The Genius Car – Real life adventures in the share economy

These are two of my most recent requests and why I need/want/would like to treat these two requests differently.

The very first request was the customer deliberately asked me about what if they go over the mileage allotment.  It is fairly generous, but still they thought they would exceed the limit.  I don’t want to have another trip with the Azera where the car was gone for 6 days.  I earned $146.25 the renter put on 1,065 miles.  This seems like a bad deal to me.  Since I had that rental I’ve tightened up my prescreening process.

I didn’t even have a chance to do the game theory or the math, but surely there is a deal for me that makes sense.  I was potentially thinking that for each 100 miles that he goes over charge a $25 fee.  Get this agreed and paid in advance.  I don’t believe Relay Rides is set up to handle requests like this.  Here is what I believe I have to do.  In this situation if I’m going to get that $25 fee over a four day rental then I would need to raise my daily rate by $6.25 and change the mileage to 25 miles per day higher.  Once I get this set up then the prospective renter must book the trip right then and there.  I have no ability to just set up items for a one time rental.  This is now my new price for everyone.  I need to have them verify and book the trip, then I have to go back in and manually reset my prices again.  This seems very inefficient for me and the customer.

This next request was a ride that I accepted but I had some reservations about doing it.  You lucked out Tamara  This request was for the Acura MDX.  It was the next request though that was for the MDX at these new rates.  I finally feel I have the car priced right.  The Hyundai Azera is gone and Rebecca Henderson hates taking Uber’s to work and home.  I understand her point especially when we own two cars paid in full.  The cost ranges from $13.50 to $14.50 for her to take an uber each way.  This adds an extra cost for us that we have to pay.  I almost said no, I almost asked the renter about ability if they wanted to pay this.  Yes I will rent you the car, but since you want it Monday and Tuesday and the other car is gone then you need to pay and extra $60.  I understand this may change the deal and the economics push it over where they say no.  That’s fine and that’s how the free market works.

I said yes to the request for a few reasons.  It was one of those beautifully timed ones where the car is returned and Tamara’s request was for a mere five hours later.  Both of these requests are also at fair market value so I said yes out of excitement.  It also happens when Rebecca only needs to take ubers into work on two days.  I’m not sure if Rebecca Henderson reads these blogs, but I’m not sure that she realizes that she is going out to DIA at 8:00 in the morning to pick up the Acura.

It should be easy to implement from Relay Rides perspective.  It just needs to be a blank field and an amount.  It could also be set up as a credit.  I charge people $70 to pick up and drop off my car at DIA.  If these people can give me a ride back and 50% of the time I have a baby in the car shouldn’t I give them a little credit?  It’s a two way street and it would be good for both parties.

I’ve currently completed 18 Relay Rides trips.  I’m grateful for the renters and the income it has provided our family.  Sixteen of those rides has gone on financially as agreed.  Some totally kicked ass.  I’ve had two trips recently though were I feel I was shorted money I should of been paid.  The response of Relay Rides was prompt as usual, but it did not address the issues.  What is a challenge is whether to do anything about it?

The most annoying Relay Ride actually has one of the issues.  It is only $5.08, but it is money.  He didn’t have time to fill up beforehand and he was already late.  He agreed to pay cash.  My original estimate was $25.  He thought it was $20.  I was already a little pissed because they were late.  Lot’s of times it’s not a big deal.  This time it was noon in the hot sun,  Hope was with us and not real happy about going down to DIA.  Sitting in the car at noon with a baby is not exactly fun.  She wasn’t too bad, but hey it’s lunch time why am I not eating is all she thinks.  I didn’t feel like arguing and hell it could of been $20.  It was within my margin of error.  I didn’t want to argue so I let it go, and took the twenty cash.  I also don’t want to have my ratings jacked up. I filled up the tank after driving to the first cheap gas station at Tower Road.  The total was $25.08.

The other time was a super cool couple with two small children.  They took the E-470 the toll road down to Parker.  They paid the toll in cash, but I didn’t know how much it was.  The brother they were staying with said it was $13.  That is correct if you have the transponder.  I didn’t, it’s now on order for both Relay Rides vehicles.  If you don’t have the transponder for the E-470 authority and all Express Lanes in Colorado.  I got the bill and it was $17.55.  Between these two incidents I’m now 9.63 in the whole.

The Relay Rides response was about they now have a system where I can now submit a trip reimbursement directly to the renter.  This allows me to communicate directly with them and get my money directly from them.  This is also what Relay Rides customer support told me.  The problem is that these requests disappear within 48 hours after the rental I believe.  By the time this information was received by me that functionality was disabled.  What am I going to do now Relay Rides?  The first incident is my fault I could of submitted the request sooner and the problem is solved.  The other incident though was a bill in the mail that happened over a month later.  Nothing structurally in the system can prevent this.

The real tough part is trying to figure out what to do and this is the struggle with all things and companies in the rideshare economy.  Even if it all works out great and appropriately what am I gettting.  Freaking not even ten bucks.  How much of my time am I going to waste chasing down this money?  I have other things I can and should be doing with my time.  Even writing this blog to talk and share about the incident takes a lot of time.  I also believe that chasing down both of these customers will result in a negative experience with Relay Rides.  This reflects poorly on the company that I am representing and that pays me.  It can also result in potential bad word of mouth as opposed to positive word of mouth for all of my fellow Relay Rides owners.  Should I have to fade this $9.63 outrage or should Relay Rides reimburse me directly?  They are a big giant corporation (well damn well bigger than me), they can afford it.  If they had to pay me the money and did it for everybody else that figure than jumps to the hundreds of thousands nationally and maybe even millions.

By the time a put in the time and energy to get this money shouldn’t I be doing something else to just go out and make another ten bucks or am I just letting people take advantage of me.  I’m kinda torn and conflicted and not 100% sure what to do.

We have a Facebook group for Relay Rides owners.