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We hired a car for a month in Italy through Travel Jigsaw - the renter was Locauto (another story in itself!) We took out the excess reduction policy thinking it was giving us peace of mind in case of an accident. Well, we had an accident and as per the policy, Locauto charged us the full excess of 750 euros. The problems began when we tried to claim under the damage excess policy. They told me we were not covered because the accident was NOT our fault. We had to wait and get the excess back from the local renter! This has finally happened after 4 months but totally defeated the point of the policy which was to give peace of mind in case of and accident.
I CANNOT get an answer out of the as to where it stated in their terms and conditions that they will not pay out if it is a third party accident. It does not state this anywhere in the long list of exclusions. (A pretty major exclusion probably counting for more than 50% or hire car accidents!) After many frustrating phone calls between me in AUstralia and the UK, they now totally ignore my emails and seem happy that I have got my money back from Locauto on Italy. The fact that it took 4 months and hassle to do this seems to not bother them. I said I wanted answers to my simple question, "where does it state in your terms and conditions that I am not covered for a thrid party fault accident" and they just will not respond.
In fact I find it hard to see where whey would actually pay out under this policy as one of the exclusions is "neglicence" by the driver - well if an accident is your fault isn;t that insome way negligence? So they may not pay out if it IS your fault too!
To conlcude a sorry sage, we rented a car in the UK the following month (booked before we knew what problems we would have) and they messed up the voucher and didn;t include the additional driver which meant we were charged by Europcar over 5 pounds a day for 30 days and this also took time to sort out after the rental, all costing money in credit card interest.
Don't touch them with a barge pole! Notice that any good reviews you read are from people that had no problems at the end of their rental. The problems start if there is an issue after the end of the rental.
Their customer service is diabolical. You can NEVER speak to a supervisor (they won't call you, you can't hold, you can't get a time when they will be free and I found that when Ic alled to try and get through to the case worker, the lines were so busy you get diverted to another stream, usually people who are dealing with new rentals and know nothign of your problem and can;t transfer you to the right place.
I repeat; DON'T TOUCH THEM WITH A BARGE POLE!
The complaint has been investigated and resolved to the customer’s satisfaction.
I recently rented a car via Rent a Green Car (which has since disappeared from the web but seems to be the same company as Carhire3000 and Travel Jigsaw) and very quickly regretted it. I ultimately realized that it was nothing more than a truly genius concept to rope in and get money from knee-jerk environmentalists or people who want to quickly and easily feel better about the already not eco-friendly decisions they are making (like I was at the time). Rent a Green Car operates as a kind of travel agent, regrouping worldwide car rental places and their cars – their trick is organizing the cars in terms of their CO2 emissions.
Does it work? Yes. Are they trustworthy? Seemingly so. However
1) The rate I paid was more than the walk-in rate when I arrived to the rental place. Often, dealing directly with the car rental company will find much better rates – I paid 50% more than I would have.
2) The package that you are forced to take (at least in my case) came with a full tank of gas that I had to pay for, no matter whether it was used or not. This can be very inconvenient if you are only renting for a few days or not planning to travel far. It also encourages people to use as much gas as possible in order not to waste their money – not a very green feeling.
3) This service is supposed to be open only and exclusively to UK residents. Of course, Rent a Green Car will take money from anyone, so it’s no problem to book a car, but the actual car rental agency will not be very happy with you if they see that you are not a UK resident.
What would be a better option for car renters to be more eco-friendly?
1) Consider other possible modes of transport. Or car-sharing companies.
2) Do your own research and choose smarter cars – this is not difficult with Google, to simply research the emissions of various models.
Though it looks like a great idea, it turns out that the site is just another money-making outfit, targetting people soft on the green idea, like any of the other thousands of polluting products marketed as supposedly eco-friendly.
We also hired a car through Travel Jigsaw (Carhire 3000) for one week in Sicily, the renter also Lacauto. We too took out the excess reduction policy. Despite our contract stating in big capital letters prominently displayed along the bottom of the form PAID IN FULL we had to leave a deposit of 1100.00 euros and also had to make an additional payment of 18 euros for Road Licence Fee.
The car we were given had numerous dents and scratches, we were given a printed sheet with a diagram of a car showing the existing damage, we checked the car carefully and insisted that the assistant updated the sheet manually to include all areas of existing damage not noted on the sheet.
When we returned the car it was checked in and we were told that all was we order. We asked the assistant to refund the 1100.00 euros to our card
and he told us it would take 7-10 working days. We queried this delay but to no avail.
Why should this company be able to hold onto such a large sum of money for such a long period? We will have to wait and see when our credit card is credited with this amount and are concerned that will be charged interest on this amount as we are not in a position to pay this fee and the cost of our holiday all at once.
Should have gone to www.arguscarhire.com !