Chalk it up to both a sad commentary on the diminished state of the mainstream media, and the general screw-you reticence of large corporations. But reaction to stories from big business is so rare than when it does happen, especially unbidden, that is noteworthy in itself.
My column on the New Orleans attack was only up for a few hours Thursday when I got an email from the New York branch of a global communications firm:
"I am reaching out on behalf of Turo," Shea (Maney) Vilardi of Kekst CNC wrote. "We saw your story and wanted to pass along the latest statement from the Company. It is intended to be used in full. The statement should be attributed to a Turo spokesperson."
"Intended to be used in full?" As opposed to plucking out the interesting parts? Kind of handcuffs me from doing my job, does it not? Then again, what they intend, and what I do, can be very different things. I have many bosses, but Turo isn't one of them.
That said, in the spirit of gratitude, I'll use their entire statement. You of course are free to skim:
I'd known of such companies — I've borrowed a few automobiles from George Kiebala over at Curvy Road, an exotic car timeshare in Palatine. Though I'd never heard of Turo before Wednesday's attack. And I sympathize. They are in a delicate situation — this will boost their public profile, though not in a way even the most bottom-line obsessed executive would want (I think. Or hope anyway). So professions of sorrow and side-of-the-mouth self-exculpations are in order.
Not to be cynical. While I sometimes err in anthropomorphizing corporations, it does seem that Turo is disturbed by this turn of events. While I was preparing this post they wrote to me again, sending the following from CEO Andre Haddad. He seems genuinely distressed, and goes on at even greater length:
“We remain shocked and saddened by yesterday’s horrific events, and our hearts are with the victims and their families. We are outraged by the misuse of our marketplace by the two individuals who perpetrated these acts.Turo had a lot to react to. In what at first seemed like coordination, but now is viewed as incredible bad luck, both the pick-up truck used in the New Orleans terror attack and the Tesla Cybertruck blown up in front of the Las Vegas Trump Hotel a few hours later were rented from Turo, a kind of Airbnb for car rentals.
"Every Turo renter is screened through a proprietary multi-layer, data-science-based trust and safety process. We utilize over 50 internal and external data sources to build, maintain, and improve on our best-in-class Turo Risk Score.
"These individuals in question had valid driver’s licenses, clean background checks, one was honorably discharged from the US military, and the other was an active-duty Army green beret. They could have boarded any plane, checked into a hotel, or rented a car or truck from a traditional vehicle rental chain. We do not believe these two individuals would have been flagged by anyone – including Big Rental or law enforcement.
"Turo operates a safe and trusted marketplace. As of September 30, 2024, we have collected data from over 90 million booked days, 27 million trips, 8.6 billion miles driven, through 12 years of operating history, less than 0.10% of Turo trips end with a serious incident such as a vehicle theft.”
I'd known of such companies — I've borrowed a few automobiles from George Kiebala over at Curvy Road, an exotic car timeshare in Palatine. Though I'd never heard of Turo before Wednesday's attack. And I sympathize. They are in a delicate situation — this will boost their public profile, though not in a way even the most bottom-line obsessed executive would want (I think. Or hope anyway). So professions of sorrow and side-of-the-mouth self-exculpations are in order.
Not to be cynical. While I sometimes err in anthropomorphizing corporations, it does seem that Turo is disturbed by this turn of events. While I was preparing this post they wrote to me again, sending the following from CEO Andre Haddad. He seems genuinely distressed, and goes on at even greater length:
"It’s been about 48 hours since the horrific attacks in New Orleans and Las Vegas that shocked us all on New Year’s Day. We’ve spent these tense, mournful hours investigating, partnering with law enforcement, and working around the clock to figure out how our platform could be misused by the perpetrators of such atrocities.
"Thinking about the victims and their families, I’m shocked, saddened, and, more than anything else, just simply heartbroken. Their stories are crushing. Their loss is unfathomable and unfair.
"Thinking about how egregiously the two individuals who perpetrated these heinous crimes abused our platform, I’m outraged. These individuals had valid driver’s licenses, clean criminal backgrounds, and were decorated US military servicemembers — one was honorably discharged and was even awarded a Global War on Terrorism Service Medal, and one was an active duty Green Beret. They could have boarded any plane, checked into any hotel, or rented a car or truck from any traditional vehicle rental chain. We do not believe these two individuals would have been flagged by anyone – including law enforcement.
"But of course, these two tragedies have made us look inward at our trust and safety practices. Our track record to date has been strong. We have facilitated 27 million trips, over 90 million booked days, spanning 8.6 billion miles driven, through 12 years of operating history, and less than 0.10% of Turo trips have ended with a serious incident, such as a vehicle theft. Every Turo renter is screened through a proprietary multi-layer, data-science-based trust and safety algorithm, the Turo Risk Score. We employ over 50 internal and external data sources to build, maintain, and improve on that Risk Score. This massive data set helps us drive actionable insights, and we continuously refine and enhance our algorithm. In addition to that investment in technologies, we’ve also assembled an experienced team of former law enforcement professionals in our Trust and Safety organization.
"Despite this strong track record, and as an immediate next step while we wait for law enforcement to conclude their investigations, we’re consulting with national security and counterterrorism experts to learn more about how we can get even better and play our part in helping prevent anything like this from happening ever again.
"2025 is off to an awful start. While I mourn today, I also remain committed to pioneering and sustaining a strong, secure, trustworthy marketplace for tomorrow."
I'm preserving these in full, not due to the company's injunction, which could just as easily be ignored. But as a student of crisis PR. And besides, if renting vehicles and then using them in terror attacks becomes a regular part of the American landscape, it'll be interesting to compare these statements to those issues after the 16th incident. I doubt Bushmaster sends out a cri du coeur every time one of their weapons is used to shoot up a classroom.
I'm also sharing this because ... well, I believe that no wonder should go unrecorded. You can't both complain about the general silence of corporations and then ignore them when they grab your sleeve and start chattering away. So what do you think? Too much? Their PR firm is part of the second largest global communications company in the world. Myself, I've have urged a little red-penciling.
So how about the "Turo" company set up a blanket GoFundMe for the families of the victims of both tragic events and make a massive donation themselves to launch it. I found the statements a bit redundant and very much in need of a red pencil! BTW Neil, earlier today, I read an article on the Daily Wire of an interview with the owner of the Tesla rental car. A good read.
ReplyDeletewould be nice to have a link
DeleteDidn't the Oklahoma City terrorist bombers use a U-Haul van? I don't remember them freaking out like this for an event that was two orders of magnitude worse in terms of loss of life.
ReplyDeleteI thought of that also, looking it up, it was a Ryder truck. It said they issued a statement expressing regret, but I couldn't find the statement.
DeleteThe OKC bombing occurred before the myriad social media platforms (and their billions of subscribers) existed. Today, a falsehood spreads around the world at essentially the speed of light. People and corporations, even those with zero culpability, have no choice other than to get out in front of the flow of misinformation as soon as possible. They know that their silence will only exacerbated the problem.
DeletePlease stop with the word "falsehood". The correct word is LIE!
DeleteThank you for posting this... now we need to be wary of cars, though pick -ups and cybertrucks are menacing even when not weaponized. Given the nuttery in our midst, we're lucky these tragedies aren't happening constantly.
ReplyDeleteI had a 2015 Audi A6 that I listed in December 2016 on the Turo app during the holidays to make some extra cash to supplement lease payments. Rented it for NYE to a
ReplyDeleteHispanic male and he picked it up- met in person, no red flags. When it hadn’t been returned on time, my husband and I were concerned, but it found its way back a few hours later than agreed upon. When my husband went to inspect the vehicle he found a number of items including a gun holster and bullets. We FLIPPED OUT. When we popped the trunk, a few spent shell casings rolled from the seam on the outside into the trunk. Called CPD immediately. I was shaken beyond words. We found the FB page for the renter of the vehicle and he’d been posting about use of our car and it seemed sinister. Long story short, cops show up to our place and do their “investigation”. They ran our car make/model and plates and didn’t ultimately link it to a crime. They advised that shooting guns up into the air at midnight is evidently a “cultural thing” and told us not to be concerned.
It got interesting when the renter called us upon realizing he left items behind while CPD still standing in our home. They sat in wait in our alley while the guy came back to collect his “stuff”. Long story short, it was horrifying and that was the end of our “income experiment” with Turo. I would never ever recommend this to anyone with a high end car and especially not on a holiday.
I literally shared this story on NYE with some friends that weren’t familiar with the app, and the irony that there were TWO incidents the same night/morning has me reliving that panic and and trauma again. I honestly hadn’t thought about this for years and then woke to not 1, but 2 instances of a “deal gone wrong”!
To this day I look back and think how dumb it was to think some nice guy probably wanted to take his date out to dinner in a nice car. “Fool me once…!”
While I wouldn’t recommend this company/platform to anyone, I must assert that (in my opinion) it shouldn’t be compared to Airbnb, as the protective measures are incomparable.
I am not sure if you needed to use literally in your comment. No doubt there a grammar rule about it
DeleteNo, Bushmaster, the other gun manufacturers & their main stooges, the NRA, Gun Owners of America & the National Shooting Sports Federation, the last of which has its HQ just a few miles from the Sandy Hook school where 26 were murdered, 24 of them small children, send out thoughts & prayers when there is a mass shooting in this country & then they give even more cash to Congress members & state legislators to not pass any new sane restrictions on gun ownership & buying practices.
ReplyDeleteGreat point. Gun manufacturers know their culpability, they don't bother with PR, they just lobby Republican politicians and right wing media.
DeleteYes, red penciling was in order. But in the heat of the moment, I can understand why the words were sent as you received them. I appreciate your sharing them.
ReplyDeleteCould have been edited down to “hey! not our fault.” If too much bad press comes from this, they’ll just change the name of the app. Also, didn’t I read where Musk alternately complained about the use of Cybertruck in the news accounts, even threatening to sue, then bragging about how well it held up to the blast?
ReplyDeleteI don't get it. Do they feel like they're not getting enough press? Are they paranoid -- waiting for the other shoe to drop? They're acting like characters in an Elmore Leonard story.
ReplyDeleteIn a past life I worked with a small PR department for a few years. It would have been my job to pull the stats they used in the statement. Even to me the numbers seem somewhat extraneous. No one cares what percentage of American Airlines flights ended up in a Manhattan skyscraper. The statement sounds a bit over the top self-exculpatory and too corporate-speak-y. "Please don't blame us, we couldn't have known, it could have been any other company..." The CEO's letter starts out heartfelt and genuine, but then veers back to the official statement and the same tone.
ReplyDeleteI understand we're living in the age of viral campaigns on social media where a company's reputation and business can be destroyed by a single strategically launched tweet. But the way to deal with this threat is not cold numbers and a PR mega firm-approved, liability-minded, corporate language. What I would have liked to see in the statements is acknowledgement of involvement, a promise to make changes (even if it's unclear what changes at this time and even if no changes materialize), and more importantly some support to the victims - even without taking responsibility (which they don't have to) covering some medical bills or repairs would have gone pretty far in the "good PR" aspect.
Love the accompanying photo.
ReplyDeleteSome red states have tried to pass legislation allowing people (F150 drivers?) to use their vehicles to attack certain types of protests (liberal, BLM) .
ReplyDeleteThanks for the update. I also wondered who is responsible for the cost of the rented vehicles? The Tesla isn't cheap and the person who actually owned the car is out of a Tesla. Another reason I wouldn't participate in "lending" a car to TURO so they could "rent it" to someone "they checked out".
ReplyDeleteActually, they may be grateful they're out of a Cybertruck, the ugliest vehicle made since the AMC Gremlin or the Pontiac Aztek. Now they can get the insurance cash & buy an F-150 Lightning, an all electric truck you can plug into your house & get power if the electric company power goes out.
DeleteWe are willing to relinquish so many of our civil liberties in order to imagine we are safe just to get mowed down by a vehicle.
ReplyDeleteRented, owned or stolen what difference does it make the status of the vehicle or motive of the murderer?
Lives taken ruined and traumatized. So sad.
My impression of the two statements is that the second is the more heartfelt original draft of the first, based on the number of phrases in common, and was sent out when the CEO was unhappy at seeing the cuts made by the PR firm to something he wrote himself.
ReplyDeleteMy take on this whole thing is that the company is protesting too much over something they likely had no control over, given that their whole business is devoted to exactly what happened: they rented a couple of trucks. No doubt they checked for valid driver's licenses and valid credit cards, but beyond that, what exactly should they have done?
As has already been discussed here, a lot of terrorist incidents both here and abroad involved rented trucks. If memory serves, a Home Depot rental was used in another mass-casualty pedestrian incident, but Home Depot is still renting trucks, and I don't recall any blowback against them at the time.
If I'm a terrorist and I don't happen to own a vehicle big enough for what I've got planned, I'll need to either rent or steal one, and renting one is preferred because (A) I'll have no worries about getting pinched for car theft before I can finish my preparations, and (B) I probably won't be around to worry about paying the bill later anyway.
The highly-paid PR firm mentioned here might have better served their client by persuading him to shut up entirely, or at least by working with him to come up with a statement that was less statistic-y and more sympathetic, without volunteering to take blame for incidents that really don't seem to involve any particular failing on their part.
Assuming Turo performed the generally accepted level of background checks on the renter, I don't see what more they should have done. IMO blaming Turo (who I never heard of until these incidents) is like blaming McDonald's for serving coffeee too hot when the buyer spills it on her lap and sues McDonalds.
DeleteJust gonna throw this stat out there, and let the mice gnaw on it:
ReplyDeleteSixteen comments, ten of them anonymous...
62.5%. Interesting way to start a new year.
Bottom line: The awful truth is, no place is really safe from the crazies anymore. Street fairs, markets, touristy places, parades...anywhere there's a crowd, you now have to watch your back and map out an exit strategy. There are vultures...vultures everywhere. Gobbledygook and corporate-speak will not be changing that.
I guess I'm just a sucker, but I thought both statements were good. They make important points about whether more thorough background checks might have made a difference in these tragic instances. Sure, they could have been trimmed down some, but it often seems to me that too much information is better than too little. (Alas, that impression doesn't seem to apply to my wordy comments here...)
ReplyDeleteThe nice thing about EGD vs. a column in the paper is that this post could be however long you wished it to be, and, as you noted, nobody needs to read the entirety of what they sent if they don't want to.
I'm not a participant in this "rent stuff from other regular people" economy, but I don't think this company (which I'd also never heard of) is culpable for these crimes at all. To me there's a big difference between criminals misusing everyday products that have very important primary uses and gun manufacturers producing weapons designed to kill people, which are then used to kill people.
If somebody beats someone to death with a Lodge cast iron skillet, is that company partly responsible?
Liable? No, but damn, I sure would be tempted to note the durability and interesting adaptability of an American made product, though I wouldn’t be surprised if the orange haired America first weasel beat me to it
Delete(Sorry Neil, my iPad doesn’t recognize my normal pgw handle)
Thanks Jakash. I also admire both statements, especially the second. Of course the owner of the rental business isn't responsible, but how touching to hear the owner's anguish about the suffering of the victims. Of course a red pencil would have perfected the statement, but I appreciate the apparent immediacy of their response -- perhaps preferring expediency to perfection. I'm okay with this as a relatively rapid response.
DeleteAgree 100%
Deletewhen I use a gun I guess its for an off label purpose. have been to the range dozens of times firing hundreds of rounds. hunted several times fired about 10 rounds took home a few deer. never shot or shot at a person own several guns.
ReplyDeleteim all for background checks, red flag laws and think misuse , thats right misuse of a gun should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. for whatever reason that doesn't happen far too often. bring pressure onto our elected and appointed officials to see that it happens. enforce the law. no plea bargains on gun charges. serve the full sentence. escalators for repeat offenders. gun crimes would diminish . magazine restrictions for those under 30. young people are deranged. mandatory insurance for gun owners. gun safety classes for everyone
I heard "the first lawsuit" in the New Oleans attack was filed today. Who are you suing? Funeral arrangements aren't even made, family members in hospitals, but you've got yourself a hungry attorney?
ReplyDeleteThis is an increasingly common act to require so that evidence is preserved, secured and detailed. It has proved most necessary in cases of police shootings, but is now standard practice in any government-involved event. (NS - double check with those sons? delete if I'm wrong, please, to avoid adding to arguments but -- maybe those "hungry" attorneys aren't wrong to file right away?)
DeleteA lawsuit will be filed against the City of New Orleans and New Orleans Police Department for negligence leading to the Bourbon Street terrorist attack on Jan. 1, 2025.
ReplyDeleteMaples and Connick says they will file a lawsuit on Wed. Jan. 8 for failure to implement basic safety precautions for citizens and visitors, paving the way for the attack on New Year's Day.
According to the firm, the evidence will demonstrate that the attack was foreseeable and preventable, and the suspect exploited police negligence, which left 14 people dead and dozens of others injured
If it was so foreseeable, why didn't the revelers foresee it? If it was so preventable, why didn't choose a safer location or stay away?
High-powered personal-injury ambulance chasers, and unfortunately for the actor/singer/composer's sake, Brendan Connick is most likely a close relative of Harry Connick Jr.--whose parents were both lawyers.
DeleteHis mother was a New Orleans lawyer and judge, and Harry Connick Sr.(1926-2024), was the District Attorney in New Orleans for three decades (1973-2004), and a singer in French Quarter clubs as well.
They are not related. There is a Patrick Connick. He is a lawyer. He and Harry are cousins
Delete