Tuesday, January 20, 2009

0car0.com

So I have had a fruitless email correspondence with 1car1.com, who you may recall, shafted me over a minor graze on a rental car.

This was three months ago. This is a car they are claiming is seriously damaged. Presumably it can't be hired out while so badly smashed about (although I would be absolutely astonished, truly, if it had not been rented out several times in those three months, because the plain truth is that the damage was so minor they could just put it on the hire form). But no word. They are supposed to have repaired it, but apparently it takes several weeks to receive an invoice. Maybe they should get a new garage. Mine invoices me on the spot.

They took 500 quid of my money and have neither returned any nor let me know how much they intend to rape me for.

This is good business? Their guy in customer service whose job is to bullshit customers says that if I have a complaint I can go to the BVRLA.

Erm yeah. I should complain to a body whose members are carhire firms, whose staff's wages all come from contributions from said firms? LOL.

The customer bullshitter's line, ultimately, is "all
procedures set in place have been actioned correctly". Yes, of course they were. The procedures are in place to rape hirers in this circumstance. Why should 1car1.com have any other procedures? It takes your money and then basically, you can go fuck yourself, paying interest to your credit card company for the money they took while they invent reasons for not giving any back. (One supposes that their "procedures" take a very long time so that you have given up hope of getting any money back, and will be pathetically grateful to receive a tenner.)

I realise I should have photographed the damage. You'd never believe that it's something that needs three months to fix. My sister's boyfriend, who knows a few guys in the valeting business, said his mate P would have fixed it up in five minutes if my sister had not rung 1car1.com. It really is that small: a scratch that you simply would not bother fixing on your own car.

500 quid is about 1100 dollars in Australian money. I could buy a car for that, let alone get a graze fixed in the shop.

The problem with "procedures", I would be telling the customer bullshitter if I believed it would make any difference, which of course it would not, is that they exist to prevent human interaction, to deny human space, if you like, to people, to prevent them from being able to react reasonably to things that you do to them, and ultimately to deny natural justice.

What do I mean by "natural justice" in this context? I mean what a reasonable person would think was right in the situation. Anyone looking at the car would say, that's about a hundred quid, tops. (Just as with Import CDs, the natural thing to do--actually the dictate of sanity--would be not to send the CD to the completely wrong address, where no one lives who wants it, but to take some other course, like maybe sorting it out with Amazon.)

People do this all the time though. Their companies have invented "procedures" basically to fuck the customer, to prevent us from receiving service, while giving us "service".

After my previous post, I received an email from (someone purporting to be from) 1car1.com, asking for details of my hire, so that they could investigate. I told him I didn't care about their "customer service" because when I had written to the Brighton office about the hire, they had not even bothered responding. I suppose they don't have a procedure for that (and the guy's job is to talk down 1car1.com's bad name -- see him here not addressing the person's review, but blahblahing about it: LOL at "We do not use accident damage as a money making scheme"--yah, "Rob", it just happens that the damage costs always the amount of the excess, no matter how small the scratch). The only way to force bad businesses to give good service, real service, not a substitute invented simply to make you go away and stop bothering them, is to refuse to do business with them.

I'll never use 1car1.com again, and I hope that no one who reads this blog does. I hope this post and the other get as many hits as my post on Import CDs (at least one a day). Ultimately, these people will, I hope, lose a lot more than 500 quid by fucking me over, and somewhere down the track, someone in their business will realise that taking people's money for months and working up a huge bill so that you can get to keep it may be good business in the short term but it's bad bad bad business in the long.

As a coda, let me note that I'm not alone in being fucked by these people: check out the complaints here. A fair few people with tiny scratches that mysteriously cost the whole excess, all having the excess whipped out of their account and not a word for months. It seems I was absolutely right when I nailed this as a big scam. (The thing is, if you're going to fuck people over for tiny scratches on cars, guys, you should fuck us for half the money. 250 quid would have been VERY expensive, but it's just feasible it could cost that. Taking all 500 really just looks suspicious to us and makes us angry enough to complain.) I wish I had googled these people first! Why are people saying this all over the web if there is no scam, "Rob"?:
The costs will be 500 pounds no matter how minor the damage.

10 Comments:

At 8:13 pm, Blogger Father Luke said...

Class action law suit.

Look at these complaints:

http://www.my3cents.com/gSearch.cgi?cx=partner-pub-9756519274360254%3A8wwkal-87fg&cof=FORID%3A10&ie=ISO-8859-1&q=1Car1&sa=Search#891


I hope your article has
a gazillion hits, Zenner.

- -
Okay,
Father Luke

 
At 8:28 pm, Anonymous Anonymous said...

boots sez:

Large companies know what it means to service a customer, just as a bull knows what it means to service a cow.

Small companies seem not as bad.

It seems very similar to the way a representative democracy works. If there's a good chance you'll meet your representative in the local pub and black his eye, he'll be more likely to consider your interests than if he's never heard of you.

I wonder if it would have cost you more than the hire-fee plus the 500 quid extortion if you had simply used taxis.

Good luck, remember to take your revenge cold.

 
At 12:41 am, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Yeah well i usual do all the reviewcentre, and Tripadvisor checks before i travel, i'm surprised at you maybe it was the price (what ever that was) that seduced you,

 
At 4:19 pm, Blogger $Zero said...

Don't get me started with consumer dissatisfaction tales, I'm liable to never shut the fuck up.

Although, I have some great stories to tell about turning those situations completely around.

Remind me someday to tell you how I got the airlines to refund my mother's $700 ticket when she had to cancel a trip to my cousin's wedding and they initially absolutely refused to give her her money back.

It was much like your story in the sense that they were trying to get away with getting paid twice for the same exact seat, while claiming otherwise.

I put a beautiful end to that scam.

Michael Moore would have been proud.

 
At 12:01 am, Anonymous Anonymous said...

You borrow something and damage it and agree that if its in your care that your liable for the damage...


Sounds like sour grapes to me

 
At 8:59 am, Blogger Dr Zen said...

You don't have any option but to agree to be liable for damage. But you know that.

 
At 7:47 am, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Its really simple my freind (Although by the sounds of it not to you).

1) You hire a car

2) You collect the car

3) You inspect the car for damage and note the damage on the rental aggreement.

4) You sign a legally binding document stating that you have checked the car for damage and that you aggree to pay the Excess ( Normally £500) In the event of damage or theft to the car.

5) Your eturn the car and the car is checked back in and you then check the car to ensure that no damage has occured while the car has been in you possesion.

Now obviously in this case there was. So therefore you are 100% responsible for the damage that you caused to the car.

Now as you mentioned your mate "p" who works in the valeting business (So he cleans cars) said he could fix it in five minutes, This is a completly unjust comment as he has not seen the damage or where this occured.

May i suggest in future if you decide to hire a car that you take a responsible adult with you who is able to maybe help you sign and read the rental aggreement.

 
At 8:17 am, Blogger Dr Zen said...

No, this is how it works:
1/ You need to rent a car.
2/ To get hold of a car, you are forced to allow the robbing bastard car rental company to take your credit card number. You won't get a card if you don't do that.
3/ You also have to sign a form.
4/ When you return the car with any damage whatsoever, the company claims you caused major damage, and takes the whole 500 quid.
5/ The car rental company is able to subsidise its low rental prices, which are its USP, with money it has scammed from you and others unfortunate enough to put a minor scratch on their cars.

That's how it works. And you know how I know you're a fucking shill and not a normal member of the public, dude? Because people are quite clear that when you want things in this world, you are forced to sign "legally binding agreements" to acquire those things, no matter how unfair those agreements are. There is no other way to rent a car. Does that make it right?

Well, obviously, that scam helps pay your wages, bro, so you think it's just dandy. But for us poor souls who get ripped off by your company, not so much.

 
At 9:10 am, Blogger Dr Zen said...

"If you have a problem with the way vehicles are rented. Don't do it."

Well, turns out I won't be able to, because I cursed 1car1 into oblivion, and if you were one of the thieving cunts working for them, you're now on the dole. And it's rabid arseholes like you who voted in the Tories for so many years, allowing them to slash benefits and treat the unemployed like dogs. So it's going to hurt, Steve. LOLOLOLOLOLOL. Cunt.

 
At 9:52 am, Blogger Father Luke said...

heh.

- -
Okay,
Father Luke

 

Post a Comment

<< Home