Who Will Save Philly Car Share From Itself?
It has not — repeat, NOT — been a good year for Philly Car Share. Once the dominating force in a car-sharing business it basically invented in this town, PCS has recently been assaulted from all sides: Other startups and established car-share outfits trying to take a chunk out of its sizable market share (see Zipcar, et al.), criminals who cleverly exploited PCS’s gas card honor system, and now, turmoil from within. Phillymag reports that a major implosion/explosion between Philly Car Share principals Tanya Seaman and Clayton Lane has left the company in a very strange place indeed, with two of its founders either out, on the way out, or, um, not allowed in the building. One source we talked with described the scrap that occurred in-office recently as, well, not a scrap at all: “‘Scrapping’ would be putting it lightly. ‘Bathing in their blood and rinsing with their tears’ is more like it.” The source also points to a PCS newsletter hitting inboxes tomorrow as detailing the changes afoot at PCS, hopefully outlining new management as well.
PhillyMag: Your Wheels, Our Meltdown
September 9th, 2008 at 1:58 pm
You mean more changes beyond the new tier system system in effect in a couple of weeks (that seems to encourage the use of boxy, probably not as efficient Scion Xbs, Matrixes and Focus wagons)?
My opinion: the company aggressively overexpanded to combat the for profits before they showed up in town. Billing conerns and maintenance issues started to become a problem then. I think this meltdown is probably a result of something that grew without a similar amount of growth in its management team.
September 11th, 2008 at 10:37 am
The only thing I don’t like about this article is calling the credit card exploit ‘clever.’ It’s not clever, it’s stone-headedly obvious, and to call it clever gives these scumbags way more credit than they deserve.. It’s just a shame that this honor system couldn’t be made to work :(
Nathan
September 17th, 2008 at 9:05 pm
A carsharing company has a problem with gas cards. And, zipcar is still not releasing its financial statements for Philadelphia. Shocking news. Wow, Philebrity has outdone itself this time. PCS must be on its way out… all 30,000 members… the BIGGEST carshare in the world… born here in the City of Brotherly Love… but the two relentless, hardworking cofounders can’t get love from this town. You should be ashamed Philebrity.
September 18th, 2008 at 5:24 pm
They have grown too fast. You cannot depend on them for business. I have reserved several times only to show up and there is no car waiting! Once it happened twice in the same day. Their customer service takes 10 – 20 minutes to get through and they really don’t care very much about your plight. They act like they are doing you a favor.
I hate buying a car. And I hate seeing Philly Car Share fail. But it is too undependable.