Sixt Car Hire Problem - Stansted

screamin

Most reputable rental firms (and most of this applies to Lease Companies and Contract Hire Companies) are members of the BVRLA and/or United Rental Group and if you are unsatisfied with any response from the hire company you can lodge a independent complaint/dispute with the BVRLA/United Rentals and they will investigate and give you their findings.

If it is found in your favour the Rental Company are not obliged to follow the recommendation of the conciliation service but generally will due to the membership criteria. If I remember correctly, numerous complaints, complaints not resolved and evidence of incorrect procedures by the Rental Company result in membership suspension/spot checks on the rental firm.

I do not work for Sixt but have had the pleasure of working with them in the past and have even spoken to Gary several times on a professional level although I doubt he will remember me. Sixt (who are linked very closely with United Rentals) is the most proffesional Rental Firm I have ever dealt with.

Having worked in the industry for 7 plus years I do however feel that the negative attitude towards Rental Companies is unjustified in a majority of cases.

My company always personally handed a vehicle over to the customer and Yes it is possible for the employee handing over the vehicle to miss damage but it is the customers responsibility and interest to inspect the vehicle and ensure the paperwork is completed properly. It made me cringe when I saw customer after customer, day after day rush my staff on the handover and not check the vehicle or paperwork properly.

To be brutally honest if you argue the damage is pre-existing then you didn't protect your interests and examine the vehicle properly on collection. Whilst it may not always be possible I would always recommend that if returning a vehicle do it during opening hours AND ensure someone checks the vehicle back in, you will usually find terms and conditions at unattended/very busy sites include the provision that you are responsible for the vehicle until it is checked in.

It is also worth reading up on the BVRLA Fair Wear and Tear Guidelines which all BVRLA members are required to abide by, very clear and simple rules on what damage is chargeable and most importantly what is not chargeable for, some employees may not be aware of them/understand the scope (and it is also helpful when you collect the vehicle if you know them). All BVRLA members should have a copy available for viewing.

mskemp85

screamin wrote: »

My company always personally handed a vehicle over to the customer and Yes it is possible for the employee handing over the vehicle to miss damage but it is the customers responsibility and interest to inspect the vehicle and ensure the paperwork is completed properly

To be brutally honest if you argue the damage is pre-existing then you didn't protect your interests and examine the vehicle properly on collection.

Whilst I can understand what your saying, you have to understand that customers are not trained in this field. Lets be honest, if a trained employee misses damage, then it's fair to assume that the customer will as well, after all, I assume the employee is trained for this work.

It seems to me that the responsibility has to be split down the line, and it is not fair for car hire companies to throw all the responsibility the customers way. Also, in my experience with Sixt, there was no checkout procedure for me to rush, as no one even came out of the office to check the car over. I suppose you will argue that I should have made them come out, and maybe I should have, but not many companys can get away with putting so much blame on the customer side and not look at their own employees, to see if maybe better training is required there.

I work for a large company, and manage a team of my own, and the first lesson I learned is that the customer is king, and you can't always direct blame and responsibility to them, without first looking at your own methods and staff.

Sssssss

Gary_Coughlan wrote: »

Hi mskemp85,

I have forwarded a reply to your email, I hope you don't mind the additional post here on this forum. All personal references have been removed.

"No need for a receipt.

I understand your impression maybe that rental companies sneak on charges for bogus dings and hidden extras. This is not how Sixt operates, we are an extremely customer focused organisation.

I hope you can appreciate that we recorded new damage when checking in the vehicle, according to our documentation this damage was not present at the start of the hire. It was therefore natural for us to contact you to ask about the damage. In this case the damage was small, we appreciate that you had no knowledge of it and I do not mean to infer that this damage occurred during your hire.

We were of course more than happy to refund this charge. Likewise, I believe you when you say the vehicle was full, I have no reason to question your integrity nor would I wish to. The vehicle did take fuel after the hire, but this was not as a consequence of you not filling the vehicle to full at the station as you rightly thought that you had and I would therefore surmise that the fuel gauge supported your view. Either a fuel gauge fault, fuel reading error or additional refuelling to full was required but none of which was intentional by any of the parties concerned.

The charge in principle is correct. However, I have credited the fuel charge to provide you with the best possible service, in view of the fact that the gauge indicated that the vehicle was full and that you had fuelled the vehicle at BP prior to return. Please allow 5-7 working days for the refund to show in your account.

Please do not hesitate to contact me if you have any further questions."

Best regards
Gary

from reading your reply it seems that you are saying the OP used the fuel gauge to tell him the tank was full! what nonsence what did he do run in and out the car, no one does this. Most people fill up and stop when the pump cuts out, which might not give a full tank but 10 litres short, I don't think so!

Savingswatcher

To mskemp 85 - I really undrstand that you feel so let down - I can honestly assure you though at Sixt we take customer satisfaction seriously - we know the best business is repeat business - we want our customers to come back.

Unfortunately - the (mainly) young people in our locations make mistakes - clearly in your case - and I hope we've managed to compensate/resolve your issues - we prefer to deal with them quickly and professionally when they arise. It is no excuse and I don't want it to sound like one, but we are in a transition period at the moment at Stansted as we move our services and facilities inside the terminal with adjacent parking and manned check in/out area. This should take away any situation of vehicles not being inspected pre-post rental in the future.

I can truly assure everyone that there is cetainly no conspiracy at Sixt to charge customers for damage that is not attributable to them deliberately - I am sure I can speak for our competitors too.

We do make !!!!-ups - to be honest I think we always will - we just try to deal with them properly when we do - and put prcedures and training in place to minimise them in the future.

We have to follow up on damage - believe it or not there are a lot of customers who do damage cars and don't report it - or try to hide it/get away with it. I know you'll find it hard to believe but some customers can be dishonest.

If it has been in an accident with a third party it becomes even more of a problem for car rental companies - which is why we have to log and control all damage.

Our business is extremely high volume vehicle rental - huge volumes of rentals everyday involving handing over assetts of high value - which we need to control. Our complaints ratio - ( I guess you probably won't believe me ! ) - is very low pro-rata - and we try extremely hard to deal with them responsibly, respectfully and rapidly everytime. However, sometimes we just have to hold our hands up and say "sorry - we messed up" - I can only try to assure you that we'll try to ensure it won't happen again.

I hope you'll come back....

Strider590

Cat amongst the pigeons here, but with the currect fuel prices and all.... What's to stop a minimum wage car mover/driver/washer who works for a hire car company from syphoning off fuel and blaming the previous client?

Even the biggest of organisations can't stop something like this happening!

When my car went in for minor repairs following an accident, it went to <removed> who are a very big name in the insurance repairs business. The morning after it was dropped off by their tow truck back at my home I found that all my interior LED light bulbs had been stolen (courtesy light, boot light and glove box light) and i'd got 1/4 tank of petrol compared to the 3/4 when it went in.
It had little more than an extra 15 miles on the clock and a full tank will do 350+ miles (do the math).

I let it go because I couldn't prove the fuel difference and the LED bulbs cost less than 50p each from China via ebay.

In general I do not doubt that most companies want to provide an excellent service, but it only takes one corrupt employee to put all that to ruins.

mskemp85

Sssssss wrote: »

from reading your reply it seems that you are saying the OP used the fuel gauge to tell him the tank was full! what nonsence what did he do run in and out the car, no one does this. Most people fill up and stop when the pump cuts out, which might not give a full tank but 10 litres short, I don't think so!

This is correct, filled to the pump cut out!

screamin

mskemp85 wrote: »

Whilst I can understand what your saying, you have to understand that customers are not trained in this field. Lets be honest, if a trained employee misses damage, then it's fair to assume that the customer will as well, after all, I assume the employee is trained for this work.

It seems to me that the responsibility has to be split down the line, and it is not fair for car hire companies to throw all the responsibility the customers way. Also, in my experience with Sixt, there was no checkout procedure for me to rush, as no one even came out of the office to check the car over. I suppose you will argue that I should have made them come out, and maybe I should have, but not many companys can get away with putting so much blame on the customer side and not look at their own employees, to see if maybe better training is required there.

I work for a large company, and manage a team of my own, and the first lesson I learned is that the customer is king, and you can't always direct blame and responsibility to them, without first looking at your own methods and staff.

Sorry I didn't make it clear I was not directly commenting on your case as from your explanation the damage could only have occurred after you returned the vehicle. I was just offering guidance and advice to people renting vehicles AND the official help they can get in disputes.

Sixt have done their usual good customer service procedure and you have had a satisfactory response.

As with regard to your other comments I will only comment that the reputable companies operate following certain policies and procedures. Whilst I ran (Manager) a legitimate and ethically correct rental firm with a strict personal policy of offering help and guidance the abuse, spitting, assault, criminal damage, personal threats against my family and so on was not worth the effort along with the continuous lies customers told me on a daily basis. 1 in 100 customers probably admitted to damage, the rest were innocent and we were just another "rip off rental company" despite all the compelling evidence to the contrary.

I left the firm dishartened if someone does not read terms and conditions, common sense understanding or understand their liabilities despite all my efforts and they purported innocence their is no help.