The car hire firm Zipcar has been accused of snobbery after a whistle-blower revealed youngsters from certain London postcodes are banned from renting cars.
A company employee has told of how the firm refuses to allow anyone under the age of 25 living in poorer areas of London to sign-up to for the service.
While youngsters living at smarter addresses can rent a car aged 21.
Blacklisted areas include parts of Barking and Dagenham, Hounslow, Harrow, Brent and Tower Hamlets.
The company which works similarly the Boris bike scheme, with cars available to hire by the hour, admits that those under 25 living in certain areas cannot sign-up but denies the reasons have anything to do with the “economic circumstances” of the area.
The whistle-blower told The Mail on Sunday that employees are told to lie to undesirables telling them that they cannot subscribe to the service for insurance reasons.
The employee said the ban had been company policy for at least three years.
Zipcar membership costs £59.50 a year and it costs £6 an hour to rent a car.
Margaret Hodge, the Labour MP for Barking and Dagenham told The Daily Mail: “I’m truly taken aback by Zipcar’s bigoted snobbery. It is an ignorant and lazy assessment of Barking.”
Zipcar told the newspaper: “Within those postcodes, we have had to increase the age of eligibility to 25 due to a range of factors, including insurance. We have worked hard to allow membership to as young an age group as possible.
“We do this on an objective and lawful basis – the economic circumstance of an area is absolutely not a factor.”
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