Jeremy Ahlfield and his wife were relying on the popular car-sharing service Zipcar on Saturday when halfway through their reservation they noticed a wallet in the trunk.
“We contacted Zipcar to say, ‘hey, there’s a wallet here.’ They said, “yeah, we know,” he explained to Global News.
“Turns out the girl (who owns the wallet) doesn’t have a Zipcar membership and her getting into the car was difficult,” said Ahlfield.
The young father did what most well-meaning citizens would do: turn the wallet into police. But he was met by a surprising response from a Zipcar employee.
“The supervisor came on the phone and said, ‘well our policy is that you leave lost items in the glove compartment so members can get back into the car and get them,’” he said.
Ahlfield said Zipcar told him he would be charged a penalty for going over his reservation time if he went to police, and that his membership could be jeopardized for not following policy.
“We tried to extend (the reservation) and someone had taken the reservation after us. Prior to that he had actually denied our request to extend it because we were breaking policy,” said Ahlfield.
He decided to risk the penalties and go to police.
“Screw it, we’re going to do this.”
“Our nine-year-old son was in the car and we’re going to teach him about morality and we’re going to show him that even if it hurts, you can be a nice person,” Ahlfield said.
Toronto police told Ahlfield he did the right thing.
“Never leave anything out and abandoned, especially something like a wallet because there are personal identifiers there,” Const. Jenifferjit Sidhu told Global News.
The wallet belonged to “a young girl — she’s 19,” explained Ahlfied.
“We were worried someone would steal her identity.” Something which has happened to his wife, Amaya, who shared the detail while recounting the couple’s interaction with Zipcar on Facebook.
The story resonated, earning 120 shares a day at one point, according to Ahlfield — and plenty of barbs at Zipcar.
Zipcar told Global News they’ve apologized to Jeremy and his wife and are reviewing their policies.
“We have fully refunded their reservation and have provided them additional driving credits to enjoy their next ziptrip on us,” spokeswoman Lindsay Wester said in an email.
“Our members are always our top priority.”
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