Our old subaru is dying a slow and expensive death, and I figured I’d try Zipcar as a stop-gap. Heck. Maybe we’d even like it so much that we wouldn’t need to replace the Subaru at all! We could be all progressive and awesome with our car sharing program.

I filled out the application Saturday. Tuesday, I got a sad email informing me that my membership had been rejected due to a “MAJOR INCIDENT” in the last three years of my driving record. For legal reasons, they couldn’t tell me what the INCIDENT was, but after checking their rules I figure it was that speeding ticket from July of 2005 where I was going 52 in a 30. Speeding tickets where you’re going more than 20mph over the speed limit count as MAJOR by Zipcar standards.

Aww. Sad. Very sad. There went that idea. So … oh well.

In the mail today, I got a nice thick envelope from Zipcar.

hi there… said the the san serif copy on the front of the mailing. Not the kind of thing you usually say to a rejected application. I opened it up and found a brand new Zipcard — the thing you need to use the fleet’s cars. I also found a little welcome message with friendly instructions on how easy it was to activate my card. I could be on the road in minutes!

I got excited (had the rejection been reversed? awesome!), but figured I’d better call and check. I patiently waited on hold for 10 minutes to speak to someone, and then explained my story.

“Oh yes,” the young woman said. “We automatically mail out the welcome package before we get your driving record back. Your application is still rejected. You can send the Zipcard back or just throw it away if you’d like.”

Oh. So you mean you just put a customer through being rejected TWICE? That’s fucked up, Zipcar.