thenewgalaxy

I know we're not into naming and shaming on here but I must share this experience. It involved a company well known for a series of annoying adverts where an American chap tries to deal with English expressions and gets the wrong end of the stick.

Was in Birmingham with the wife when our car leaked some oil. Quite a lot of it. Under warranty so phoned the main dealer not far up the road who explained we had cover and very kindly arranged all the pickup and car hire on our behalf.

The car was taken in and it was confirmed a dodgy oil filter was the cause and everything replaced. However because it had happened over a bank holiday we had to use the hire car provided to us via the manufacturer's breakdown cover.

Upon getting the car back a couple of days later I arranged for the hire car to be picked up from the garage. This was done, no problems at all.

Then a couple of days later I tried to buy a low mileage Legacy Spec B saloon as a mile muncher and tried to put a grand down on my card. It was declined. A quick call to Barclays revealed that several thousand pounds had been taken off my card by the Aldershot (?!) branch of this hire company, sending my Platinum Visa well, well over my agreed credit limit. I missed out on the Leggy and was really cheesed off for it.

I phoned the company and they could not find any record of me hiring the car or making a transaction.

After two days of speaking to various people and hearing different stories about what may of happened, I lost it and went mad at them. It turned out that apparently I had damaged the car but had accidentally been billed the incorrect amount.

They sent me a damage report - hundreds of pounds for a scratch to the rear bumper apparently. I did not damage the car, neither did the garage and the car was driven up and down a motorway once. I noticed on the first journey by the way that the car was nearly 9000 miles overdue a service.

I am not suggesting in any way that this is a company policy but it seemed to me like they are deliberately set up to claim massive amounts of money for minor damage. The car was a dog despite its young age but they try and bill me for a tiny scratch?

Needless to say I threatened all sorts of legal action and was given a full refund, but it did involve a lot of shouting, the Barclays fraud team and the police.

Anyways. Today I look in my account. They have refunded me again a completely different amount, over a week later. And started harassing me for the money back asking for my new card details so they can take payment back - ha that ain't happening!!! Cheque I think!

An absolute bunch of scammers and thieves who are incompetent to boot. If you figure out who it is I strongly recommend you avoid them. You are using at your own risk.

Hawkeye D

Hmm, that'll be Enterprise then!

romford-boy

Interesting. We had this with Barclays and a European hire company who tried to bill us for two grand of damage before we even returned the car for inspection. Fortunately Barclays aren't cow boys, but the hire company in question refused to discuss the matter, apparently hoping we would walk away in their debt.

ditchmyster

iTrader: (7)

Yep, I got a £2k bill off another company and it hertz that they took ages to refund me, 1 day car hire for £2k lol, turns out they billed me for 26 days because THEY couldn't find the car when they told me where to leave it, you couldn't make it up.

This practice goes across the board, AND they can take your card WAY over it's limit, this particular card I use for traveling and only has a £1k limit in case it gets scammed, but they took it to £2600. fat lot of good that plan did.

And they tried to charge me for a tank of fuel when I made sure it was full, been there done that, I've literally had more hire cars than hot dinners so I'm well aware of all the tricks they get up to, especially if the staff bin one or damage it, pass it on to the next hire victim, consequently I always go over the car with a Very fine tooth comb and check the spare too.

Osimabu

iTrader: (2)

We had a hire car from Mylchreests in the Isle of Man in 2006. They are the local family firm rather than one of the big chains. It had done 149 miles from new and was perfect when we picked it up. We drove 1 1/2 miles to our hotel, parked up and went off for a couple of hours.

When we returned, it has been bashed in several places on the driver's side, no note, nothing. We took it straight back to Mylchreests, expecting to have to pay the £250 excess. The lady came out to see it, said "Oh, we must have missed that when we inspected it, I'll note it on the sheet, enjoy your holiday", and that was it.

We never did find out what had happened to it, but we didn't get charged a penny. As you can imagine, should we ever need to hire a car over there again, I'd go nowhere else. But my goodness were we lucky with that.

wiggy1

iTrader: (7)

When i was in america last year my pickup that i had rented from enterprise was totalled by a cop car while parked up in Atlanta, when i wrang the company to say what had happened they sent someone out with a new truck for me and never got charged a penny for the one that was totalled, if i can find the pic of it i will put it up.

Maz

iTrader: (34)

Hmmm, perhaps you should have been honest with them.

Osimabu

iTrader: (2)

Er, in what respect? That's exactly what happened.