Verification Takes 5 Minutes on WhatsApp — Here's Exactly What We Check and Why

New renters occasionally ask if our verification process is a formality or something we actually enforce. It's the latter, and I'd rather explain exactly what each step checks than let people assume it's just paperwork.

Step one: the driving licence, checked before we confirm a slot

You send a clear photo of a valid, non-expired driving licence over WhatsApp before we confirm your booking slot — not after. This is deliberate: we don't want to hold a car for someone and then discover at pickup that their licence has expired or doesn't cover the vehicle class. Catching that upfront saves both of us a wasted trip.

Step two: a second government ID, for one specific reason

A second ID — Aadhaar or passport — is for address verification, nothing else. It's stored securely on our own records and never shared with a third party or uploaded to an external verification service. The reason we ask for it at all is straightforward: a licence proves you can drive, not that you live where you say you do, and knowing a genuine address matters if a vehicle isn't returned on schedule.

Step three: the live selfie match, and why it's live

At pickup, a live selfie is matched against your licence photo — this takes under a minute and it has to be live, not a photo of a photo, because the entire point is confirming the person picking up the car is the same person whose documents we verified over WhatsApp. It's a small extra step, but it closes the one gap that document verification alone can't: someone else showing up with borrowed paperwork.

Where the deposit fits into the sequence

The security deposit — collected via UPI or card — comes after verification is complete, not before. We don't take a deposit and then start checking documents; the order matters because it means you're never paying anything before we've confirmed you're a genuine, verified renter and the car you want is actually available. See the full verification page for the complete sequence, and our cancellation policy for what happens if verification doesn't go through in time for your slot.

How long we actually keep your documents

Your licence photo and second ID are retained only for the duration of your rental history with us, tied to your WhatsApp number, and used solely to speed up verification on a repeat booking so returning renters don't have to resend documents every single time. They're not sold, shared with a marketing partner, or uploaded to any external database — the whole point of doing verification ourselves over WhatsApp instead of through a third-party API is keeping that data under our own control.

Five minutes feels like a small ask against the alternative — a rental industry with a real, documented history of handover disputes because nobody checked who was actually driving the car.