GM Car Owners With OnStar Now Can Be Their Own Rental Agencies 195
The Los Angeles Times reports that the world of micro-rentals just got a whole lot more crowded, with the introduction of a nationwide partnership between GM and ride-sharing company RelayRides. RelayRides has been arranging short-term car sharing in just a few cities for several years; car owners can sign up to make their own cars available for short-term rentals to others, so their expensive investment (especially in cities where parking is like a second apartment's rent) isn't sitting idle. Now, the two companies are rolling out that system in a much larger market: the rest of the U.S. Owners of GM cars new enough to be equipped with OnStar monitoring systems will be able to sign up to take part with the OnStar system providing the ability to unlock and track those cars remotely, which might make the bargain more attractive to many owners who'd like to earn money from their cars (and reduce the total number of cars needed in a given area), but reluctant to hand the keys to a stranger. (Cars without the system can still be enrolled, but will require a key hand-off.)
Re:Still Evil (Score:4, Interesting)
Even though this seems like a good thing, there is a corporation involved so I'm sure there is evil involved.
Gentlemen of Slashdot, affix your tinfoil hats and let's start dissecting this!
1) Find car you'd like to steal or strip.
2) Social engineer the car to be a part of this "rental agreement".
3) "rent" car using the usual fake ID stuff (or just tell them you're an illegal and they're not allowed to discriminate against you).
4) Drive to steel walled warehouse or just strip the parts you want, after all they have fake ID.
5) Profit!
I am virtually certain GM is not prepared for the security implications of this.
Another interesting topic is I rent the Home Depot truck when I'm transporting garden manure etc. I wonder how they handle borderline situations where its not illegal or wrong, but...
The last topic I've never been able to understand is there used to be intense publicity about civil forfeiture, where you'll lose your car non-judicially just because a cop wants it. Now this could happen to anyone walking down the street, but how do these rental deals handle having the cops steal a car from a renter?
Open questions... (Score:4, Interesting)
The point is rental companies see their cars as an investment that is supposed to bring in some profit before being phased out. Private owners consider their own cars as "my precious" and renters as "who cares, it's not my car" and hope the rental company doesn't note the new scratches.
Why just cars? (Score:3, Interesting)
My closet is full of clothing just hanging there unworn.
And my sock drawer is a virtual gold mine!
Re:Important reminder (Score:4, Interesting)
I was in a collision scenario around 10 years ago where the driver was definitely not the owner. Someone hit me at a red light; all 3 passengers got out of the car QUICK and bolted from the scene. The passengers all got rounded up in front of the local police department (why, oh why would you run towards the police lol) but they could not easily determine the driver of the vehicle. Neither could I, as I only had an instant to relax before the hit - I saw them coming in the rear view and my immediate concern was for the service manager who was in the passenger seat on a test drive to help solve an intermittent misfire. The car that hit me turned out to be an over due rental - and none of the occupants were the renter of the car; it was one of the passenger's sister who rented the car. Eventually the insurance company covering the rental (turned out to be a dealership across from the location I was getting my car looked at) paid for the damages to the car.
In any case, I would be very leery to rent out my car unless I had additional insurance protection to cover this scenario - and I would have to think that between the extra hike in insurance costs plus GM's cut of this process, it would probably not turn out to be a whole lot of money unless I was renting a few cars at a time.
About time (Score:1, Interesting)
I thought perhaps I could get around the stupidity by trying to rent a car through craigslist. I posted an ad "I want to rent your car" and after getting a reply from one idiot who thought himself funny, the ad was removed within 24 hours.
But there is definitely a market for this. People do have cars that they don't always need, and people have a demand for cars that they need for just a short bit of time. Not everyone has the disposable income to pay a rental car company for a car, either. Even the cheapest Hyundai shitbox gets expensive quickly. A one-week rental of a Hyundai is equal to about 10% of the car's MSRP on the lot.