Hertz car rental, Pisa Airport, England - Astra car went off road - wheel came off - long delays resulted - only given refund of rental fee as compensation

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RE: Hertz car rental, Pisa Airport, England - Astra car went off road - wheel came off - long delays resulted - only given refund of rental fee as compensation

Hello there, Could you please look at the attached and let me know if you have any ideas. Thanks and kind regards

Sharon

Hertz Car Rental

Hertz File number 1144sss

Hertz telephone number 0207 744 0067 During August 2003 I booked a car with Hertz on the website. It was booked for a site inspection trip that I had with one of my top clients. The car was to be collected at Pisa airport on 29th August until the 1st

September. I duly arrived at the airport and collected a new Astra. All seemed to be ok with the car. I then drove the car about 20 kilometres to our hotel and went out with the client for dinner. The next morning I went to a local

golf club and did some sightseeing in the area until around 10am when I was coming down a hill. At that point the car started to shudder and there was a strange noise and the bolts of the wheel flew out driving us off the road into a ditch. As expected we were very shocked by the whole experience and my client of course was very upset. Where the car came off the road there was no signal and we had to wait some time on a local gent stopping and taking us to the hotel where we could call Hertz and report the accident. That was where it all started to go horribly wrong!!! The lack of service I received then was quite scary. It took over 5 hours for someone to call me back and even to acknowledge that there was a problem with the car that they had given me. When they did eventually call back they told me they were unable to provide me with a car unless I made my way over to Pisa airport and when I said that it was not suitable for me to take time out of a very busy weekend of meetings to go over there.

I asked them to drop a car off at the hotel when they were collecting the car that had broken down. Nothing was said and they told our hotel reception that they would check it out. My client and I arranged for someone to come and collect us from our office and to carry on with our meetings and on our return in the evening we expected that there would be a car waiting for us.

To our disappointment we were told that it was not possible and that they were very busy!! I called them to express my disappointment with them and they told me to contact their customer service dept, which was in fact closed. We asked to speak to the Manager of the office but was told that he was not available and that we should try and contact the Customer Service Office the following day. On our return to the Airport I went to the desk and asked them for a report and acknowledgement that they were not going to charge me for the remainder of the car hire. They told me that they were going to charge me for 2 days as they could not understand that because the car broke down early in the morning I in fact didn’t have the car for a 2nd day.

We asked to speak to the Manager again and he again was not available. We spoke to another gentleman who was possibly the rudest person I have ever met and showed no understanding and couldn’t even apologise for the car having been unroadworthy or their lack of service. He eventually told me that if I had a problem then I should report it to the office in the UK and if I thought that I deserved a refund then I should call them. On my return to the UK I called the customer service office and spoke to Mandy who took notes and told me that it would take 10 days for them to investigate the case and call me back. 14 days later I again called to speak to the office and then found out that the contract number they gave me was in fact that used by the previous person who rented a car and had in fact had an accident with the same tyre that had came off when I drove it. The gentleman before me had to pay tyre damage and had returned the car about 2 weeks before my hire. Again I was told that no-one had actioned my complaint and that I would have an answer in 24/48 hours. Since then I must have called around 8 or 9 times and last week I eventually got hold of someone called Com who assured me that he himself would call me by Friday last week. This he did but unfortunately I found his response an insult. I was told that Hertz incorporated a stringent check on all cars before they are given out and in this instance he was going to suggest that they get in touch with Vauxhall re the warranty of this car and that’s what he suggested I do. I told him that this was a laughable excuse and that he was just trying to palm me off with some half hearted excuse. I then told him that we had taken photos of the car and the wheel, and in fact that for him to suggest that they had checked this car over properly was ridiculous because a tyres bolts would not come out after driving only

90 kilometres! And he then told me that he believed me and would again put this file to be reviewed and again they would get someone to call me. Yesterday I called again as 4 days had then gone by to find out what was happening, Com was not available so I spoke to Joy who told me that the file was still being reviewed but that they could only offer me the refund of the two days car hire. Again I said that I found this an insult to my life and to my clients who were in the car with me.

And again reiterated that if I had gone 2 miles further down the road I would have been on a busy motorway

and could have caused a serious accident and worst of all could have died because they were negligent in giving out a car that was not roadworthy.

No-one has come back to me yet and I would like to know if you could chase this up for me and try and get a satisfactory answer to this. UPDATE

I have again spoken to them today to chase a response up and I have for the first time been offered a letter of apology and today been told that they are willing to refund the two days car hire along with