Zipcar UK Reviews 

UPDATE: I LEFT NOTHING IN THE CAR. I CAN'T PROVE A NEGATIVE! Terrible and unreasonable customer service! Zipcar claims I forgot something in the car, and as the next customer had the car out for 12 hours, Zipcar told me I had to call back at 10pm and get to the car then, or they'd charge me £65. I realised I didn't leave anytihng in the car and told them to throw whatever it was away. Which they did. But charged me £65 for disposing of a piece of waste that wasn't even mine. I won't be using them again.

Zipcar used to be good, no longer. I booked a car some weeks in advance and they took the full three day cost of £243 immediately in advance. When collecting the car warning light not to drive came on, also very little gas in the vehicle. Called Zipcar, they found another car I could use nearby but only let me have it on the basis that I pay for the whole trip again, another £230 and said they would refund the original cost 'in a few days'. Here we are a week later no refund and no sign of one. The customer services people have no power at all, refuse to escalate to a supervisor, promise to refund and don't, promise to call back and don't, promise to email and don't, nothing happens. On top of that the the car had faults, Applecarplay did not work properly, the boot of the car remained unlocked when the car had been locked. I have spent at least three hours on the phone to them. They don't give a damn. An absolutely shitty experience. Am investigating alternatives.

Most incompetent customer service team I have ever dealt with who made every step of this more difficult than it needed to be. Aside from one agent (Andreas), the rest were beyond useless and oftentimes incredibly rude.

Will not be using this service again.

they revoked my account for literally no reason, they're not giving any reasoning, just keep stating that it won't be getting a membership back.

Very poor privacy and safety application, with them asking for pictures of youself holding papers that can be changed to anything, via simple email.

I’m trying to call to customer service, but he doesn’t help one month away for resolve my technical issue in the app. I can’t reactivate my membership plan
Don’t use this company, please, because he have a technical issue all the time. And tell promise to help me but nobody text me back so this customer sent she said we don’t know and again story tell me we’re gonna help and we sent you for the technical support and this technical support no even one time text me back.

Rubbish service.

I have got 2 PNC Fines.
I tried to explain to the service provider, the app should have notified that the car is not park at the right parking zone.

Turned out the councils are involved into the crime too as the user would park at the wrong way the warden would issue the tickets Zip car will pay the council. Zip car make the money under the name of admin charges.

Car was park there for two days.
How nice of Zip car? It only send me the email after paying the tickets.

It's all smiles at the start, then the reality hits (as usual). 13 minutes late = £35 late fee. Reading other feedback, I'm now dreading other fees coming up. The UK car hire industry is a joke, engineered to hit you with massive fees for anything they can get away with via their T&Cs.

What a disappointment!

We needed a car for moving and choosing the zipcar was the worst decision we could have made. The customer service is extremely slow to respond. If you need to contact the application team it is not possible as the personnel of zipcar can't even call them themselves. We ended up failing to move on that day. We have wasted time and £15 membership fee which is apparently non refundable. I'm surprised that this is an American company because Americans take customer service seriously. I'd never recommend it, it's totally not trustworthy.

Hired a van for what should have been £30 total.

Zipcar have taken £330 for 3 separate apparent 'moving violations' (£90 of that being a 'processing fee' which is absolutely ludicrous). I called and they are unable to tell me more about what said violations are for.

I did not speed (we were stuck in traffic the entirety of the journey) nor park anywhere we shouldn't.

The violations team don't have a contact number, so there's nobody to speak to. I have been told it'll take 48hrs-72hrs for someone to get back to me. In the meantime, I can't afford rent on my office which is due in 3 days because I'm short this money.

What should have cost me £30 has now cost me £360 and nobody on their team can even tell me why. Surely it's fraudulent to take money out my account without being able to explain why? Currently appealing. I will never use Zipcar ever again because of this abhorrent system.

Got a ticket for using a wrong lane which I had to as there was a broken bus in front of us, Zipcar doesn’t bother to try and dispute it or help you dispute it, they just pass you the fine with a fee of £30, I just cancelled my subscription, don’t bother, you think you save money and then get. A £200 charge on your credit card,

The other issue is the car not locking itself despite being in a parking Zipcar zone, you waste 20 min with customer service,

BEWARE of late fees. I’ve just been charged £45 for being 9 minutes late. Double the price of the rental. It’s an absolute con.

They are a TOTAL SCAM. they charged a fine of 120 pounds after i parked the car in the green zone and the best part is that while i parked i called their customer service and gave them the car details to make sure i parked in the right place and they assured me that it’s correctly parked in the green flex zone. Now they are rejecting my refund request saying that we can’t retrieve the call from their system and stoped returning my calls or responding. Another thing that they did while i applied to zipcar is that they declined my application for no reason and charged 15 pounds for it and never refunded me and then they asked me to re-apply and pay another 15 pounds which i eventually did so they are a total SCAM PLEASE STAY AWAYYYYY

Due to their paid (I suppose) positioning on google, they appear on top of search a car/van hire in area you need a car/van.
Meanwhile they mainly operate in Cities. Contacted them for a aplication refund but refused to get one. I feel clearly misled by this company. Not recomending at all.

Zipcar charged us for fines which we had informed them we are actively disputing with the local council as they were wrongly imposed. The violations team has not responded to us for over a week, despite calling and emailing them daily. This has resulted in us being charged hundreds in fines and processing fees and losing the right to challenge the fines as they have been paid automatically.

30£ to process penalty is ridiculous and unacceptable

The car I rented broke down, and they forced me to wait for 3 hours while the rescue took place. I lost my afternoon at work. I thought it normal that they would refund me for my rental, but no, they insist that this is a valid charge. I am now having to raise this through Consumer Rights. A deplorable waste of time. BOYCOTT and INVEST in their competitors is the only way to avoid being bullied by these pathetic types.

UPDATE: They refunded the rental and removed the late fee, this was an acceptable outcome - they did sincerely apologize, and that apology is accepted Thank you.

I rented a Zipcar through their Uber program, but the vehicle never paired with the Uber driver app—making it completely unusable for the job it was advertised for. I spent hours on the phone with both Zipcar and Uber support trying to fix the issue, but they couldn’t resolve it. Then, because I returned the car just two minutes late (after wasting my entire rental trying to troubleshoot), Zipcar charged me for an extra full day and a $50 late fee. They refused to take responsibility for providing a non-functional service. Total lack of accountability and zero concern for drivers trying to earn a living. Avoid this company if you value your time or money.

Tried to get an account for over a year. The address on my licence and billing were mismatched and that was a problem apparently... Fine. Fixed it, provided proof of address multiple times but customer service was impossible and just kept sending me the same scripted, automated dross over and over again.

Shame because I've used the service with friends and I think there's so much to the concept in terms of convenience, reducing cars in cities, and plugging gaps in public transport. Have used enterprise car club since and it's not quite as good- but at least I can get an account without battling bots.

Very convenient when iv used the flex cars, but I find the cars are not very clean these days