tamyca.de: Social site to rent-a-car
I came across a cool site today called tamyca. I’ve seen carpooling sites before, but this goes a step further. The idea is simple, rent your unused car for some spending cash. The video below showcases this further (audio in German only.)
The company charges a small fee of 7.5 euros/day (payable by driver) that covers the rental fee + extra insurance. This fee is additional to what the owner charges for renting the car. Compare these rates to mainstream rental agency prices listed on Kayak.
As a driver this is a great way to save money. But as a car owner, I’m not so sure. Would I really trust a stranger to take care of my car as well as I do? But casting this concern aside, the site seems to be getting popular. Some reasonably decent cars are listed with both drivers and owners building transaction history. This history (combined with user ratings and other social interactions) is a great way to build confidence.
The site could benefit further by using Facebook connect (or something similar from StudiVZ, and perhaps Twitter.) People trust profiles on established social networks and would be more willing to get into business transactions.
Mattias
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I had not known of this website before. Thank you for the post. At the moment, I do not own a car. This service will work well for me, especially since spring is here!
FrankaB
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The price difference in car rental from Europcar/Hertz/Avis and tamacar is very big! This makes me wonder of the quality of the car?
Zaki Usman
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I’ve never used this site before, so I cant comment on it more. But have a look at some cars that’ve been rented before and how drivers have rated them. It should be a good indication of how “reliable” those cars are then.
Topgear
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Don’t expect to see great cars. It’s for making money. I’d be afraid to drive some of the junk listed on such sites.
Simon
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It depends heavily, but normally you don’t make good money with this.
I mostly get requests for distances > 500 kilometers for 1 day and I would earn about 15€. I even lose money if I don’t add 10 cents per kilometer…
BlueManGroup
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This is totally awesome! I’ll be visiting Europe next summer. I’ll give this a try!
Khaled
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I like my new car, so I will not rent it on this service. A few years ago, I had a “student” car…. which was perfect for this service!
Simon
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The prices you showed for tamyca are for 4 hours while the prices from kayak are for the whole day. Most of the times the day-price is only 5-10€ more compared to the 4hrs price, still it’s a difference.
I’ve rented my car once now and I can say that it went really well. Still I’m not sure if I’m going to do this more often. We’ll see..
Zaki Usman
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Simon, you are absolutely right. But I wanted to showcase the lowest price denominator for both services. I’ve rented cars for business meetings where I used the car for a few hours only, yet I paid Enterprise (i.e. kayak) for the whole day. Also no matter what these rental car agencies advertise, picking up a car is not a 5 min process (especially at Airport locations that are usually understafffed.) So thats another 30 mins extra to pick up your car and return has to be done within their office hours, or else they charge you an extra day.
I havent used tamyca service personally, but I imagine working with an individual would be friendlier than working with a rental agency.
Tamyca – Und was halte ich jetzt davon? « Gelegenheitsblogger
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[…] Es wird gesagt, dass man das ja nur des Geldes wegen macht und die Autos viel zu teuer angeboten werden und man sich die Kosten so untereinander aufteilen sollen. Aber mal ehrlich: Das ganze ist für mich persönlich kein wirklich gutes Geschäft. […]
francesco
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Hi everyone! How to collaborate and start this in other Countries? I’m from Italy.
zusman
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It’s best that you email the Tamycar guys directly for this. Good luck!