Man cries theft as Alphard leased via car-sharing app goes MIA

KUALA LUMPUR – An opportunity to earn additional income turned awry for a palm oil trader after the Toyota Alphard he rented out through a popular car-sharing app was never returned.

For 30-year-old Nor Azam Budin, the nightmare began at approximately 8.20pm on June 30 when he was informed that the renter insisted on returning the car personally, instead of handing it over to a representative of the app, which is the company’s protocol.

After raising the issue with the company’s customer service centre, Nor Azam was taken aback when he learnt that the renter had “given the car to a friend who drove it to Banting (Selangor)”.

While the renter replied to Nor Azam’s incessant messages at first, promising to “pay for an additional half-day” and claiming he was “going to get the car from his friend”, these replies soon came to a halt, leaving Nor Azam in a state of shock.

“What made it worse was that I ordered a GPS for my car just a day earlier, but now, there’s no way for me to trace the car, it’s gone,” he said.

The next day, he filed a report with the commercial crimes division at the Jalan Travers police station.

When filing the report, Nor Azam was provided supplementary information by the company, including the name, MyKad number, driver’s licence, and the selfie photo of the renter as required by the app for verification.

However, instead of feeling some slight relief, the information provided only further shocked Nor Azam as he discovered that the photo of the individual in the verification selfie was accepted by the company even though he was wearing sunglasses.

“Their user verification is useless! How can they approve the verification of someone wearing sunglasses? He doesn’t even look like the person in the MyKad,” Nor Azam alleged when speaking with The Vibes.

When contacted, Susan Teoh of Trevo Malaysia said that the company was “shocked and disappointed” at the incident as the guest had made a number of prior bookings without incident.

Teoh explained that the team at Trevo was working closely with the authorities and “also conducting internal investigations” to retrieve the vehicle.

She added that the company has procedures in place to recover costs, expenses, and losses that “protect the interests of the car owner”.

On the matter of the verification selfie, Teoh said that the team is constantly working to improve its system security.

Meanwhile, after Nor Azam’s emails allegedly went unanswered for a week and shortly after The Vibes contacted Trevo, he was informed by a member of senior management that the company will “provide a temporary solution by sending (Nor Azam) a new car”. – The Vibes, July 6, 2022