Charged £90 for a hire car that never materialised

stickitupyourjumper

Hello all, my partner and I are after some advice.

Roughly 6 months ago my partner booked a hire car through Ryanair to be ready at an airport in Greece for our October 2022 holiday. £90 was charged to her account immediately from rentalcars.com. Stupidly we didn't check for any confirmation email and arrived at the airport to find no car. After a brief bit of stress, we arranged an alternative.

On returning to the UK, my partner has tried to get the £90 refunded. Ryanair have said that it's nothing to do with them and all rentalcars.com issue. Rentalcars.com asked for a booking number, which she has told them we do not have (booking was never confirmed by email). They have said they cannot find the booking...in which case my partner has asked why rentalcars.com has charged her (and can she have the money back).

After months of being passed around different people at rentalcars.com by email, each one covering old ground opening with 'can I have your booking reference please?'...about a month ago an agent said their finance team was looking into it.

Both my partner and I had got fed up with it by this point. I told my partner to email them with a subject access request (including a request for all data of any financial transactions between her card and their accounts). They have replied again saying that their finance team is looking into it and we need to wait.

What are the next steps we can take???

onashoestring

Was the transaction by debit or credit card ? Your partner should contact the bank and make a chargeback or section 75 claim as the service paid for was not delivered .

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/reclaim/visa-mastercard-chargeback/

eDicky

As above, ask your card provider for a chargeback.

DullGreyGuy

You have checked your bank statement to make sure it was actually charged?  

No confirmation email suggests a fault with the website which could mean that the payment authorisation went through but the payment collection didn't because the process failed. 

Westin

DullGreyGuy said:

You have checked your bank statement to make sure it was actually charged?  

No confirmation email suggests a fault with the website which could mean that the payment authorisation went through but the payment collection didn't because the process failed. 

… or that the email went into a junk folder. The OP mentions not check for an email confirmation. They also presumably did not write down the booking reference provided online when the booking was made.

The waiting for Rentacar to investigate and find the booking seems fair IMO. The OP has not indicated how long they have given them yet.  Having made a car rental booking, then not recorded the booking details or raised as an issue when a confirmation email did not arrive, surely places some fault for the issue away from Rentacar.com.

The booking flow on Rentacar.com/Ryancars would indicate the actual car rental firm. As would the missing email confirmation.  Knowing the name of the actual car rental firm would have presumably helped find the car pickup point at the Greek airport. 

IMO a chargeback at this juncture is inappropriate.  Had the OP recorded the booking information or checked for missing information earlier, then this issue would probably not occur.

stickitupyourjumper

onashoestring said:

Was the transaction by debit or credit card ? Your partner should contact the bank and make a chargeback or section 75 claim as the service paid for was not delivered .

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/reclaim/visa-mastercard-chargeback/

That's fantastic! Thank you very much 😊 We didn't realise this was a possibility. My partner has submitted a request.

DullGreyGuy said:

You have checked your bank statement to make sure it was actually charged?  

No confirmation email suggests a fault with the website which could mean that the payment authorisation went through but the payment collection didn't because the process failed. 

Yes. The money definitely came out. Appears as 'rentalcars.com' on the statement.

Westin said:

DullGreyGuy said:

You have checked your bank statement to make sure it was actually charged?  

No confirmation email suggests a fault with the website which could mean that the payment authorisation went through but the payment collection didn't because the process failed. 

… or that the email went into a junk folder. The OP mentions not check for an email confirmation. They also presumably did not write down the booking reference provided online when the booking was made.

The waiting for Rentacar to investigate and find the booking seems fair IMO. The OP has not indicated how long they have given them yet.  Having made a car rental booking, then not recorded the booking details or raised as an issue when a confirmation email did not arrive, surely places some fault for the issue away from Rentacar.com.

The booking flow on Rentacar.com/Ryancars would indicate the actual car rental firm. As would the missing email confirmation.  Knowing the name of the actual car rental firm would have presumably helped find the car pickup point at the Greek airport. 

IMO a chargeback at this juncture is inappropriate.  Had the OP recorded the booking information or checked for missing information earlier, then this issue would probably not occur.

No there was no email in the junk folder. How would we have got a booking reference without a confirmation email?

This is the issue...we didn't receive the information required to use the service we purchased, nor the service on arrival...yet we were still charged for it.

CKhalvashi

Westin said:

DullGreyGuy said:

You have checked your bank statement to make sure it was actually charged?  

No confirmation email suggests a fault with the website which could mean that the payment authorisation went through but the payment collection didn't because the process failed. 

… or that the email went into a junk folder. The OP mentions not check for an email confirmation. They also presumably did not write down the booking reference provided online when the booking was made.

The waiting for Rentacar to investigate and find the booking seems fair IMO. The OP has not indicated how long they have given them yet.  Having made a car rental booking, then not recorded the booking details or raised as an issue when a confirmation email did not arrive, surely places some fault for the issue away from Rentacar.com.

The booking flow on Rentacar.com/Ryancars would indicate the actual car rental firm. As would the missing email confirmation.  Knowing the name of the actual car rental firm would have presumably helped find the car pickup point at the Greek airport. 

IMO a chargeback at this juncture is inappropriate.  Had the OP recorded the booking information or checked for missing information earlier, then this issue would probably not occur.

On the first part I've bolded, this doesn't occur to me as my work e-mails are set up to disable the spam filter (I run a business, I had an e-mail from a company we are negotiating with apologising we had hit theirs last year and it took 2 months for them to get back to us, it happens), but this shouldn't be an issue with reputable companies such as car hire ones. It may have been unfortunately the case and I note that Gmail etc have a 30 day limit before deletion in the folder.

On the second part I've bolded, I disagree. This isn't Ryanair's problem as clearly stated in the conditions, but the services requested have clearly not been provided on the promised dates. A chargeback (as this is below S75 limits anyway) would be the most appropriate course of action.

Westin

stickitupyourjumper said:

No there was no email in the junk folder. How would we have got a booking reference without a confirmation email?

From the information that appeared on screen and ended the transaction when the booking was made.

Email confirmation is important (and should be chased up if not received) but a booking reference would be given just after the payment made and booking finalised. This should be written down so a record is made in case say the email confirmation does not appear.

Westin

CKhalvashi said:

Westin said:

IMO a chargeback at this juncture is inappropriate.  Had the OP recorded the booking information or checked for missing information earlier, then this issue would probably not occur.

On the first part I've bolded, this doesn't occur to me as my work e-mails are set up to disable the spam filter (I run a business, I had an e-mail from a company we are negotiating with apologising we had hit theirs last year and it took 2 months for them to get back to us, it happens), but this shouldn't be an issue with reputable companies such as car hire ones. It may have been unfortunately the case and I note that Gmail etc have a 30 day limit before deletion in the folder.

On the second part I've bolded, I disagree. This isn't Ryanair's problem as clearly stated in the conditions, but the services requested have clearly not been provided on the promised dates. A chargeback (as this is below S75 limits anyway) would be the most appropriate course of action.

I agree this is not on RyanAir. The transaction in dispute is with the car rental broker - Rentalcars.com

Have the services requested not be provided though? The OP just could not find the collection point for the car at the arrival airport.  Do they know who the car rental was to be collected from?  That would have been selected at the time of booking (Avis, Hertz, etc). Did they go to that desk, or take a shuttle to a particular location for the rental car?  Or was there an expectation for a RentalCars.com desk or person with a sign holding up their name in arrivals? When that was not there they assumed RentalCars.com at fault.

Pick up information would of course be on the missing confirmation email.  Chasing this up in advance of travel might have been prudent.

If however the OP did go to the correct place and the car rental firm denied the reservation, then I agree a possible claim for non-provision. In that case however something in writing from the actual car rental firm should be sufficient evidence for a card claim.  

onashoestring

Rentalcars.com are a broker for lots of car hire companies . Without an e-mail how were you planning to locate which car hire company you had booked with ? When you could not find your e-Mail you should have called rental cars.com to get the information that you needed which would have included the name of the car hire company , booking reference and likely directions to the pick up point . By leaving it until you got to the airport you were taking a big chance the you would stumble across the correct car hire company . 

Having raised a chargeback, your bank will contact rentalcars . If they provide evidence that there was a car there for you then you will loose the dispute, but no harm in trying . 

soolin

onashoestring said:

Rentalcars.com are a broker for lots of car hire companies . Without an e-mail how were you planning to locate which car hire company you had booked with ? When you could not find your e-Mail you should have called rental cars.com to get the information that you needed which would have included the name of the car hire company , booking reference and likely directions to the pick up point . By leaving it until you got to the airport you were taking a big chance the you would stumble across the correct car hire company . 

Having raised a chargeback, your bank will contact rentalcars . If they provide evidence that there was a car there for you then you will loose the dispute, but no harm in trying . 

Onashoestring asks the most important question, who did you actually opt to book with as it wouldn’t have been rental cars. Which company did you approach at the airport to pick up your car as if you choose the wrong one that might explain why they knew nothing about your booking.