[Andrew Gigacz]

My old car died a few weeks back and I have not yet found a replacement. In the interim I’ve borrowed friends’ cars and relied on public transport. And I also tried the ‘car share’ option. This entails hiring a car not from a dedicated car hire company, but from a private owner through the use of a third party service.

I was apprehensive at first, but thought it was worth a shot at least. In my case I picked up a car from an inner Melbourne suburb without meeting the owner. The key was stored in a locked case hanging from the passenger window, and I accessed it via a code provided.

I had that car for about a week and then returned it to the place from which I’d picked it up. The whole process went off without out a hitch. The car was a pleasure to drive and the total cost, while not exactly cheap, wasn’t prohibitive.

This week I found myself again needing the use of a car for a few days. So positive was my first experience I had no hesitation in using the same third party service – Uber Carshare to book another car.

Sadly, this time there were none of the positives I’d experienced first time around. As part of the process, you are provided with pick-up location details 15 minutes before your time starts. In this case the pick-up point was a 30-minute walk away from the location I’d nominated. Not ideal, but no big deal.

Upon arrival I was instructed by the Carshare up to contact the owner for key handover. This was different to last time, but that was not an issue for me.

What was an issue was that the owner did not respond to my text message alerting him that I’d arrived. And he did not answer my call to his provided phone number. Or respond to the voice message I left him.

Fortunately Uber Carshare has a contact number for such situations. I called it and pressed all the right ‘option’ numbers only to have the call cut off.

Second time lucky. I spoke to a human who did her best to help me. But that best was of no help at all. Would I like to hire a different car? Yes, if it’s close by.

“There’s one 1.8 km away.”

“That’s not exactly a 15-minute walk”, I said, “and I’m due at meeting in 20 minutes at a place which is a 20-minute drive away.”

An offer of an Uber taxi to the car’s location would have solved the problem. But, sorry, “I’m unable to offer you that,” she told me.

And that was it. I’ll get a full refund (supposedly) plus $40 compensation. I wonder how long that’ll take.

After all that, I still don’t have a car and I had to postpone my meeting. After such a positive first-up experience, second time around was a nightmare. In the space of 90 minutes, Uber Carshare had, in my mind, become Uber Car Sh…

I’ll let you figure out the ending to that sentence.

Have you used a car share service? Do you have any advice or recommendations?

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