I actually prefer the term gas-lamping, but I guess gas-lighting is the proper one. In any event, I had a super frustrating thing happen to me a few days back that eventually had me doubting my sanity just a bit...
I had been planning on renting a ZipCar for a couple of hours this weekend to take the kids to Hamilton. While there isn't anything specific that I want to see in Hamilton, it really was a bit more of a test run to see if we could go to London by May or so. (We really don't do much travelling by car obviously.)
I couldn't quite remember my password or user name (or more likely in fact the account had been suspended, but I am getting ahead of myself). So one day when I had some time, I plugged in the different email addresses to do an account recovery. It told me that none of them were registered. I found that baffling, so I called ZipCar last Wed. While my name was in the system, it is possible that I registered under my previous address, but more to the point, the credit cards weren't correct. I find this really quite hard to believe, as I made a few trips on ZipCar last year (including to rent a van to do some landscaping work, and this trip was definitely after my credit cards were switched over). Because I "failed" these security tests, they could not let me into the system. I asked the guy what I was supposed to do, and he said I would have to get into the system on-line and update my information or he couldn't help me. I swore at him and hung up.
I have a program that archives all my emails, and I went through it and there was not a single email about ZipCar or anything that said "reservation" in the email. But this is where I feel I am going a bit crazy. I mean I certainly remember getting emails about returning the car on time or reminding me about an upcoming reservation. So somehow these emails have been deleted out of my actual email account, as well as from the archive? That seems incredibly far-fetched (since you certainly aren't supposed to be able to recall emails past a couple of days and not from an archive), but it is just as far fetched that ZipCar would not have sent me any information at all about my account.
About the only thing that makes any sense at all (and even this doesn't explain everything) is that my main email remained my previous work account and then they had sent emails to that account warning me that I hadn't paid my annual fee or whatever, so that my account was simply suspended and locked. But as I said, I most certainly was renting ZipCar as late as last August, and there is literally no record of me doing so. At this point, I will check my old credit card statements and see if there was an annual fee paid or not. If not, I am so annoyed at them, that I think I will let my membership lapse forever. I will either look into Auto Share (which also has some cars near me) or just bail on ride-sharing completely. In most cases, it is actually cheaper to rent a car from Hertz or Alamo if you are actually going anywhere substantial. It is only for the 1-3 hour trips where ZipCar is actually cheaper, and I have managed to arrange my life so that I really don't make these short driving trips. All in all, this has been just one more thing in my life that has me frustrated and upset, and I better off without ZipCar on the whole.
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