Thursday, February 19, 2009

1car1.com: robbing bastards or model business? You decide

So another month passes and I hear nothing from 1car1.com, who you may recall, took 500 quid from me because my sister slightly grazed the back bumper of a car I hired from them.

Clearly, they just want me to forget about it. I'm in Australia, so what can I do? They have the money up front, so what can I do?

All I can do is whine about it on my blog, and email them fruitlessly, becoming more and more furious that our economic system encouraged people to be this indecent. A business model that subsidises cheap upfront prices by scamming people when they damage cars is disgusting, and pretending that is not what you are doing is laughable, when it so clearly is.

All you can do, to lessen the frustration, is to call these cunts out, which I do:

Hi

It's now another month and not a sign of any invoice.

You told me the work had been done and you were just awaiting an invoice. A month ago. I am pretty sure you are going to screw me out of every cent of my 500 quid, but I'd like to know for sure, because my poor sister is really worried about paying me back and I'd like to get it sorted with her.

It looks a lot like you simply hope I'll stop bothering you, and you can keep the whole 500 quid. I've checked you thieves out on the web, and that seems to be your MO. So okay, big mistake to hire a car from you, but can you please just get the robbery over with? How hard is it to invent damage that might conceivably have cost 500 quid (given that the very minor damage we actually did would not cost anything like that to fix)?

And, just on the off chance that it actually bothers you that I think you're a bunch of robbing bastards, could you suggest to me why I wouldn't think that about people who take 500 quid from me, never bother contacting me and have no intention of giving it back, as far as I can see?


It resolves nothing, and I (or my sister J, actually, because she insists on paying it) am out 500 quid no matter what, but the "little people" have to get whatever small satisfaction they can in this world.

3 Comments:

At 4:56 pm, Anonymous Anonymous said...

read the excess part as you have initial it to agree.why did you not reduce the excess i do always as you dont know wot pricks are out there

 
At 4:58 pm, Blogger Dr Zen said...

I've never hired a car before, so I have no idea what I should or shouldn't read on the form. I didn't know you could reduce the excess (or why I'd want to), and of course no one drew my attention to the possibility.

So next time I'll be wiser. I'm aware that I wasn't very smart. But my contention remains that companies who take advantage of an information gap and then say, well, you signed a legally binding agreement so fuck you, are bad businesses, not worthy of our custom or respect.

 
At 4:03 am, Anonymous Anonymous said...

well by the looks of it you wont get any money or hire again as the company has gone into recivership now

 

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