BMW gives $10 credit to thousands of car-sharing members after service goes down in Seattle

An AT&T connectivity issue caused serious problems for BMW’s car-sharing service this past holiday weekend, forcing the car-maker to hand out $10 gift credits to more than 13,000 users in Seattle.

ReachNow, BMW’s free-floating car-sharing program that debuted in Seattle exactly three months ago, is now fully restored after technical issues arose this past Saturday and continued throughout the week.

ReachNow CEO Steve Banfield told GeekWire that the problem stemmed from network connectivity changes made by AT&T, which powers part of ReachNow’s back-end system that allows people to rent one of 520 vehicles with their smartphone and drive from Point A to Point B within a “Home Area” that encompasses much of Seattle proper.

Customers began reporting problems this past Saturday, and by Tuesday, a majority of the vehicles were impacted, Banfield said. Users reported trouble with reserving, unlocking, starting the vehicles, and ending trips with both the ReachNow app and the physical ReachNow member card (you can unlock and lock vehicles with either method).