Fuel cost (non-)reimbursement by free2move - my experience with fighting back
Throwaway account since I don't want any free2move employees that might happen upon this post to link my real identity to my Reddit handle.
BLUF: free2move tells customers to pay for refueling costs out-of-pocket, claims they will reimburse, and then renege and claims that reimbursement is not possible for US rentals.
I picked up a free2move this weekend, and the fuel tank was empty when I picked it up. Went to the free2move website and found this instruction:
>United States
>Our Washington fleet does not currently support digital refueling or physical fuel cards. Please refuel the vehicle as needed and pay upfront. Simply keep your receipt and submit a refund request directly through the app —we’ll take care of the rest! Plus, you’ll earn an extra $10 credit for every fuel refund of $30 or more.
https://www.free2move.com/helpcenter/s/article/How-do-I-refuel-Free2move-cars?language=en_US
Pretty straightforward right?
Well, turns out they don't actually offer you a refund. They only offer you credits to be used on future rides. The "bank transfer refund" option in the app is grayed out once you actually get there.
I contacted customer service to request an actual refund, and received a very clear response:
>Kindly note that we do not issue refunds for refueling. Instead, credits are granted, which have already been applied to your account previously.
>Please also note that refueling refunds are not currently available in the US, except in Europe, and as indicated on our website, only credits can be issued for such requests until further notice.
(The information they mention is on a different page but you have to dig for it.)
I don't think I need to explain how ridiculous and deceptive this is - they advise you to spend your own money, claim that they will refund you, and then they just keep your money and tell you a refund isn't possible.
For any future victims, here's what I did in response:
I filed a chargeback with my bank of course - but that's not really enough to satisfy me.
Also fired off complaints with the DC Attorney General and the FTC, and went on LinkedIn and used Claude + some manual search-and-replace to come up with a firstname.lastname@free2move.com e-mail for most of the people there.
In addition, here is a helpful list of all of the public e-mail addresses of various departments that I was able to dig up for free2move and its various international subsidiaries:
dataprotection share-now.com
contact-b2b-fr free2move.com
connectfleet free2move.com
privacy free2move.com
specialrequest-usa free2move.com
contact rent.free2move.com
business.at free2move.com
business.fr free2move.com
business.de free2move.com
business.it free2move.com
business.nl free2move.com
business.es free2move.com
contact free2move.com
codus free2move.com
support-dc free2move.com
service-madrid free2move.com
support-lisboa free2move.com
service.client free2move.paris
carondemand free2move.info
serviceclientparis free2move.com
I e-mail bombed all of the aforementioned about 3 times until they started getting bounced back to me by their spam protection systems.
Not sure what exactly did the trick, but a couple hours later I got a phone call from an "Edgar" saying that they would refund to my original form of payment as a "one-time courtesy." (Well well, apparently it is possible then!)
They also asked me not to file a chargeback, I laughed and told them it's already filed and I hope that it causes them some headache, along with the complaints that I filed, because while it's nice that they fixed my problem after some harassment, they shouldn't get away with this in the future.
Would like to leave this up here as a warning and a resource for anyone who might Google this topic in the future :)