When Canadian authorities flagged Krisztian Riez’s vehicle for inspection as he and a friend drove from Montana back home to Alberta, he had no qualms. But what started as a minor inconvenience quickly descended into a nightmare when a swab test of the car tested positive for narcotics.
“As soon as they said it was fentanyl, the whole game turned around,” Riez said. “They ripped through the car, ripped through our luggage, tore through my business records, social media, my phone.”
It was a “massive shock,” in part because Riez had rented the 2015 Dodge Grand Caravan via Turo, a San Francisco-based peer-to-peer car-sharing app he’d previously used without incident. Riez and his friend were released after several hours when agents and their dogs found no other evidence of drugs, aside from trace amounts in the rental car.
But the February incident, which Riez describes as “one of the most humiliating and terrifying experiences of my life,” continued to eat at him. His 6-month-old goddaughter was supposed to be riding in the backseat, where the agents had detected fentanyl.
“They told me, listen, you’re lucky your goddaughter wasn’t with you, because it could potentially have killed her,” Riez recalled. Fentanyl, a synthetic opioid 50 to 100 times more potent than morphine, is the leading cause of drug overdose in the U.S.
He reported the incident to both Turo and the car’s owner and was dismayed to see it relisted on the app just days later.
As he continued to stew, he discovered other situations in which drivers have reported drug issues related to Turo rentals. Last month, he sued the company in San Francisco Superior Court, seeking $1.5 million in damages for emotional distress and loss of earning capacity, among other issues. He’s also aiming to get Turo to enact “policy changes and reform,” he said. Last week, Turo denied the allegations after successfully petitioning to move the case to federal court.
Turo did not respond to The Standard’s requests for comment.
In Turo’s initial responses to Riez, before he filed his suit, the company said its terms of service state that it has “no responsibility for shared vehicles or personal belongings.” Riez sees that as a cop out.
“This is not just an ‘oopsie-daisy’ one-off event,” he said. “It’s distressing that these issues were apparent years ago, but Turo has done nothing about it.”
In early 2020, Turo and a competitor, Getaround, fielded accusations that they failed to help customers whose cars were stolen or used for the consumption or sale of drugs. Getaround has since shut down its U.S. operations, citing financial troubles, leaving Turo as the biggest player in the space. Turo filed to go public in 2022 but scrapped its plans in part due to slowing growth.
In May, a partnership with Uber made Turo vehicle rentals available through Uber’s app. In July, Turo bought the assets of another shuttered competitor, Kyte.
Rental cars have long been used by bad actors, since they can be difficult to track. As a result, they’ve become red flags for border patrol agents, officials say. More recently, peer-to-peer car rentals have become a boon for criminals, according to border patrol agents, as they often appear as personal vehicles when law enforcement officers check the license plates, as opposed to rental vehicles that are registered to companies. Moreover, it may be hard to identify misbehavior when a car can be rented by multiple people in quick succession without company-certified cleaning procedures in between.
In Reiz’s case, a Calgary police sergeant who followed up on his incident told him via email that because the vehicle had been rented out numerous times, “finding the source [of the drugs] and laying charges would be impossible.”
As startups like Turo and Getaround became more mainstream, examples of peer-to-peer car rentals being used for robberies, drug trafficking, human smuggling, or terrorist attacks have proliferated. In 2022, U.S. agents at the Mexican border warned of the growing trend.
“Unlike traditional rental car companies that own, clean, and closely control their fleets, peer-to-peer platforms rely on private individuals listing and managing their personal vehicles,” said Susan Shaheen, codirector of UC Berkeley’s Transportation Sustainability Research Center. That model “creates more variability in how vehicles are maintained, cleaned, and monitored,” which means greater risks for renters and hosts alike.
Renters may be “unknowingly inheriting liability for contraband left in the car,” as Riez was, while vehicle owners could “face damages and misuse,” Shaheen added. She recommends that renters check the car’s compartments and wipe down surfaces and advises companies to invest in “standardized cleaning and inspection protocols, tamper-evident seals, better background checks on renters, and clearer liability protections.”
Turo has said that it has cleaning and safety procedures in place, as well as insurance programs to protect car owners.
For Riez, though, those assurances fall short.
“An incident that had nothing to do with me could now affect my life and my passenger’s life for the rest of our lives,” he said, raising the potential of him being a target for increased scrutiny in the future . “We’ve done nothing wrong.”
Prior to his lawsuit, the company offered Riez a refund and $500, which he refused. He is committed to continuing his legal case and spurring more oversight and concrete changes in the company’s background-check and inspection protocols.
“I’m tired of hearing ‘It’s not our fault,’ or ‘Not our issue,’” he said. “I think accountability is a crucial step in moving in the right direction.”