A few months ago I wrote about how I had found an odd discrepancy on my Modo invoice where I was undercharged for a trip I made in a Toyota Corolla hatchback at Central Surrey SkyTrain station.
I don’t usually scrutinise my Modo invoices in great depth, but since I was making a comparison of journey times and costs, this time I had all the numbers and times mapped out in detail.
Then when my invoice landed, it was completely different from what I had calculated.
The distance I was invoiced for was 17km less (half) the round-trip journey my son and I made from Surrey Central Station to his soccer game. (I wrote about it in more detail here.)
I was intrigued and dropped Modo an email on 3rd October:
“Just wanted to check one of my trips is correct as you have it. Here’s the info:
On September 21, 2024 from 10:30 am to 2:45 pm, you drove 17 km on a Set Return booking in the Surrey Central SkyTrain vehicle, #1744. Time: $21.25, km: $5.95, Co-op Innovation Fee: $1.50. GST: $1.44. PST: $2.01
I added: “I drove the car from Surrey Central to Willoughby Community Park turf which Google maps says is 17km one way. While I’m happy to pay less, I’m just wondering how I managed to only use 17km or if there’s the possibility of a calculation or odometer error.”
A friendly rep from Modo wrote back, on the same day:
“The root cause of the issue is still being investigated. In the meantime, your booking has been updated with the correct amount of kilometers that were driven (34 km) and we have applied a 3 hour driving credit to your account as a thank you for pointing this out to us. While your booking has been updated, your invoice won’t be updated until tomorrow.”
While it was nice of Modo to credit me $15 for my honesty, my curiosity was still not satisfied.
I reached out again the following week.
“I was hoping you might clarify the mystery” I wrote.
I alluded to the fact that I was holding my blog followers in great suspense.
A different Modo rep from the Member Care Team wrote back the next day:
“We are still looking into what may have transpired…”
With no definitive answer, I imagined a variety of exciting scenarios involving odo fraud, hacking or bugs in the onboard software of this vehicle on the fringe of the Metro Vancouver area that Modo covers.
How many other trips were affected, I wondered.
After several weeks, I wrote again asking if Modo had got to the bottom of it.
“Yes, we’re happy to confirm we’ve looked into it, found the issue, and fixed it. We’d like to thank you once again for reporting this issue.”
I asked again what the issue might be.
Initially, the Modo rep said that they couldn’t share that with me, citing privacy of data.
“Thanks for the reply. We’re sorry, but we do not share internal data.”
I was a little surprised at this response since Modo is a co-op and naively I thought it would be more forthcoming, more open. Especially since, in this case, it was my data that I had questions about.
However, I did request to speak to someone about it and just before Christmas (20th Dec) I got an email from the Modo director of marketing and communications, Jane Hope.
She apologised for not getting back earlier due to flu.
She explained:
“Although Modo does not share internal data to protect the privacy of our users and systems, I did ask further questions on what happened that day. It turns out that during your trip, a technician on our staff was making a manual adjustment to our onboard systems. This inadvertently impacted your onboard system and its calculation of your distance and was entirely coincidental.”
Mystery explained, somewhat.
I put the matter aside for a few weeks (life got busy). Then at the end of February, I called Jane just to double-check the details of the issue for this (belated) write-up.
Jane explained that it wasn’t before or after, but during the trip that the technician’s activity caused half the kilometres to evaporate.
The car’s odometer was unaffected. It was Modo’s separate on-board telematics that caused the issue.
It was apparently just this particular trip in this vehicle that was affected.
So was this just a case of much odo about nothing?
Well, it’s a little disconcerting that someone was able to dial in, make the change to the vehicle’s system while the trip was taking place, and the error apparently not be picked up internally.
However, I was undercharged and received a $15 “honesty” payment for noticing, so I’m not complaining. Also, I haven’t noticed anything like it before in my decade-and-a-half-plus time driving Modo vehicles.
I don’t think it really impacts my overall feeling that Modo provides an excellent service for its members. Mistakes happen and it has apparently fixed this one.
I don’t even mind the secrecy and data-guarding if it ensures Modo can maintain value and security for its members.
It was entertaining to hallucinate about the possible ramifications of my lost miles, from odo hacking to extraterrestrial interference.
Now it’s time to move on to my next trip.
Coming up next: Modo vs Evo, a comparison of two different car share models.