NBC 5 Responds found she’s not alone, and that the popular car sharing service has been operating in Illinois with a revoked business license since Sept. 2020.
Barron had decided to rent her car out using Getaround last November, and hadn’t had any problems until the early morning hours of Thanksgiving. At that point, Getaround hired a tow truck and repo team to recover the car, but the company told NBC 5 that when the tow and repo teams arrived, they felt “threatened” by the thieves.“At that point, instead of calling the police or taking any further action, even alerting me, Getaround just let it go. So then [the thieves are] able to start the car again,” Barron said.Barron ended up filing a police report days later, after she realized Getaround had failed to do so.
“While we recognize the unfortunate nature of [Barron’s] experience, it is not typical of a Getaround host where a safe and reliable car sharing experience is the norm,” spokesperson Keil Decker told NBC 5. In the last two years, NBC 5 Responds found at least 11 other thefts where hosts reported to police that thieves had disabled Getaround’s security system and stolen their vehicles.
The company said, “Getaround has implemented 'Getaround TrustScore,' a next-generation AI model that better determines risky behavior on trips, which ultimately helps protect hosts and improves the quality of renters in our marketplace.”