GM Car Owners With OnStar Now Can Be Their Own Rental Agencies

The Los Angeles Times reports that the world of micro-rentals just got a whole lot more crowded, with the introduction of a nationwide partnership between GM and ride-sharing company RelayRides. RelayRides has been arranging short-term car sharing in just a few cities for several years; car owners can sign up to make their own cars available for short-term rentals to others, so their expensive investment (especially in cities where parking is like a second apartment's rent) isn't sitting idle. Now, the two companies are rolling out that system in a much larger market: the rest of the U.S. Owners of GM cars new enough to be equipped with OnStar monitoring systems will be able to sign up to take part with the OnStar system providing the ability to unlock and track those cars remotely, which might make the bargain more attractive to many owners who'd like to earn money from their cars (and reduce the total number of cars needed in a given area), but reluctant to hand the keys to a stranger. (Cars without the system can still be enrolled, but will require a key hand-off.)

Comments

Re:Still Evil

[vlm]

Even though this seems like a good thing, there is a corporation involved so I'm sure there is evil involved.

Gentlemen of Slashdot, affix your tinfoil hats and let's start dissecting this!

1) Find car you'd like to steal or strip.
2) Social engineer the car to be a part of this "rental agreement".
3) "rent" car using the usual fake ID stuff (or just tell them you're an illegal and they're not allowed to discriminate against you).
4) Drive to steel walled warehouse or just strip the parts you want, after all they have fake ID.
5) Profit!

I am virtually certain GM is not prepared for the security implications of this.

Another interesting topic is I rent the Home Depot truck when I'm transporting garden manure etc. I wonder how they handle borderline situations where its not illegal or wrong, but...

The last topic I've never been able to understand is there used to be intense publicity about civil forfeiture, where you'll lose your car non-judicially just because a cop wants it. Now this could happen to anyone walking down the street, but how do these rental deals handle having the cops steal a car from a renter?