The popular Ukrainian car sharing service Getmancar (Car Sharing Solutions LLC) tried to recover damages from the client for the damaged car and a huge fine. However, the Soborny District Court of the city of Dnipro sided with the driver.
The popular Ukrainian car sharing service Getmancar (Car Sharing Solutions LLC) tried to recover damages from the client for the damaged car and a huge fine. However, the Soborny District Court of the city of Dnipro sided with the driver.
The court examined in detail how digital offers work, AI verification based on selfies, and why it will not work to blame the user for damaging the car «by default.»
dev.ua studied the court case and provides details.
In June 2023, a woman from Dnipro booked a Ravon R2 car through the Getmancar app. The trip lasted a little over three hours. The girl completed the rental, parked the car, and left, but forgot to take final photos of the car from four angles, as the app asks.
The next client, who took the same car, noted mechanical damage. Getmancar sent the broken car to a Kyiv service station, received an invoice for the repairs, and charged the girl:
41,050 UAH — for car restoration;
UAH 75,000 — fine for leaving the scene of an accident and concealing damage (according to the strict clauses of the offer agreement).
The total amount of the claims was 116,050 hryvnias. The company sent a demand via email, and when the client refused to pay, it went to court.
The driver’s defense built a radical line of defense. The lawyer argued that:
The client did not use this service at all and did not sign any paper contracts.
The printout from the Getmancar system was in Russian (which violates the Consumer Rights Protection Law).
The final photos of the damage provided by the next driver do not show the car’s license plate, meaning it could have been a different Ravon R2 altogether.
The repairs were carried out in Kyiv, although the car was driven in the Dnieper, and for some reason, the certificate of work performed only lists goods instead of service station services.
Judge D. O. Pokoptseva dotted the «i"s in two very important aspects: how to interpret electronic contracts through applications and how to prove guilt in the sharing economy.
The court rejected the defense’s claims that the driver «did not sign anything.»
An electronic check box is a signature. The court found that the girl had undergone full verification: through the Diya application, she transferred digital copies of her passport and driver’s license to Carsharing Solutions LLC. Moreover, the Getmancar system ran the AI "selfie script» script four times during the rental. Artificial intelligence compared the driver’s face before driving with her photo in the database. She was the one in all the selfies. Therefore, the offer agreement is considered signed, and the fact of using the car is proven.
Despite the fact that the girl violated the car sharing rules and did not take a photo of the car at the end, Getmancar was unable to prove the main thing — that the damage appeared during her trip.
Timing Gap: The company did not provide evidence of continuous monitoring of the car. There was a period of time between the time the girl locked the car and the time the next customer found the dents. The car could have been damaged by someone else in the parking lot.
No trackers or police: Carsharing did not provide data from GPS trackers or telemetry that would record a jolt or impact (the actual moment of the accident) during the defendant’s trip. The company also did not contact law enforcement, so the fact that the accident occurred under her driving is only an assumption.
Photo without license plates: The photos of the damage really didn’t show the license plate of the car.
The court noted that civil liability cannot be based on assumptions, and the mere fact that the client did not take a photo does not automatically make her at fault for the accident.
Getmancar’s lawsuit was completely denied. All legal costs were imposed on the company. Carsharing still has 30 days to file an appeal. For now, this is an important precedent for car enthusiasts: services should more thoroughly prove the guilt of customers using telemetry, and not simply issue «draconian» fines by default.
