
Car-sharing service HiGear shuts down due to theft of 4 cars worth $400,000 - tfe
http://techcrunch.com/2012/01/01/luxury-car-sharing-service-higear-shuts-down-due-to-theft/
======
jackowayed
I felt worse for these guys until I read to the end of the letter and found
out about the "HiGear girls". It's not quite as bad as I thought because they
don't seem to "rent out" these models like they do cars; I guess it was just a
publicity thing. But still, having revealing pictures and even stats
(measurements) of the women is pretty much the definition of objectification.

FOLLOWUP (responding to comments): I'm not concerned about the women in the
pictures. They freely chose it, and made enough money to make it worth it to
them.

But things that reinforce the societal ideal that women's value comes from
being conventionally attractive is much more deeply damaging than most people
realize. It leads to the body image issues that the _majority_ of young women
grapple with. Anything that makes it seem like numbers define how attractive
you are is especially bad, because it makes it harder for people to accept
their own non-ideal bodies as beautiful. It encourages young women to spend
vast amounts of their free time learning about and working on being attractive
rather than, say, tinkering with computers. To some extent, it leads to income
inequality between men and women (Girls grow up with the message that pleasing
men, by being attractive among other ways, is good, so they tend to up more
passive in many situations. This makes them less willing to negotiate for
salary, less willing to go out of their way to take credit for their work,
etc. It also leads to other bad things like being less willing to say no to
sex.)

I like seeing racy pictures of girls as much as the next guy, but displays of
women like this, especially right next to and in the same format as rental
listings, encourages societal ideals that are at the root of most of the
gender-related problems in our society.

~~~
Shenglong
_it makes it harder for people to accept their own non-ideal bodies as
beautiful_

That's because usually (if not always) non-ideal bodies are not beautiful. I
feel like there's a giant disconnect between people like you (sweeping
generalization, no offense intended) and people around me. You see a girl with
some extra weight and you may think she should ignore it, and hop on a
computer. Here, most (yes, most) of the girls go to the gym and exercise.

Also, often the girls aren't even trying to please men. One friend of mine
spends a lot of her time making Youtube videos on nail decoration. Do her
thousands of followers think men will be irresistibly attracted to the
detailed glitter polish on their nails? No.

I understand your desire to make the genders equal, but I think you're being
blinded because of it.

~~~
rmc
_That's because usually (if not always) non-ideal bodies are not beautiful_

people have different tastes. just look at gay men and straight men. they find
different things attractive. there is no perfectly sexy/beautiful type. it's
all subjective. for every person, there's someone who thinks they are
beautiful.

~~~
sliverstorm
The statement that always throws me for a loop is, "Everyone is (physically)
beautiful". Besides not making sense (right up there with "... and all the
children are above average"), it seems irresponsible to actually embrace being
unhealthy in the name of feeling good about yourself.

~~~
rmc
It's not the same as "all children are above average", since you're comparing
a subjective evaluation (beauty) to an objective evaluation (e.g. reading
skills). Neither am I saying that everyone is beautiful to everyone else, just
that everyone is beautiful to someone.

After all, there are some niche tastes. Just look at the gay community whose
tastes can range from Bears (big chunky hairy guys) to twinks (young skinny
femmy guys). For straight male equivalents, look at BBW, to Asian, to MILFs,
to femdom/dominatrixes, etc.

I am not advocating being unhealthy. There are many people who have a healthy
lifestyle & fitness and body, and yet are not as skinny as many many models
and 'attractive people'. The fashion industry does not promote healthy bodies.

~~~
sliverstorm
But how would you know beauty if you did not also know the lack of beauty? In
the same way as, what is light without dark? You can't truly appreciate one
without the other.

You could be right about the "everyone is beautiful to someone".

I agree, the fashion industry is not much better. If I was king, I'd have
everyone aim for athletic/fit. I suppose that's just one person's preference
though.

~~~
rmc
Yes everyone knows beauty and ugliness, but its not the same standard for
everyone. Lots of people have their own idea of beauty and ugliness. What's
ugly or meh to me, might be stunning to you. For example, some straight men
like grantees/older women. They find these people attractive, and others find
these people ugly. There is not one standard.

------
m0nastic
That's sad to hear, but I think he's right to realize that it's going to be
really hard to deal with losses when the auto theft community gets wind of
their business.

I am always amazed by the efficiency and technological prowess that the kids I
grew up with who steal cars apply to their trade (even if I wish they were
involved in a better trade).

One kid I grew up with now has a ring of six guys working for him, paying good
benefits and matching retirement accounts, where all they do are steal Honda
Civics. Just that model. I swear he's implemented Kaizen into his workflow.

~~~
dennisgorelik
The problem with running criminal business is that as soon as he tries to
scale, he would inevitably and very seriously piss off lots of people.

That would put extra pressure on law enforcement to catch the thieves and they
would eventually be caught.

Next step is several years in jail and close monitoring of the future crime
activities.

End result - the only expertise that he would gain over the years (in
stealing) would be not marketable.

~~~
m0nastic
So, there are artificial constraints to the scalability of an operation like
his.

For starters, all territory is split up among the different crews who run
them. That they do this democratically and unanimously without anyone muscling
in on surrounding territory is something I've never quite figured out; but
it's been working for forty years.

That limitation on potential territory makes you maximize your resources in
the geographic areas you control. You get to the point where you know the best
neighborhoods for your guys to work based on time-of-day, holidays, local
sports schedules, which neighborhoods are composed of people who primarily
have others over for the holidays, vs. which neighborhoods primarily go
somewhere else to celebrate, etc.

So there is a pretty small limit to how large an operation like that gets, but
he's able to pay for his house, send his kids all to private school, and
ensure they all can go to any college they want.

It's a decent "lifestyle business", minus the fact that it's a terrible thing
to do to people, and unbelievably dangerous.

~~~
dennisgorelik
> all territory is split up among the different crews

That's probably not that much due to negotiation, but because smarter team
tips off police about criminal activity of competing team, and competing team
ends up in jail.

I would guess that more aggressive team is more likely to end up in jail,
which causes natural evolution toward less greedy teams.

Still, stealing is a stupid choice for people capable of running efficient
organization.

------
po
How can Techcrunch say "the group stole four cars totaling $400,000" and then
immediately print a letter from the company saying "The total value of these
cars was around $300,000"? Even though in this case it's ok if you read the
letter, it is the kind of thing that makes me feel like I shouldn't rely on
Techcrunch's reporting. It's really not a big deal but how did that happen?
Why are the numbers different?

~~~
zacharytamas
I've noticed this too. There have been several cases in the past few months
where when reading TechCrunch I was like "Wait, what?".

~~~
protomyth
The Red vs Arri lawsuit story they ran felt that way. It looked like it was
cribbed off the Reuters report. It struck me like the author didn't actually
read the papers filed in the lawsuit. The biggest issue was the lack of
reporting on the accusation that Arri sabotaged a Red One on the set of a
movie. The original report was written before court papers were available (I
think), but the TechCrunch story was posted well after court papers were
available. It just seems like they are getting sloppy nd not checking things.

~~~
zacharytamas
I'm sure there's pressure to put out articles as fast as possible verses the
old days of publishing where a journalist might have weeks to work on their
piece. With publishing on the web so easy these days readers tend to expect
higher publishing frequency, but I'm sure we can't be the only ones who would
gladly trade quantity for quality.

~~~
protomyth
I guess I would really like the writer of an article to actually read the only
piece of source material. Yeah, I would love quality, but the current
advertising metrics seem to work against quality in a big way.

------
asanwal
I was surprised by the founder spending time in his letter to users talking
positively about other players in the space (RelayRides, GetAround) and why
their car sharing models should still work.

He didn't have to do this, but it struck me as a nice and unexpected gesture.

~~~
ww520
It's nice of him.

The Valley or startup scene is a small world. If his company doesn't work out,
he/they can always work for the others.

------
DevX101
I briefly thought about starting a business like this a couple years ago.

During this thought exercise I came to the conclusion that an embedded GPS
would be essential to maintain security.

Another idea would be making your social network your security system, by only
allowing rentals to people within two degrees of separation on a social
networking site.

~~~
slug
GPS would be useless for a determined thief, be it by simply jamming the
GPS/cell signal or a RF sniffer to locate the (cellphone/whatnot) transmitter
in the car and destroy it. From what I see, your social network sanction would
be the only feasible option.

~~~
dennisgorelik
You probably meant "expert thief". Somebody who had 10000+ hours of expertise.
Somebody who risked to get caught while gaining that expertise.

There are not so many real expert thieves. That's why extended security
measures do work: less experienced majority of thieves is caught outright, and
more experienced minority of thieves is eventually caught due to unforeseen
circumstances (unexpected witness, unexpected new security measure, etc.).

For example, GPS transmitter can stay silent until it gets "You are stolen"
signal.

There could be more than one transmitter in a car. It may get activated only
when on the move (and not in a garage) etc.

~~~
slug
"For example, GPS transmitter can stay silent until it gets "You are stolen"
signal."

That's true, but most electronic circuits emit stray radiation, switching or
crystal references. Not only that, the hypothetical receiver needed for your
stolen signal has a least a local oscillator with a nice and probably almost
on clean signal. (I think in UK they used something like this to track people
that didn't pay their TV tax, or even SS tracking WWII French resistance, but
it might be an urban legend, although feasible, since stray LO frequency can
propagate to the antenna and is sometimes used to check correct mixer/filter
tuning).

Or even more simple, get a big truck with metal cage for RF shielding and
disassemble the car for parts, which is more profitable. They just need to get
rid of serial numbers and such.

I agree about the expert thief, but considering that [internet] criminal gangs
go to the trouble of hiring experts to do the (hard) technical part, I would
guess that gangs interested in stealing expensive cars would have no problem
finding unscrupulous people to help them disable any security measure.

Even the car share company devises a security measure, what stops someone from
registering into the service with fake ID and knowing all about it to
neutralize it?

~~~
dennisgorelik
Why would a person who was able to pass background check and has security
expertise - risk his safe life and good income by dealing with criminal gangs?

Yes, it's possible, but as an exception, not as a rule.

Criminal activity would never stop completely, but not because it's impossible
to beat criminals, but because as soon as crime goes down - people and
businesses start doing more risky activities, trust more and check less.

------
mrlinx
The title had me thinking 400,000 per car. The article corrected me to 400,000
total. The founder email corrected me further to 300,000 total.

------
bane
A surprisingly fragile business model. I've wondered how Zipcar et al. haven't
been killed by this? Or have they just done a better job at figuring theft
into their model as a cost?

~~~
rdouble
Not many car thieves want to steal a Scion xB with a giant ZipCar logo on the
side.

~~~
bane
My understanding is (and I could be completely wrong in this) is that most low
end cars are stolen for the parts, not the car.

~~~
jonknee
Zipcar's all have remote kill functionality and the ignition is tied to the
RFID Zipcard. It's likely not worth the effort to defeat the tech to get the
end result. It would be for a $100k exotic.

------
16s
They should remain in business, but add a fingerprint requirement. This would
stop criminals from pretending to be law-abiding citizens. Documents and
identities are easy to steal or forge, but in-person fingerprints that match
those documents are much more difficult to forge.

Edit: This is why background checks without fingerprints are not very
meaningful. The check may be on a clean identity, not the criminal.

~~~
shabble
The costs of running a manned fingerprinting system would be pretty heavy and
hard to scale, I imagine, not to mention inconvenient for users.

Without some skilled operator attending closely, there are all manner of ways
to fake fingerprints on both electronic and traditional ink systems. If it's
going to net you a $100k car, the incentive is probably sufficient that
someone would do it.

------
sarbogast
For me, their main problem is that they relied on traditional bank accounts
and government-certified IDs to check identities. And we all know those ID's
are easy to fake. Collaborative consumption needs a stronger identity,
certification and reputation platform, one that does not isolate reputation
profiles into silos and doesn't rely on unscalable certification authorities.
And that's exactly what we are working on with peertru.st

So if you are interested in this, let us know. This is the first pillar after
all: [http://blog.kodesk.com/2011/11/01/the-three-pillars-of-
colla...](http://blog.kodesk.com/2011/11/01/the-three-pillars-of-
collaborative-consumption/)

------
jermaink
The services should act like Airbnb did when they experienced 'bad user
behaviour'. Adding security/verification/security features (2nd degree FB
connections, Twitter, camera shot, webcam shot...) and marketing them as a new
core competency of the service. They did a bad press turnaround in less than 3
weeks.

------
signa11
a silly question, but isn't there any insurance on the said cars ? if the cars
are lost/stolen etc. and they do have insurance, let the insurance company
deal with law-enforcement or other 'out-of-band' mechanisms (too many
hollywood movies) to retrieve the stolen property...

~~~
sounds
The insurance premiums will go up.

The problem is that the cars are owned _not_ by HiGear but by wealthy clients
who want to rent out their car (instead of having it sit in a garage). The
cars have sentimental value. They may be customized and difficult/impossible
to replace.

I suppose there are already businesses that don't use a Peer-to-Peer model. If
it's just a matter of arranging rentals in a more traditional model, and only
for wealthy customers, I don't even have to google -- it's been done before.

~~~
kd1220
It's been done before, but I think the result the same. I met with a guy who
was a co-owner of a luxury car rental service in South Florida. He wanted help
with implementing a tracking system, but I passed up the job. He started the
company back in late 2008, and it had gone under some time early in 2011.

I saw him again recently and asked why the business went bust. To paraphrase
him: "High overhead and picky customers." Turns out people who rent exotic
cars want the newest and latest cars, not older models (unless it's
vintage/classics they're looking for, but that's another beast). So you have
to keep your stable fresh. Trying to offload exotics is a pain, because
there's a specific type of person who will buy a used exotic: a nouveau rich
man with more pride than financial management skills.

The kicker was when he told me that if he ever decides to launder money, he'll
start another luxury rental place, because it would be perfect for that.

------
ryanmarsh
Sadly not surprising.

------
vaksel
the problem seems to be with verification not the business model itself.

so they should just tweak it to make it work...there are hundreds of supercar
rental companies, so just copy them.

.

------
shin_lao
Why don't they require the peers to provide them with a bank account and then
check up with the bank?

It would require setting up a false bank account with enough money. That's
harder than false ID and stolen credit card.

If the above isn't enough, add an income statement.

Then you get billed for how much you use the car.

------
xaxa2000
another dumb vc sponsored idea fails, 290120 left...

------
notatoad
Why does a car sharing service that can't afford a $400k loss have 4 $100k
cars.

~~~
nano81
Misses the point. It's not the $400k loss that put them out of business, it's
the realization that this will be an _ongoing_ issue they will have to deal
with as organized criminals target them, and they don't have a good solution.
Their model is highly vulnerable, and they don't have an answer.

