to point finger at you. Once you part with your money, you'll never be able to recover a single penny from these guys.

One hundred percent agree with you on this. The rates on their websites might seem lucrative, but there are tons of hidden charges which is included in the terms and conditions fine print which we unknowingly accept while booking these services. There will be security deposits, additional fast tag deposits. Different accident protection packages which covers only specific parts of the vehicle etc.
This was something I saw in the terms and conditions page of one such service provider - they can charge us for downtime for any repairs in additional to any amount we paid for the damage caused

[fordday]

Originally Posted by omranga98

The guy who owned the car, cooridinated clearly, came and dropped off the car spick and span at the airport.

when the owner of the car was at the airport gate waiting for me. The whole drop off process took 2-3 mins again.

This is a private car and you used for commercial purpose. How does that work? If something goes wrong both you and the owner will be in tight spot.

[PrideRed]

In 2022 I had hired a zoomcar from Delhi to Uttarakhand for about 2 weeks. As you mentioned their support system doesnot exist, and even after payment app would not show much details. After reaching out to multiple folks, somehow the car came an hour late than expected. Even though car had run less than 25K KM, was in average condition. I had to pay 1K to just fix punctures. Punctures apart, car endured two weeks journey and we made it back to Delhi without much issue.

[kovilkalai]

The business model of Zoomcar is dicey. They seem to have no control over customer experience. I had a recent experience of renting a Suzuki Grand Vitara in Ahmedabad which was really good thanks to a professional owner. The car was in decent shape - I don't blame the owner for the few nicks and dings on the body. The car was clean, comfortable and mechanically great. The owner gave me his Fastag details so I could top up on my own (no transferring money to him etc.).

However, I did go into this rental with trepidation because several friends had warned me about the unreliable service of Zoomcar. Compare this with traditional car rentals even in countries like Thailand where you get in and out in a few minutes and you get a really nice car.

[GeeTee TSI]

The abuse to rental cars by inconsiderate customers notwithstanding, cutting corners in basic maintenance makes the vehicles a possible death trap (and I am not even coming to breakdowns and inconvenience). I hate to drive dodgy cars even if owned by family members.

An eyeopener considering the recall Zoomcar brand has still.

[SrichakradharV]

I booked a zoom car way back in 2016, when zoom cars were the only go to option for self driving cars. I had booked it just for 4 Hrs and 40 Kms, if i remember correctly. It was on my first marriage anniversary and I wanted the experience to be a special one.

At the time of booking, I failed to take a video of the car, as I too was not aware of any of the scams. At the time of return, i was informed that a panel of the ORMV was missing, and the zoom representative claimed that I had an accident which resulted in he panel missing. Though I convinced that there was no accident what so ever and that even the ORMV in question did not show any scratches, he was steadfast in his claim.

It was only after I insisted on speaking to a senior executive, that my POV was heard and I was let go. Later, I was informed that the panel was removed during servicing and was not replaced at all.
So much for a scam. From then on, whenever anyone asks me about self drive cars, I sternly warn them to think of other options.

[svsantosh]

If OP post is scary...

the steel rim was welded to the car floor . That was a dam breach moment for me.

This made it scarier! OMG what nonsense from any rental company. India is NOT ready for any own/self rental concept. Period.

...If someone has question that they could charge my credit card, I blocked it and applied for the new one.

This was a 'I did not see this coming' final nail on your Zoom experience. I am making a note of this . But jokes aside, did you not share your passport copy or Aadhar? Are you sure they did not go legal or file some shady sub-court recovery case on you through a junior bench lawyer?

[wheelspinner]

Originally Posted by omranga98

I have used Zoom a very handful number of times.
Attachment 2725291

Attachment 2725292

I rubbed my eyes in disbelief. Zoom car exclusively has self-drive cars with black number plate. What you got is a private car, which is illegal as far as I know. You can't use personal private number plate cars for commercial purpose i.e. earning money. Too bad if Zoomcar is complicit in such activity. You need to pay for commercial permit, and follow all rules and regulations for commercial cars. In this case, they are doing none. If you meet with an accident, the insurance company might not honor the policy due to commercial use. Please be very careful about these consequences.

[the_autopsyche]

Zoomcar experiences are always a hit or miss!

I have used zoomcar 4 times so far. I can say 2 were good, 1 was not bad and the other one was terrible.

Had rented Tata Hexa and VW Polo on two occasions at Vadodara in 2021. The Hexa was not in top notch condition but it was okay. Meanwhile the Polo was in a very bad condition. Faced a tyre wear out issue and had to put the spare wheel to continue the journey and then the steering link rod broke! The car was driven on a highway which had good roads within 80kmph. As expected, the blame was on my driving. After driving some sense to the zoomcar representative and about 2 hours of arguments, he agreed that the car was not well maintained and we did not have to pay for anything.

Recently had rented a TUV300 in Bengaluru and a Glanza in Mysore. I had decided to go ahead with zoomcar as I could see that these vehicles were not owned and maintained by zoomcar not any other rental agencies. It was a direct owner private car. Such cars are maintained way better and are reliable.

If at my native place if I need a 7/8 seater, we rent from personally known rental agencies with well maintained vehicles.

One has to be very careful whike booking a zoomcar and choose a private, safe and reliable vehicle to avoid any potential breakdown.

[NomadSK]

Originally Posted by svsantosh

India is NOT ready for any own/self rental concept. Period.

True, I always enjoy the freedom of having a car with me during my travels, that's the sole reason I used to rent cars, not only in India but anywhere I would travel. Even if they won't be driven much.

I remember, previously I had booked some nice cars (Creta/Swift/Etios) with them, but over years I have seen their service going down the hill, to the matter where they were highly unsafe to be driven on the roads for any sane mind. They should be vetted by RTO and have a fitness certificate renewed every year or 6 months. Else such cars are coffins on wheels.

Outside of India I have created some great memories with the rental cars I had booked.

This was a 'I did not see this coming' final nail on your Zoom experience. I am making a note of this . But jokes aside, did you not share your passport copy or Aadhar? Are you sure they did not go legal or file some shady sub-court recovery case on you through a junior bench lawyer?

They had all my details from passport to DL in their app, I'm not sure if Aadhar was in vogue those days. Booking cars was quite breeze, since I already existed in their system, so it used to be just few clicks and booking done.

Recovery case for a piece of junk. At that moment, I never thought in that direction, that I would have any legal implications. And I don't think they could have taken legal route, as in their system, I was driving Ciaz, which I had already returned back and was driving I-20, it was all hoch poch even for a junior bench lawyer to think straight.