All Gas… No Breaks
SYRACUSE, N.Y. (NCC News) — A popular ride-sharing app has departed Syracuse without making any public notice leaving Syracuse University students shocked. Zipcar announced after seven years at SU, they will be removing their fleet.
Maddy Devera, a sophomore at Syracuse University and frequent Zipcar customer, is frustrated by the recent change.
“As a college student who doesn’t have a car here, I relied on my Zipcar,” said Devera. “It’s affected me financially because I now spend all of my money using Instacart to get my food.”
Liam Feaster, a freshman at Syracuse University, signed up for a Zipcar membership in January only to discover Zipcar’s were no longer available.
“When I signed up everything seemed to work out, I paid for the extra insurance,” said Feaster. “When I went to rent cars, I noticed it said they were all booked for the next three months.”
“Based on recent trends, we decided to relocate the Syracuse fleet as of January 15, 2023,” Zipcar told NCC News in a statement.
Although Zipcar removed its fleet in January, the website still advertised the Syracuse membership until early March. When NCC News asked Zipcar why the membership was still available, within 20 minutes the Syracuse membership webpage was taken down.
Now, Feaster is working on getting a refund and as a college student money is tight for him.
“I’m, of course, limited, I don’t have a source of money right now. So not being able to use the 95 dollars I spent was disappointing,” said Feaster. “Advertise your product properly. If you’re going to not affiliate with something and say you are, you’re going to mislead a ton of people who would actually like to spend, you know, their money with your company.”