Car Hire - too good to be true?

Freesoho

Nice to know I'm not the only one feeling daft for going against my better judgement.
I'm also down £635 after stupidly agreeing to a BACS transfer to secure the booking.
When the vehicle failed to arrive on 24th, I called Rentmac and was first told that I had cancelled the booking. I had done no such thing.
When I told them I hadn't, they told me the story about being overbooked and although they had no car for me that day, I would receive a full and immediate refund and a free weeks' car rental at a later date. (not holding my breath needless to say)

All subsequent attempts at contact (email and phone to Rentmac and rentmeanycar) have proven fruitless.

I suggest all of us who have been ripped off continue to update and exchange info on this forum so that should the be any possible recompense we act as a group to make the case more powerful.
I'm not optimistic about recovering funds from Rentmac but have not exhausted options at the bank yet.
Also, if the directors have left any sort of trail at the banks, the guardian or the temporary offices they have used we may be able to pin down the !!!##le that set this up.

I'm trying to get information from the people that host the Rentmac site as well.
Pile in with any info you can get.

Freesoho

Also, I would encourage all posters to email The Gaurdian to pile the pressure on them.
Ask them if they have uncovered any information regarding the company that advertised in their paper and that many respondents to the advertisement have been scammed and are trying to recover money. They are doing their own investigation into the company and hopefully could be a useful ally.

redcard

Hmm. You would really think Guardian readers would know better.

Freesoho

Forgot to mention....if you have lost money to Rentmac and you paid via BACS, Please contact the Fraud Team from your bank. The banks offer the best chance to get a real name to hold to account. They hold the details of the person/s we need to head kick (and they might even be real details)
Oh and thanks Redcard. Fascinating contribution.

redcard

Freesoho wrote: »

Forgot to mention....if you have lost money to Rentmac and you paid via BACS, Please contact the Fraud Team from your bank. The banks offer the best chance to get a real name to hold to account. They hold the details of the person/s we need to head kick (and they might even be real details)
Oh and thanks Redcard. Fascinating contribution.

No worries. But seriously, how may scams does there have to be for people to start spotting the warning signs?

The same company will be back next year, but this time they'll be doing speedboats, and you'll probably for for that one too!

GoAndPutTheKettleOn

I’m sorry to see my thoughts confimed on here. I actually called the company back in early November to enquire about hiring an Aston Martin for a friends wedding next March.

I thought the price was good and free delivery sounded even better. I email a few other car hire places and they couldn’t match the quote (although didn’t warn me about rentmeanycar.com, as i did mention their name).

The full hire for what i wanted was £1300 and i literally had my card in my hand ready to pay but then the guy on the phone said he would need the full balance AND the £5k deposit. I thought this was odd and said why would i pay over 6k for a hire car which I’m not going to get until March?

I ended the conversation and decided not to go for it as it sounded fishy. I looked into them a bit more and realised how much advertising they had done. I thought to myself there is no way they can make a profit hiring the cars this cheaply with free delivery and copious amounts of advertising in national & local newspapers.

This is when i posted a thread on the pistonheads forum saying that i thought it was a scam and had anyone had dealings. My post was taken down as the admin didn’t want to get into naming and shaming. It's a real shame because my post was on the front page of google when i made it so anyone who would of looked would of seen it and saved themselves all their hard earned cash.

I would be interested to know how this pans out.

PremiereVelocity

Sorry to hear all the bad stories guys.
We are a reputable prestige hire company and new this was a scam the minute we see and heard it. The quotes they were giving were impossible and made even worse by the claims of 'free delivery'.
They even had the cheek yo use a couple of our images so we contacted them about 5 weeks ago threatening them with copyright infringement, to which they didnt reply , we then paid them a visit as they proclaimed to be in the same building as us in Mayfair, only for it to turn out as a virtual office.
We posted warnings on Piston-Heads but the posts were removed??
We even warned our local police about 3 weeks ago!!
As a rule of thumb, always stick with companies that have been around a while and do your research, we just hope that some of you reclaim your lost money.

Always remember -if something appears 'to good to be true' , then it nearly always is!

...we tried warning any customer that mentioned it to us.

digdog

Have also been stung by this- despite knowing it looked too good- even emailed the Guardian consumer pages about rentmeanycar- falsely reassured by threads taken off pistonheads- saw them as searched about the company. Felt that the removal must mean they were legit as imagined threats of legal action etc. Thanks anyway to attempts to warn us all- it would have worked for me if the site hadn't removed the messages. Thankfully paid by credit card- the message cancelling the booking invited me to make a BACS payment to secure a future hire- at that point had no intention of sending good after bad but - do beware of this extra attempt to sting!!

Sjko

I too almost got stung by this but managed to get away, due to foresight and luck.

I was sucked in by them advertising in the FT and sent them an email looking for a quote. No reply and that was the first red flag. I then proceeded to call them but when whoever picked up it was always with a "good morning", no name, or company name, second red flag. I asked whom am I speaking to? and was always met with a reluctance to give a name. Anyway, after a sales spiel with too good to be true prices, I gave them my card details and they took payment £5000.

Once I put the phone down I had an uneasy feeling about this but put it to the back of my mind as I assured myself that only reputable companies would advertise in the FT.

2 days later my card had been debited by diamonds by design, red flag again, I called Amex and they told me it was a car hire company, I then called rentmac(no name or company name and was reluctant to give me his name) I asked him who diamonds by design were and he had no idea,massive red flag, I asked how long he had worked there and he said 4 years, another red flag(company formation) they had yet to send me the email confirmation and after 2 days it arrived and I had my girlfriend who is a lawyer read over it and she said it was a)copy and paste and b) a joke of a contract, I emailed rentmac but yet again no reply so I called, furious and asked some more questions, i told them I work in the financial services industry and all calls are recorded and at this point he clammed up. I told him that my brother worked for city of london police and if this was a scam, bad luck for him as his voice was recorded and that unless i get a refund back that day he would have one hell of a problem.

He said he would and called me half an hour later with scanned copies proving they had refunded my card.

close call.

I dont believe in blaming the press but they should have done their due diligence as should I but i guess they knew advertising in the press especially FT, Guardian etc would rope in a few suckers.

[STRIKE][/STRIKE]

jammin_2

:rotfl::rotfl: