We have been using the services of EZI drive for more than a year. Typically we get drivers once or twice a week. We believe this is a good model for driver sourcing as drivers are efficiently deployed, earn more and we can have a driver when we want one as opposed to having one hanging around. Overall, it works out cheaper and better for everybody. We would definitely support this model for driver services.
During this time we have had two bad experiences with drivers. We ignored the first one as just bad luck. The second one is less easy to ignore as it possibly implies the culpability of the call centre as well.
Yesterday we got a driver after booking him the previous day for about 5 hours. About an hour after he started duty he asked me when he would be let off and my reply was that we would be about 5 hours in total as specified. I then got a call from him about an hour later saying that his brother in law was in trouble and he would not be able to work the 5 hours. I had heard this brother in law story from the previous bad experience too. I told him that the minimum payment is for 4 hours hence the minimum responsibility is for the same period. He was clearly unhappy about that. When he brought the car back my wife was in the car and heard him talk to the call centre accepting a booking or so it appeared to us. I paid him the the 4 hour payment and let him go in three hours.
I would like EZI drive to look very carefully into this and confirm if the Call Center staff were culpable here. If so it represents very poorly on the people involved to renege on an existing contract to take on a new one.
I would like to stress that for us this is a rare instance. We ourselves have tried to behave impeccably with these drivers by often giving them time off for lunch etc. and with the company by always calling a driver through the company. Even where the time has gone over the hour by only a few minutes we have paid for the full hour.
We believe in this model and would like it to succeed for everyone. For that to happen, the company has to work with us to ensure that the occasional bad driver does not spoil the reputation of the company. The ID of this driver was 2102. If the company is serious about pursuing this I would want a senior person from the company to trace this transaction and call me. I think it would be pointless to pursue this with the call centre staff considering that they may be complicit in this misdemeanour.