Here's a tale of how you don't run a mobility startup, unless you don't care about the safety of your customers and your public image.

Berlin car sharing startup Miles is demanding thousands of Euros from customers whose car was stolen, claiming that damages caused by thieves while driving the vehicles should be covered by their users.

Turns out, Miles has always been leasing their entire car fleet, while renting it through a white-label platform they had no control over at least until recently. As a result, they failed to implement basic industry-standard safety mechanism, such as an immobilizer, that all of their competitors have been using for years. This, despite their telematics providers all offer the immobilizer as a feature.

In one case they're threatening to sue a customer for 13,000€, during a pandemic. The customer is a bar owner, and faces bankruptcy as a result. In that specific case, Miles Mobility admitted that the car could be opened and turned on hours after the user had ended the rent.

Edit, to add some elements:

- don't miss the part about how customer support suggested not to call the police. Twice.

- it's totally unclear how they are not covered by their insurance, and how can their investors be fine with all this (lead investor is Lukasz Gadowski of Delivery Hero fame, and TeamEurope Ventures founder).