Car hire: who’s still taking you for a ride?

I rented a car with Thrifty using http://www.rentalcars.com at a charge of £385.55. Before collecting car I phoned Thrifty and the inform me I also need bank statements and utility bills. Who carries these sort of things with them. I had both parts of driving licence and passport etc. I looked and see that http://www.rentalcars.com had taken payment in full before I even collected car. I phoned to cancell and they eventually after a few calls and clmplaints sent back my mkney minus £61.01 cancell fee. It isn’t much money but I would like to know how to make claim/legal action to get this money bsck. I don’t care if it costs me more than they took from me. It is the principle.

I booked a car in the UK through http://www.atlaschoice.com to be picked up in France, and the company requested feedback, which I provided, as below, giving them 1 star out of 5. Although not a complete disaster, and we were able to work around the problems, there is a lot of scope for them to improve and their overall service level was very poor. I have yet to receive any response to my comments, which is disappointing but not unexpected.

We booked a MANUAL Nissan Qashqai (or equivalent) and received an AUTOMATIC Renault Scenic. Although this was technically an upgrade, there is a big gap between a manual and an automatic.

This was a much bigger car than we required, and as we drove around 2,600 KM we have paid more on petrol than we would have expected.

Given that you were not providing the car we ordered, as a basic courtesy I would have expected that this was made clear BEFORE we had gone through the form filling rather than simply presenting the wrong car with no apology or explanation.

The car was scratched in various places, although this was not mentioned or documented until we spotted the defects.

Worse of all you provided a car that was not legal – there was no spare bulb kit or breathalysers. There was a warning triangle but only 2 hi-vis vests, which is strange for a 7 seat car. Had we been stopped by the police and fined than I would have been charging the costs back to yourselves. I would have expected your representative to have made a point of highlighting that all legal requirements had been satisfied.

The collection process in Reims was hugely inefficient and took over 1 hour. There was only 1 staff member on duty who also took phone calls. Despite booking on line, we had to provide passports and driving licenses (which were then photocopied) plus address details, which were manually keyed into the system. The new DVLA codes that we had with us were ignored completely!

Then we come to the return of the vehicle on Saturday 15th August. My booking form with you clearly states a drop off of 10:00 but to our amazement the office was closed. Apparently it was only open on Saturday afternoon, which contradicts the timings you state on the voucher. Had there been a secure key drop off on site this would not have been so bad but there was a hand written note on the door providing another address in Reims where we could drop off the key. Luckily we had a sat nav and our own car available so were able to navigate the 1.5 miles over to the new drop off point, which was a Total petrol station. We duly handed in the key but were provided with no receipt or other evidence.

To conclude there seems to be a complete disconnection between the booking process you operate in the UK and what is delivered by your agency in France, who seem to operate completely independently and to their own rules.

I rented through http://www.carhirebible.com who book through rentalcars and i found all the information i needed before i booked, there was hardsell on pick up through Hertz but as long as you stick to your guns you should be fine.