Car hire scams

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Viewing 5 posts - 31 through 35 (of 35 total)

  • SimonS1
    Participant

    Full page article in the MoS yesterday giving the full run down on the latest car hire ‘income generators’. The latest one is apparently Eurocar – if they believe the car will take longer than 30 mins to clean there will be a €135 charge. Handy profit for a 30 minute clean by someone on a minimum wage.

    The full run down was:

    1. Insurance excess rip off
    2. Full tank/return empty scam
    3. Scratches and scuffs
    4. Age penalty for over 70/under 24
    5. The ‘cleaning bill’
    6. £10 a day to hire a child seat
    7. £10 a day for satnav
    8. Extra driver fee
    9. Admin fees for speeding
    10. Paying too much for big brands


    Charles-P
    Participant

    Last week I heard an argument between a customer and the Avis agent at the airport. The crux of it was that the man was insisting on photographing some small scratches on the car before taking it over while the agent was insisting this wasn’t necessary and saying the man was being “difficult”. I had a similar experience in Warsaw where I asked the Avis desk to document a missing spare wheel which they were very reluctant to do – I assume because they were hoping to charge it to me when I returned the car.


    LuganoPirate
    Participant

    Well here’s a small twist, and I’ll omit the location so the manager won’t get into trouble, but Mrs. LP on recently renting from Avis, found the manager had “added” lots of scratches and dents to the damage report, so she would not have to pay anything should she get a small dent or scrape! Great service we both thought.


    CathayLoyalist2
    Participant

    LuganoPIrate, yes great and totally unexpected service but he/she would almost certainly be fired if he/she was ever identified. Maybe someone on this forum has a job opening for a great customer service person!


    MartynSinclair
    Participant

    ..and here is my very recent car hire experience

    Having researched car hire for a collection in Barcelona, I selected a Hertz car through an online car hire company… rentalcars.com.

    For one weeks car hire, Peugeot 3008, the price came to £197.11. Once booked, I was strongly advised to take the additional insurance, which would ‘cover everything in the event of’ and quite frankly, for the price of £51.52, I took it.

    At Barcelona airport for collection, I was categorically told by Hertz that whilst I may have the additional insurance, Hertz will still charge for any damage and I will need to claim it back from rentalcars.com
    However, if I bought their insurance, in the event of any damage, I would not have to pay.

    I decided to pay the Hertz insurance, at the end of the day, Insurance is designed to cut the hassle and having to claim back, in the event of damage, is not my idea of Insurance.

    However, reading the small print of the rentalcars.com rental confirmation, it did confirm that if Hertz required less of a deposit by taking their own insurance, rentalcars.com would refund the cost of their insurance. Next job is to find their number, which is NOT on the confirmation voucher, to see if they will honour the refund.

    NEXT problem – I booked a Peugeot 3008 (automatic) or similar. I was given a Citroen Cactus ‘automatic’, which turned out to be a semi-automatic with an appalling gearbox. Is the Cactus really an UPGRADE or even SIMILLAR and is a semi automatic considered as an automatic?

    In future, I will only take the extra insurance cover on the basis it will be accepted by the hire company, without the need for me pay first and claim later. Still interested to hear from the car buffs though is I should have accepted the Citroen, upgrade or otherwise??

    EDIT – phone rentalcars.com – agreed to refund the cost of the extra insurance straight away.. I also asked about the 3008 v Cactus and the firm confirmed the Cactus was bigger…

Viewing 5 posts - 31 through 35 (of 35 total)
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