Car hire company trying to con me...

richweeks

Hi there,

I was in Edinburgh for the last 4 days and I rented a car from a cheap car hire company I saw online. Admittedly this was my first mistake - I was drawn in by the low price advertised.

When I arrived to pick up the car, they asked me for a £1500 hold on my credit card to cover any damage costs etc. They took me around the car to view any existing damage- marked it on their form etc. It was very similar to all other car rental experiences I have had.

I just returned the car today and was informed that I went over my 100 miles a day policy that I had on the car - and they were charging me £210 extra to cover this policy.

There are two issues here, firstly:

- I was never aware that there was a millage policy attached to my car. It wasn't at all clear to me and was never mentioned to me in person when I arrived to pick up the car. The guy said they should and would have mentioned it. I have now checked the small (SMALL) print in the online booking I made and it is hidden in there so fine, but i'd have thought legally they have to make this more obvious for the consumer - especially when being given about 6 different things to sign when you arrive?

- More importantly, I rented the car for 4 days - which equals an entitlement to 400 miles. There is no way I drove 400 miles during the four days I had the car. I'd be surprised if I had even touched 200....

So, we had a disagreement. I calmly told him I was not going to pay the excess. He was very agressive with me from Hello. He told me he would just take it off the hold they had on the credit card and pointed for me to get out the door.

He also refused to give me back any of the documentation I had given him for the car - so I have no way of checking if his claim about the millage was true or check what they noted it down as when I took the car (if they even did). What I expect has happened is that when I rented the car, they wrote a lower millage on the documentation than was actually on the car at the time and then charged me for the extra when I took the car back. I expect it's a common con they are running. I should have checked the documentation - however, they are clearly trying to defraud me here despite my ignorance.

I have checked the online reviews for this company - and it's full of other unwitting customers who are all saying the same thing. It has a review of 2.2 / 5. So clearly this is a unscrupulous company.

I rung up my bank to try and cancel the hold they have. but apparently this is not possible to do now and it seems this company now has free reign to take as much money as they want from me. Hey, as I annoyed the guy by not paying the millage fee I wouldn't be surprised if he went and smashed up the car a bit and then charged me even more for damage. And my issue is...what is to stop him? Where is my protection?

It seems so unfair and advantageous to the company (which in this case is fraudulent). They can do whatever they want with the documentation now and charge me anything and what is my recourse?

So i'm hoping someone on here will be able to give me some advice on the best way for me to proceed. As he wouldn't give me any of the documentation for the car I have nothing to prove anything - they have a hold of £1500 of my money....and I guess it's wait and see what they decide they want to charge me

I know I made some mistakes here, not checking the millage on leaving. But I shouldn't need to do this, I didn't drive over 400 miles and returned the car in perfect condition.

Thanks for any help you can give

DoaM

Let me guess ...Goldcar? They tend to place a hold of £1k+ and keep it there for 7 days after return of the car.

born_again

https://www.ecrcs.eu

If they are registered.
Not anything the card co can do. You have no proof of anything and car hire disputes are a nightmare.
Best guess (and hope) is they will just take the £210. Not anything further.

That £1500 can also sit there for up to 30 days under Visa regulations now.

Jumblebumble

richweeks wrote: »

Hi there,

I was in Edinburgh for the last 4 days and I rented a car from a cheap car hire company I saw online. Admittedly this was my first mistake - I was drawn in by the low price advertised.

When I arrived to pick up the car, they asked me for a £1500 hold on my credit card to cover any damage costs etc. They took me around the car to view any existing damage- marked it on their form etc. It was very similar to all other car rental experiences I have had.

I just returned the car today and was informed that I went over my 100 miles a day policy that I had on the car - and they were charging me £210 extra to cover this policy.

There are two issues here, firstly:

- I was never aware that there was a millage policy attached to my car. It wasn't at all clear to me and was never mentioned to me in person when I arrived to pick up the car. The guy said they should and would have mentioned it. I have now checked the small (SMALL) print in the online booking I made and it is hidden in there so fine, but i'd have thought legally they have to make this more obvious for the consumer - especially when being given about 6 different things to sign when you arrive?

- More importantly, I rented the car for 4 days - which equals an entitlement to 400 miles. There is no way I drove 400 miles during the four days I had the car. I'd be surprised if I had even touched 200....

So, we had a disagreement. I calmly told him I was not going to pay the excess. He was very agressive with me from Hello. He told me he would just take it off the hold they had on the credit card and pointed for me to get out the door.

He also refused to give me back any of the documentation I had given him for the car - so I have no way of checking if his claim about the millage was true or check what they noted it down as when I took the car (if they even did). What I expect has happened is that when I rented the car, they wrote a lower millage on the documentation than was actually on the car at the time and then charged me for the extra when I took the car back. I expect it's a common con they are running. I should have checked the documentation - however, they are clearly trying to defraud me here despite my ignorance.

I have checked the online reviews for this company - and it's full of other unwitting customers who are all saying the same thing. It has a review of 2.2 / 5. So clearly this is a unscrupulous company.

I rung up my bank to try and cancel the hold they have. but apparently this is not possible to do now and it seems this company now has free reign to take as much money as they want from me. Hey, as I annoyed the guy by not paying the millage fee I wouldn't be surprised if he went and smashed up the car a bit and then charged me even more for damage. And my issue is...what is to stop him? Where is my protection?

It seems so unfair and advantageous to the company (which in this case is fraudulent). They can do whatever they want with the documentation now and charge me anything and what is my recourse?

So i'm hoping someone on here will be able to give me some advice on the best way for me to proceed. As he wouldn't give me any of the documentation for the car I have nothing to prove anything - they have a hold of £1500 of my money....and I guess it's wait and see what they decide they want to charge me

I know I made some mistakes here, not checking the millage on leaving. But I shouldn't need to do this, I didn't drive over 400 miles and returned the car in perfect condition.

Thanks for any help you can give

Are you possibly getting confused in that the 100 miles a day was incurred because you went more than 100 miles in a single day? ( I doubt it but you never know)
How much petrol did you use?
I would put in a dispute to the credit card company that the rental company have committed fraud if you are convinced they did.
You could also try the small claims court

born_again

Jumblebumble wrote: »

I would put in a dispute to the credit card company that the rental company have committed fraud if you are convinced they did.
You could also try the small claims court

Fraud on what basis?
As far as a card provider goes fraud is when a unknown 3rd party uses your card without your permission.
NOT a company you have dealt with.

Even small claims is going to be hard. Given the OP has no proof of mileage etc.

DoaM

Jumblebumble wrote: »

Are you possibly getting confused in that the 100 miles a day was incurred because you went more than 100 miles in a single day? ( I doubt it but you never know)

How would the rental company even know? Unless they've installed a tracker (and that could be a GDPR problem unless this was made clear at time of rental) then all they could know would be start and end of rental odometer readings; no way of knowing if OP did 300 miles in one day and 100 miles during the rest of the rental period.

Jumblebumble

DoaM wrote: »

How would the rental company even know? Unless they've installed a tracker (and that could be a GDPR problem unless this was made clear at time of rental) then all they could know would be start and end of rental odometer readings; no way of knowing if OP did 300 miles in one day and 100 miles during the rest of the rental period.[/QUO

From my experience of working with a luxury car hire business all their cars are tracked
The company receives alerts by email if there was speeding over a certain limit

Jumblebumble

born_again wrote: »

Fraud on what basis?
As far as a card provider goes fraud is when a unknown 3rd party uses your card without your permission.
NOT a company you have dealt with.

Even small claims is going to be hard. Given the OP has no proof of mileage etc.

Is it not fraudulent to take more money than authorised?
The OP could produce a rough indication of mileage from the about of petrol they inserted
I doubt the car hire firm would enjoy all the other reviews that suggest they practice dishonesty being shown to a district judge

born_again

Jumblebumble wrote: »

Is it not fraudulent to take more money than authorised?
The OP could produce a rough indication of mileage from the about of petrol they inserted
I doubt the car hire firm would enjoy all the other reviews that suggest they practice dishonesty being shown to a district judge

As the OP has stated. They have that charge covered in their T/C.

If the OP could produce something. That might help, but relying on petrol receipts would not really be solid evidence.
You can soon cover a lot of miles in Scotland without realising. Due to a lack of direct routes in many area's

I honestly do not think that these companies care about reviews. As no one reads them till they to have been had for hiring a car that is too cheap to be true.

Mr_Singleton

Jumblebumble wrote: »

Are you possibly getting confused

I'd like to thankyou for quoting the entire original message because after reading 2 short replies I'd completely forgotten what the original post said. Thanks to you I was able to read the entire thing again

DoaM

At least it's only been quoted once.