USA rental car broke down, advice needed

Smeags

Hi. I'm on holiday in Orlando, USA right now. Its a two week holiday but we rented a car for 2 days using a website called Turo (its a website where individuals can rent out their car to make some money,  and anyone can rent a car).

We are 2 adults and 1 child and had bought tickets to watch a baseball game in Tampa, totalling $120.

Well, the car broke down on the way to this game at 6pm, on the Interstate, in a really dangerous place, between two lanes. (Eventually, someone helped push us onto the hard shoulder. This took a long time to achieve because the car battery was dead and it was stuck in the 'Park' gear). 

Jump starts had been attempted but the car kept dying afterward, we believe because of a faulty alternator.

I made several phone calls to Turo for them to get a tow truck. They were useless and it took 5 hours for someone to come! This was in awful heat, my son was really distressed and upset, I had a panic attack at one stage. The car battery was dead so the hazard lights wouldn't work and it was dark.

We had been told the tow truck would give us a ride back to Orlando, an hour drive away. He wouldn't give us a ride but dropped us at a local gas station in the middle of nowhere.

So I made another call to Turo... at first she tried to book us an Uber home but after 30mins, I gave up! I just asked if I could book it myself and get reimbursed, she said yes. So I did. It cost $100 and we got back to our hotel at 1.30am.

Absolutely awful night which puts a bad stain on our holiday because I can't stop thinking about it.

Now that I'm trying to claim the reimbursement for the Uber, I've just received an email saying I'll get it as "Turo credit" and they've refused my request to reimburse the baseball tickets completely.  An experience we missed out on because of them!

So my questions are:

- Anything I can do to get back my Uber money as cash?
- Anything I can do to get the money back for the baseball tickets? 

We do have annual multi-trip travel insurance but I don't know if they would cover these things and what proof or documentation I'd need?

Thanks

jimi_man

I’ve read elsewhere that Turo give compensation as Credits. They get a fairly bad write up on the Trip Advisor threads I’ve seen. And I’d be very surprised if they entertained the idea of reimbursement for your baseball tickets. Your best bet for that would be your travel insurance. 

Personally I’d put it down to experience and go for a branded car rental company in future. 

tightauldgit

I think you are just seeing the impact of dealing with a car sharing marketplace rather than an actual rental service. You'll be bound by whatever their terms say with respect to compensation for losses and I doubt it would cover consequential losses like baseball tickets. 

You may be able to look to pursue a claim against the actual car owner if you feel like they were negligent in renting you a car which wasn't up to scratch but that would potentially be an expensive process having to file a suit in a US court. 

bagand96

Turo aren't a rental company.  They're a technology platform that puts someone who wants to hire a car in touch with someone who has a car they want to hire out.  In the same way Uber aren't a taxi company.

It will come down to what the Turo T&C's say.  But I highly doubt they will cover incidental expenses like the baseball tickets.  To be honest even a proper rental firm wouldn't be liable for those, although their customer car may or may not have been better.

It's worth asking your travel insurance, but only they can confirm if you're covered and what documents you'd need to claim.

hugheskevi

I used Turo for a car last year, and my experience with them was terrible and I would rate them as the worst company I have ever dealt with.

In my case, the host substituted the car for a better one at no extra cost, which was fine. After a few days, the host canceled the original booking and put in a new booking for the actual car I had. This triggered Turo's systems to calculate the cost of two separate bookings, which was about $1,500 more than the cost of the actual booking. Both I and the host told them on multiple occasions that the correct money had been paid and nothing was owed, but their operatives were utterly useless and had no idea how to stop the process.

They tried to take money from my bank account on two separate occasions (despite all parties acknowledging nothing was owed, and I had not even agreed to any new agreement, the host had simply amended the booking so they had no basis whatsoever for their actions) and then sent the debt to debt collectors. This was actually a very good thing, as the debt collectors were intelligent, so it only took a single piece of correspondence with them to sort it out.

In my experience, it was pointless dealing with their operatives. They couldn't do anything, said they would refer the issue to the relevant department, and nothing happened. This took place on multiple occasions, and usually involved a wait plus call time of at least 45 minutes.

I eventually invoked their formal dispute process as time went by and they didn't fix anything, which they just ignored. 

Eventually they gave me something like $50 in Turo credits for their incompetence, and the issue went on for about 2 months.

Unless you are willing to issue formal legal proceedings in the USA, I'd just chalk it up to the risks of using a car-hire intermediary rather than a proper agent, else you are in for a lot of chasing and being ignored.

Smeags

Thanks for the advice everyone! I wrote this post whilst still feeling raw and emotional about it. It was an awful experience to have gone through. Their customer service had been useless at getting the tow truck out to us, and my phone battery was dying. That led to me having a panic attack, because I thought that if my battery had died, we were never getting out of there. But the battery survived, just. (I was down to 5% when booking the Uber).

Update on the money situation: Turo offered me reimbursement for the Uber as 'Turo credit'. I went berserk at them, knowing I will never use them again, so this would have been worthless. Eventually got the Uber imbursement as cash. 
Got nowhere with a reimbursement for the baseball tickets. Travel insurance might cover it, but it isn't worth it, because I'd have to pay a £99 excess.

I second that Turo are the worst company I have ever dealt with! I'm concerned about Turo coming after me to pay for the tow truck, or a new alternator, but just asked for advice on this matter on a Turo specific forum.

[Deleted User]

Did you pay on credit card? You might be able to do a chargeback or S75.

tightauldgit

[Deleted User] said:

Did you pay on credit card? You might be able to do a chargeback or S75.

A chargeback for what? The service that was paid for was provided. I appreciate that the customer support might not have been up to snuff but at the end of the day breakdowns occur and are beyond the control of any rental company let alone a marketplace middleman.