Hello everyone. I just wanted to share my terrible first experience renting with Turo and advise everyone against renting with them. For those that don’t know, Turo is like AirBnB for cars. You rent personal cars from hosts that are listed on the app.
I had a 5 day trip to Massachusetts planned and was hoping to save some money so downloaded the Turo app and rented a small Hyundai hybrid that was very close to the Boston airport. The host messaged me to meet at a hotel near the airport and not the original listed pickup location and I thought nothing of it. I got to the location at the discussed time after repeatedly messaging with the host and still had to wait 20 minutes for him to arrive and then when he did he told me to wait while he went and spoke with someone else. I noticed a bunch of dings and scratches so I asked if there was any damage or anything I should know about the car. The host said “no and don’t worry, I took all the before photos”. In hindsight it was very dumb of me not to follow up and take my own but it was my first time renting with Turo and I did not know the standard procedure.
I had the car for five days, put maybe 150-200 miles on it, and had no incidents whatsoever. I returned to the hotel to drop off the car and the host immediately runs up to the driver’s side fog light and says “what did you do to my car?” and starts manipulating the light and saying “see, you broke the clips!”. I had no idea what he was talking about and hadn’t even noticed the fog light until he thoroughly displaced it with his handling. He insisted I had an accident and didn’t tell him. I assured him that was not the case and pointed out that there was no damage to the bumper or lens of the fog light. I said you can even put that back in place and not even notice. He responded “yes you can place it back and it looks normal but it will not holdup to highway speeds in place.” I pointed out that that is what must have happened because I had no incidents so maybe it was a prior renter or something. He told me he had before photos to prove it was me and then took after photos with the light as displaced as possible after he manipulated it with his hands. He then told me that Turo never used to tell you what insurance the guests bought but now they do. He looked it up and saw I had $3000 out of pocket costs instead of $500 and said “oh good, because I’ve had the same damage on another vehicle and it is going to cost more than $500”. This makes zero sense because Turo would cover anything above $500 even if I had bought the more expensive insurance. He insisted that we settle outside of Turo and I pay him cash. I told him there was no way that was happening, that he knows I did not cause the damage, and to file through Turo if anything.
I then left for my flight home. I received an email from Turo that the host had complained and told them the whole story, that he manipulated the light with his hands, that he wanted cash payment outside of Turo, that the before pictures were not taken in my presence. I did not hear back from Turo but did receive several messages from the host through Turo and by text message telling me he wanted me to Venmo him money. He sent an estimate of $1250 and told me that Turo would make me pay all that plus $250 so I better just pay him directly. The estimate was suspicious in that it had crazy labor rates and times, said there was evidence of a crash, and said that the host’s insurance company was paying. On like day 18 (hosts have 20 days to file official claims with Turo) he finally filed a claim.
Turo emailed me and I re-sent the response I had sent earlier explaining everything. I looked at the before photos and noticed there was about 1/4” gap between the fog light and the bumper on the driver side that was not present on the passenger side and pointed it out to Turo. There response was to charge my credit card on file $500 and send me an email saying they sided with the host purely on the two photos of the fog light before and after, and that I will be charged more once they finalize an estimate. I responded saying the after photo is after he displaced the light as much as possible with his hands and that I had filed a claim with my insurance company. I sent the claim number and asked them not to charge me again until my insurance adjuster had spoke with them. The response I got was that it doesn’t matter if I caused the damage or not, if the host claims it presented itself during my trip, I am responsible for its repair. This seems like a pretty outrageous rule to have.
Turo then sent along an estimate of $988 to repair plus $150 in fees. While this still seemed very high for a fog light it was almost three hundred less than what the host was trying to get out of me in cash and had $150 in fees, not $250 as he tried to say. I responded that my insurance adjuster will look at it and contact them and it seems like even more evidence the host was trying to scam me. They charged my credit card on file the additional $638 without waiting for my insurance adjuster for even a day.
My insurance company estimated the actual repair cost at $619, almost $360 less than Turo’s estimate and less than half of what the host was trying to extract from me in cash. I have pointed all of this out to Turo and they have not responded. I looked up similar problems online and saw that in Turo’s terms of agreement if you try to dispute charges in small claims court they automatically can collect $5,000 from you, making it useless to fight them. These practices are unjust and designed to make renter’s just shut up and pay. Turo seems designed to line their own pockets and side with hosts on any matter. I tried to save a few hundred dollars on a car rental and am now $1,138 poorer as a graduate student on a tiny stipend. I sincerely feel this was previous damage that the host manipulated to get paid for. He tried to scam me out of way more than Turo or my insurance say was reasonable repeatedly even after I told him to file through the company. It seems clear to me what was going on but I guess manipulated before and after photos mean more than the truth to Turo.
TLDR: I got scammed by a host and it was facilitated by Turo. Do yourself a favor and do not rent from this company.
October 13, 2021 at 10:23AM
