Relay Rides
www.relayrides.com
855-817-6503
Owner – Andre Haddad

So here is my review of Relay Rides.

I had problem with them from the getgo, but because I needed to rent a car, I overlooked the warning signs that this company does NOT know what it’s doing.

First I had problems signing up & getting my account set up. Fine, eventually it was sorted out, but it wasn’t easy.

Second, I had to complain about their inept messaging system on their site (if you want to call it that). You message a car owner & there’s no thread so you can’t read the message on their site or in your e-mails. You have to try & remember what was said before. This is terrible because you will need proof later on that the car owner said this or that otherwise Relay Rides can blame you.

I spent 2 weeks planning for this car rental as I had a lot of errands to do. I dealt with a car owner named Andrey. He was very nice & tried to get me a car for the $25. I had read somewhere that Relay Rides provides insurance, so I ignorantly thought the ONLY price I was going to pay was $25/day.

Andrey told me he would provide me with pickup & drop off if I took 3 days. I agreed.

Andrey said he had rented out the car he mentioned to me the week before, so he was going to give me a Jag. Boy was I excited thinking I was going to get a GREAT car. He told me to rent from the profile for his mini van for $28/day & he would just give me the Jag & the $10 back.

I go to pay for the car & suddenly there’s additional fees I have to pay. The total came to $126 which is not anywhere CLOSE to being $84. Later on when I told Andrey that the renter has to pay too (it looked like 10% to me), he had no idea of this & he told me to contact Relay Rides. When I did, they suddenly told me that it was for:

• includes 24/7 emergency roadside assistance
• state minimum liability insurance
• member services costs
• the cost of the transaction

I ALSO had to pay insurance, because it was clear anything that was included in the fee wasn’t going to cut it if someone hit me.

Considering I was NEVER told these details anywhere during any of my steps along the way & Andrey who’s been at this way longer than me didn’t know this either, it’s clear that Relay Rides either hides this information until after the fact, or they just don’t know how to run a business which means DISCLOSING this information to the renters. In fact Lauren (the manager I ended up dealing with) seemed shocked that I somehow didn’t know all of this as if it was out there in the open.

Not once did I get an e-mail after I registered explaining this to me. I don’t even remember seeing it on the site when I went to click on the car. How come the owners of the cars didn’t know this. Andrey thought his 25-30% is the only charge Relay Ride charges.

I wouldn’t have had a problem paying this had I known in advance, but like several HUGE mistakes Relay Rides made, this wasn’t mentioned to me.

My experience with the car:

The car was horrific. It was dangerous, problem after problem with this car & I don’t mean small things, I mean the car wouldn’t start, the key wouldn’t come out of the ignition, it took a second key to unlock the door, the gas gauge would fluctuate back & forth between 3/4 of a tank to empty & even the empty light came on. The AC didn’t work in a very hot climate & blew hot air & then I couldn’t shut it off. The cigarette lighter didn’t work & I got lost because my Garmin went dead, the windshield fluid didn’t work on the driver’s side & neither did the wipers, so I had problems seeing.

It took at least 6-8 hours of my precious time which meant for me lost work, to deal with waiting for the car to be fixed or the owner to come deal with it.

The owner was an hour + late to drop off the car for me. When I dropped off the car at the end, he wasn’t even at the used car lot. Had one of his employees not showed up, I would still have been waiting there for him. Turns out he owns a used car lot & so it was obvious to me that I was given the worst car he had. Even the Saab he was going to give me on the second day to replace the Jag started smoking underneath the hood which is why he wouldn’t let me have it in the end.

This Jag would NOT have passed certification had it needed to be certified. In fact the 2nd time the car wouldn’t start it was finally a dead battery. I told him there were problems with it & a bad electrical smell. He blamed it on the Saab. The engine light was on the entire time as well.

Owner didn’t adhere to his promise to drop me off at the end.

I did NOT tell Relay Ride all that was going on because Andrey tried to make it up to me by telling me he would give me 50% off, give me an extra day, he drove me to my appointment on the 2nd to last day, etc., but when he decided he would go back on his word & NOT drive me home forcing me to waste 2 hours of my time taking a bus, any loyalty I had towards him went out the window. He was upset because I had said something to Relay Rides. At the time I had not even gone into ALL the details of what happened as I was protecting him.

Andrey also lied to Relay Rides telling them I was late to drop off the car when he had promised me an extra day for all the issues. He knew damm well I had the car & when it was due back.

While the owner was initially nice, he didn’t have another car to give me that actually worked. I had appointments & errands I planned for during this rental & I missed 2 of them plus I was stressed non-stop throughout the duration. This is NOT what I signed up for with Relay Rides.

My experience with Relay Rides:

I wasted tons of my time talking to Relay Rides either on the phone (an hour) or e-mailing with them (around 2-2 1/2 hours). Initially I thought they had my back, but I lost ALL respect for Relay Rides when they refused to take ANY responsibility for their part in all of this.

The only reason they even knew what was going on, was because I mentioned something one night when I was really upset about the car issues. They wanted me to cancel ALL my appointments & return the car saying if anything happens to the car I’m responsible. This got me upset. The car was already in bad shape & they are going to try & pin problems with the car ON ME???

I refused to return the car because I had things to do. I wasn’t planning on driving it across the country, I just needed to get from point A to point B. If they had said they would get me another car (even if it was a day or two later from another car owner), I would have done what they asked, but they didn’t offer. In fact they said it wasn’t their responsibility to find me another car.

I was FURIOUS that they screen the drivers no problem, but when it comes to screening the owner’s cars to ensure they actually work, they FAILED!

On the phone I was told I was responsible for knowing things I couldn’t have known because Relay Rides FAILED to tell me this. Things like:

1. If the car is switched by the owner, I have to call Relay Rides right away.
2. If the owner gives me a free extra day because of all the problem, I have to pay.
3. If there are problems with the car I should contact them immediately. I thought I had to deal with the owner.

Amazingly Relay Rides stated they will STILL pay the owner even for the extra day & when it came time to give me something for all my troubles, Lauren said she wasn’t making me pay for that extra day. I was NOT going to pay for that extra day anyway. How dare they tell me I have to pay. I didn’t even get to use the car on that day because I suddenly got awoken from my sleep by calls from her & the car owner asking me when I’m returning it as Relay Rides thought I was late by a day & Andrey feigned ignorance.

In order to ensure I wasn’t accused of stealing the stupid thing, I returned it & never even used the car that last day yet Relay Rides was STILL going to pay the owner even though the extra day wasn’t even registered through their site. That doesn’t even make logical sense. You are going to charge the renter an additional day even though it didn’t go through the system, & you are going to pay the owner even though he allowed this extra day with no proof in the system.

My first question that they never did answer was WHY they were paying this guy ANYTHING for the car rental when the car he provided was in such terrible shape. Why is there NO clause in their contracts stating that if the car is terrible & they don’t provide a backup to the car renter, that they don’t get paid even if the car renter paid.

So they will charge the car renter, but the car owner gets away with murder AND still gets paid for a fourth day????

JUST AMAZING.

When I wrote back to Lauren telling her that I feel Relay Rides is 50% responsible for everything that went down because they FAILED to tell me any of this, she ignored me, & I just found out she locked my account so even if I wanted to rent another car I can’t. So this is how they treated me. Nice in the e-mails & on the phone pretending to have my back as a car renter, then they lock my account for no reason at all. I certainly didn’t do anything wrong, I was the one who was WRONGED HERE.

I wasn’t even going to write up this complaint about Relay Rides, but now because of how I was treated & Relay Ride’s obvious incompetency & how they let the car owner get away with everything, I feel the public should know. They say that the car owner’s profile is blocked, but I still see his cars on their site & when I went to go leave a review, I was blocked from doing so.

They claim they are a family oriented business. That may be true, but they do NOT know how to run their business & if this is how they treat family, my gawd, how do they treat their enemies?

I had a terrible frightening experience AND all I got back for all my trouble was $26. Actually make it $16 because I had to put $10 of gas into the car because of the gas gauge problems. I was sooo scared I was going to break down in the middle of nowhere without gas in the car. I knew the car still had gas, but because the gauge was broken, I could never be sure.

Michelle