Decode car hire

I have also been scammed (£338) by them, and wasted time and money researching them
a: I suggest claim off your credit card (chargeback procedure and/or s 75 consumer credit act). I suggest it is a waste of money taking CC procedings as I would think they have no assets and you'll not be able to track them down to enforce judgement - but its a matter for you of course.
b: The St Clements House address claims not to know of them any longer. They've moved apparently. They never answer their phone any more (the 0207 number is - I believe a link to an internet based number,even though it appears on its face to be a london landline - it appears not). They do not reply to emails, online requests nor letters.
c: 12 York Gate is their registered office and is simply the chartered accountants who file their accounts. On the phone the accountants tell me they have no information and are aware of people like me trying to stop them.
d: The director Dainis Kanopa (Lativian address) is posted with a history of colalpsed car hire such as a company operated out of Latvia in 2009 and . The other director also has a Lativan address. My Visa account was debited from Riga.
e: The system seems likely to be that a regular online car hire brokerage is set up (using established car hire search engine partners - in this case Etrawler Ltd in Ireland - who are well established and respectable with many brokers using their services). The brokerage (Decodecarhire) provides a fair number of proper bookings most of the time and passes on the money to the car hire company - sometimes it does not, keeping the profit and waiting and avoiding paying back till it really has to, then in due course, as appears now (late sept/oct 2010) there is a crescendo about a year later of not paying and loads of us are left cheated, and the company stops all communication - presumably opening in other guises.
f: The devil in the present situation seems to be that the Decodecarhire website still appears to accept bookings and therefore money of others, though it won't respond to calls by email, in person, nor phone.
Good luck with your chargeback section 75 attempts to get your moneyback if you paid by card. I don't know if you have such rights with paypal!

Hi
I was lucky and received my money back after 5 months from Tesco Credit card. This was only because I was so persistent despite Tesco dragging their heels.
I was contacted via this forum by '5 Live Investigates' on Radio 5 who broadcast a programme last Sunday at 9.30pm and mentioned my experience and others who had been scammed by these fraudsters. They asked for anyone who had also been scammed to contact them on goldberg.co.uk and perhaps if enough people contact them they will chase this company and bring them to the public's attention.
You only have to go on Facebook and Travelsupermarket to see how many people have been scammed.
It may be of help to you (or anybody else) if you go on Travelsupermarket forum as there is a posting from Tanya who has listed this company's address (yet another) and company number.
Good Luck to everybody in getting their money back but I won't rest until I see them out of operation and not able to trade. If we don't do something they can set up again in another name to defraud us all AGAIN!!!!

Lin H

My husband and I have been trying to get them to refund the £125.00 they have admitted they owe us for 6 months and now even the credit card company claim they can do no more, but as someone else mention on this site they are also breaching the consumer act and we have put in a complaint to santander and contacted the Financial ombudsman about this. According to consumer direct the more complaints that are logged with them and passed on to trading standards the more likely they are to investigate them, I have also contacted watch dog via their internet page and strongly encourage anyone who has been ripped off by decode to do the same.
Even if we do not get our money back I want to stop them continuing to rip of any other unsuspecting customers someone needs to take them to task, maybe if we all also ring our local council and speak to our local trading standards officers as well as consumer direct.