Really bad experience with Zoomcar
We were travelling to Mumbai from UAE. Me, my wife and 2 kids were travelling to Pune after landing at Mumbai airport so we decided to use Zoomcar. I booked the Scorpio and paid for airport delivery. I called up to ensure that airport delivery will happen since my younger one is only 8 month old and carrying Pram on Mumbai roads was out of question.
On the day when we landed, I received the SMS that car is ready for delivery. I called up the executive and he told me that there is no one available for delivering the car to airport and I will have to travel to their parking lot which was about 1.5 km away. I tried telling him that I have 2 kids, 1 Pram and 2 big bags with me. So walking/ auto is out of questions. But the executive was unmoved and insisted that the car will not be delivered but needs to be picked up from delivery point. I called Zoom customer service which promised to get back but never did. So I left my family at the airport and went to pickup the car.
The car was delivered in a dimly lit parking lot and was in a bad condition. I tried requesting a better car but that was the only car available. To get another 7 seater, I would have needed to travel about 19 km. With kids and wife getting bored and impatient, this was out of question. So I accepted the car and drove to Pune.
The car was pathetically maintained. It was rattling more than a badly maintained government bus. The brakes were lacking the bite and every time I pressed the brakes hard, car made weird sound of metal being scratched against other metal. With utmost caution, I drove to Pune and rested for the night.
Next day, I got into the car and checked it thoroughly. I will let pictures do the talking.
Cigarette holes in seat
Badly cleaned areas
Condition of doors
Carpet was covered in layers of dust. This car was cleaned for months (if not ever)
Hairs everywhere in the car
Cleaning condition in handbrake area
Rear carpet was no different than front
Seat condition was equally pathetic
Badly maintained car overall
Gutka stains everywhere
I complained to Zoom that this is not what I can accept and this was only 1st day of total 11 day booking. Zoomcar accept me to get it cleaned at local cleaner and they will pay be Rs. 500 (maximum) for the cleaning. I told them that I will not invest time and energy in cleaning the car and this is not something that could be cleaned in Rs. 500. Zoomcar customer care told me that nothing could be done since I am in Pune and the car was taken from Mumbai. Pune Zoomcar center had a better Scorpio but Zoom refused to budge. They insisted that either I keep using the same car or travel all the way to Mumbai to get a replacement car.
Seeing the discussion going nowhere, I decided to drive to nearest Zoomcar center to see if the in-person conversations would help. The center was only about 2 km away from my home.
I would have driven the car for about a km when the brakes again made the scratching sound and stopped working. Luckily, I was only taking a turn and there was no vehicle ahead of me. I had never faced a brake failure and had no idea of how to deal with it.
I did what came to my mind. I slotted the car to fourth gear and took the foot off accelerator while honking away to glory to make sure no one gets in my path. The car stopped after few meters.
Called up Zoomcar again and they gave the same solution. Get the car repaired from local mechanic and they will reimburse the expenses. This is where I escalated the matters, few heated conversation and the executive connected me with someone senior in the team.
The senior person was more understanding and was genuinely trying to help. But he expressed the inability to provide a replacement car in Pune since he had no authority to override the company policy. So he gave me an option of cancelling the booking with 100% refund and the car towed away at the Zoomcars expense. He confirmed that this was the best he could do. Seeing no alternative, I accepted the solution.
Within an hour, the flatbed arrived and took the car away.
The refund process was smooth. Hardly 30 minutes after the car was taken away, I received the refund initiation message and within 72 hours, I received the complete refund.
Will I book the Zoomcar again? Probably Yes but this time, I would book it for leisure & in-person after seeing the car and not depend on Zoomcar if I have some critical work that depends on the car being available.