Hi
We purchased a European breakdown policy from yourselves after reading several excellent reviews... however unfortunately after having to utilise said policy I feel I must email you to make a series of complaints and to find out what exactly is going to be done to resolve several issues that have since occurred
28/07/2014 - Our van broke down on an AutoRoute. We quickly phoned the phone number which was given on all the policy documents. Advice was given, and we duly followed the instructions given by your advisor.
We were eventually recovered off of the AutoRoute by a local company to a local garage, where the recovery driver engaged in a heated argument with the garage manager. The recovery driver then informed us that we were required to pay a sum of 300 euros for the recovery and that this needed to be paid in cash there & then. We paid him. However after another call to the RAC we were told we should not have paid him a penny and this should have been sorted out between the RAC & the recovery company. We were then advised that a claims form would be emailed over to us to claim the recovery fee back, however it is over two weeks since we returned and we still have no form.
After the argument between the garage and the recovery driver we were taken to another garage. Here we sat for 9 hours awaiting a form of either onward transport or hotel until the vehicle was repaired
9 hours! Is this really acceptable given the ease of which it is to find either a hire car or a hotel in todays day & age. 2 hours would be acceptable 3 hours understandable and 4 hours bordering on the un-acceptable. 9 hours is simply disgraceful treatment of paying clients. 9 hours would be totally un-acceptable for 2 fit and healthy people to wait, however as a party of 9 we had amongst us two pensioners & a 3 year old. Despite informing every single advisor we spoke to about the situation absolutely nothing was done to rectify our situation. We were fobbed off by different agents time & time again.
Eventually myself and my sister decided to check online as to the availability of two suitable hire cars that were in the nearby area. We found several within the space of 30 minutes... 30 MINUTES NOT 9 HOURS! How is it that with nothing other than 2 mobile phones and a poor internet connection we were able to do what your agents could not?!
After informing the agents of our apparently unprecedented ability to search for hire cars, amazingly within the next 30 minutes there were two cars waiting for us & a taxi on its way to collect us. Astounding really that it took so long when it was a 30 minute job and the Hertz depot was only a 30 minute drive away.
Due to this we missed a day & a night of our holiday & had to spend one night in the hire vehicles with a 3 year old and two pensioners both over the age of 65. Utterly appalling & unbelievable treatment. Customer service was practically nil.
All this would be bad enough... but no the nightmare was to continue, let me carry on with my tale of woe & shambolic customer services policies;
Two days later we were finally able to get our holiday started *<:-P party
After a few days enjoying the sun (I wish, it didn't stop raining for two weeks) we received a call informing us that the garage had identified the fault with the vehicle & it was going to cost 359 euros to rectify. All well & good, not a problem with that at all.
The next problem to arise was when it came to collection/delivery of the vehicle.. bearing in mind the shambolic treatment we had already been "treated" to by the RAC we assumed (incorrectly) that something would be done to rectify the damage that had been caused to our family holiday... oh how wrong we were.
I politely asked that vehicle be delivered to the location we were holidaying in or that we collect the vehicles on the way home with the RAC paying for the hire cars which would have come in well under the "continuation of the your journey" value of the policy. Especially given that the breakdown occurred some 500km away from the holiday destination. Not only were we told we had no choice in the matter but to collect the car. we were also told that we would be charged the full amount by Hertz if we refused to collect the vehicle. What the hell kind of service is it that you are running? We would have been better off had we not taken out your laughable excuse of a breakdown policy.
One of the advisors seemingly took pity and said he would take it up with a supervisor & call us back. The call never came. We received another call (from a completely different advisor) two days later and exactly the same argument ensued with exactly the same outcome. Again the return call never came.. instead we received another call from another advisor to ask whether they could authorise the repairs & that the rental period for the hire cars were to expire the next day. We gave authorisation for the repairs whilst the argument over dropping the car off/collecting the car was going on. The next day we get yet another call from yet another advisor claiming the garage needed the vehicle documents to carry out the repairs... Who the hell carries all the vehicle documents with them?? And why on earth were they needed for a simple repair?! Away the advisor went again.. no repair & no resolution in sight after an entire week nothing had been resolved.
07/07/2014 - After one whole week of being messed around we still had no repair done to our vehicle and still no resolution on picking the vehicle up on the way home or having it dropped off to us, which considering the fact the RAC are one of the largest vehicle recovery specialists in the world is pretty **** poor. Finally we received another call... this time it was an agent claiming the garage could not carry out the repair as they needed a signature from the vehicle owner...WE WERE 500KM AWAY... HOW DO WE SIGN FOR SOMETHING THAT DISTANCE AWAY! I mean seriously is there an ounce of common sense spread between the amount of advisors we spoke to?
Once again the agent went away without giving us any more information and without us getting any answers.
We received another call the next day, asking whether we would authorise the repairs.. after all this, every conversation we had had prior to this one had been ignored/forgotten/deleted or just plain disregarded.
Once again I gave my authorisation for the repairs and was told it should be ready by Thursday... not one mention of vehicle documents or signatures (funny that)
We had another call the next day (Wednesday) "Your car will be ready on Friday" HAPPY DAYS coincidentally we were travelling home the Friday so were able to collect the vehicle in the manner we had asked for but had so rudely been refused on many occasions prior.
It was on the Friday that we finally after two weeks of dealing with complete and utter incompetence that we got to speak to a thoroughly helpful, genuine and courteous agent, I believe her name was Rachel (may not be but im sure you can pull this up on our file or via your call recorder) This agent kindly called ahead to the garage to confirm everything and for the first time we actually received the call back we were promised. She also arranged for our hire cars to be returned to a nearer Hertz dealer. Which was actually rather infuriating given that we waited 9 hours for the hire cars to be approved. Only to find there were two Hertz dealers both within a small distance of where we were left stranded.
However, once our vehicle was collected and paid for, we went on our way to drop the hire cars off. The dealership was found and the cars wer parked.. this is where things took a rather sinister and nasty turn. Before we had even got into the reception and irate, angry and violent mechanic came racing out to confront myself and step father about why the vehicles were being left there. Before we had a chance to explain he picked the vehicle keys up and proceeded to throw them at my Father along with the paperwork for the vehicles screaming that they weren't his problem and that we had to valet the cars inside & out. He then proceeded to start screaming that we couldn't leave them there as they weren't his problem and if we didn't move them he would call the police. Despite his protestations and given the tribulations we had endured already we weren't ready to just give in and take the cars and proceeded to argue with him only for the mechanic to forcibly shove my Father out of the way before attempting to take pictures of the number plate of our own vehicle.. deeply disturbing given that we had a 3 year old in the car said mechanic then decided to hide the keys to one of the vehicles and accuse us of stealing them only to turn up in his pocket once he realised we were leaving regardless. I proceeded to phone the RAC yet again only to be greeted by a less than helpful advisor who I passed over to the mechanic... he seemingly must have calmed him however the story does not end there.
I wasn't going to write this email as I had decided to wash my hands of this travesty of a holiday however, today 24/07/2014 I have had a call from my credit card company to inform me that £1500 has been taken off the card by Hertz France. No reason has been given and I have not had any calls or letter from Hertz to inform me as to why this has been done.
Given the hell the RAC put my family through and given that we went to the Hertz dealer that your agents had told us to go to I am holding the RAC responsible.
Added to the fact the car has since broken down and has had the same fault identified yet again I would say we are owed by the RAC, I can provide proof of the faulty repair along with an engineers report to confirm the French repair we paid for was spurious.
Regards
Trevor Jefferies
We purchased a European breakdown policy from yourselves after reading several excellent reviews... however unfortunately after having to utilise said policy I feel I must email you to make a series of complaints and to find out what exactly is going to be done to resolve several issues that have since occurred
28/07/2014 - Our van broke down on an AutoRoute. We quickly phoned the phone number which was given on all the policy documents. Advice was given, and we duly followed the instructions given by your advisor.
We were eventually recovered off of the AutoRoute by a local company to a local garage, where the recovery driver engaged in a heated argument with the garage manager. The recovery driver then informed us that we were required to pay a sum of 300 euros for the recovery and that this needed to be paid in cash there & then. We paid him. However after another call to the RAC we were told we should not have paid him a penny and this should have been sorted out between the RAC & the recovery company. We were then advised that a claims form would be emailed over to us to claim the recovery fee back, however it is over two weeks since we returned and we still have no form.
After the argument between the garage and the recovery driver we were taken to another garage. Here we sat for 9 hours awaiting a form of either onward transport or hotel until the vehicle was repaired
9 hours! Is this really acceptable given the ease of which it is to find either a hire car or a hotel in todays day & age. 2 hours would be acceptable 3 hours understandable and 4 hours bordering on the un-acceptable. 9 hours is simply disgraceful treatment of paying clients. 9 hours would be totally un-acceptable for 2 fit and healthy people to wait, however as a party of 9 we had amongst us two pensioners & a 3 year old. Despite informing every single advisor we spoke to about the situation absolutely nothing was done to rectify our situation. We were fobbed off by different agents time & time again.
Eventually myself and my sister decided to check online as to the availability of two suitable hire cars that were in the nearby area. We found several within the space of 30 minutes... 30 MINUTES NOT 9 HOURS! How is it that with nothing other than 2 mobile phones and a poor internet connection we were able to do what your agents could not?!
After informing the agents of our apparently unprecedented ability to search for hire cars, amazingly within the next 30 minutes there were two cars waiting for us & a taxi on its way to collect us. Astounding really that it took so long when it was a 30 minute job and the Hertz depot was only a 30 minute drive away.
Due to this we missed a day & a night of our holiday & had to spend one night in the hire vehicles with a 3 year old and two pensioners both over the age of 65. Utterly appalling & unbelievable treatment. Customer service was practically nil.
All this would be bad enough... but no the nightmare was to continue, let me carry on with my tale of woe & shambolic customer services policies;
Two days later we were finally able to get our holiday started *<:-P party
After a few days enjoying the sun (I wish, it didn't stop raining for two weeks) we received a call informing us that the garage had identified the fault with the vehicle & it was going to cost 359 euros to rectify. All well & good, not a problem with that at all.
The next problem to arise was when it came to collection/delivery of the vehicle.. bearing in mind the shambolic treatment we had already been "treated" to by the RAC we assumed (incorrectly) that something would be done to rectify the damage that had been caused to our family holiday... oh how wrong we were.
I politely asked that vehicle be delivered to the location we were holidaying in or that we collect the vehicles on the way home with the RAC paying for the hire cars which would have come in well under the "continuation of the your journey" value of the policy. Especially given that the breakdown occurred some 500km away from the holiday destination. Not only were we told we had no choice in the matter but to collect the car. we were also told that we would be charged the full amount by Hertz if we refused to collect the vehicle. What the hell kind of service is it that you are running? We would have been better off had we not taken out your laughable excuse of a breakdown policy.
One of the advisors seemingly took pity and said he would take it up with a supervisor & call us back. The call never came. We received another call (from a completely different advisor) two days later and exactly the same argument ensued with exactly the same outcome. Again the return call never came.. instead we received another call from another advisor to ask whether they could authorise the repairs & that the rental period for the hire cars were to expire the next day. We gave authorisation for the repairs whilst the argument over dropping the car off/collecting the car was going on. The next day we get yet another call from yet another advisor claiming the garage needed the vehicle documents to carry out the repairs... Who the hell carries all the vehicle documents with them?? And why on earth were they needed for a simple repair?! Away the advisor went again.. no repair & no resolution in sight after an entire week nothing had been resolved.
07/07/2014 - After one whole week of being messed around we still had no repair done to our vehicle and still no resolution on picking the vehicle up on the way home or having it dropped off to us, which considering the fact the RAC are one of the largest vehicle recovery specialists in the world is pretty **** poor. Finally we received another call... this time it was an agent claiming the garage could not carry out the repair as they needed a signature from the vehicle owner...WE WERE 500KM AWAY... HOW DO WE SIGN FOR SOMETHING THAT DISTANCE AWAY! I mean seriously is there an ounce of common sense spread between the amount of advisors we spoke to?
Once again the agent went away without giving us any more information and without us getting any answers.
We received another call the next day, asking whether we would authorise the repairs.. after all this, every conversation we had had prior to this one had been ignored/forgotten/deleted or just plain disregarded.
Once again I gave my authorisation for the repairs and was told it should be ready by Thursday... not one mention of vehicle documents or signatures (funny that)
We had another call the next day (Wednesday) "Your car will be ready on Friday" HAPPY DAYS coincidentally we were travelling home the Friday so were able to collect the vehicle in the manner we had asked for but had so rudely been refused on many occasions prior.
It was on the Friday that we finally after two weeks of dealing with complete and utter incompetence that we got to speak to a thoroughly helpful, genuine and courteous agent, I believe her name was Rachel (may not be but im sure you can pull this up on our file or via your call recorder) This agent kindly called ahead to the garage to confirm everything and for the first time we actually received the call back we were promised. She also arranged for our hire cars to be returned to a nearer Hertz dealer. Which was actually rather infuriating given that we waited 9 hours for the hire cars to be approved. Only to find there were two Hertz dealers both within a small distance of where we were left stranded.
However, once our vehicle was collected and paid for, we went on our way to drop the hire cars off. The dealership was found and the cars wer parked.. this is where things took a rather sinister and nasty turn. Before we had even got into the reception and irate, angry and violent mechanic came racing out to confront myself and step father about why the vehicles were being left there. Before we had a chance to explain he picked the vehicle keys up and proceeded to throw them at my Father along with the paperwork for the vehicles screaming that they weren't his problem and that we had to valet the cars inside & out. He then proceeded to start screaming that we couldn't leave them there as they weren't his problem and if we didn't move them he would call the police. Despite his protestations and given the tribulations we had endured already we weren't ready to just give in and take the cars and proceeded to argue with him only for the mechanic to forcibly shove my Father out of the way before attempting to take pictures of the number plate of our own vehicle.. deeply disturbing given that we had a 3 year old in the car said mechanic then decided to hide the keys to one of the vehicles and accuse us of stealing them only to turn up in his pocket once he realised we were leaving regardless. I proceeded to phone the RAC yet again only to be greeted by a less than helpful advisor who I passed over to the mechanic... he seemingly must have calmed him however the story does not end there.
I wasn't going to write this email as I had decided to wash my hands of this travesty of a holiday however, today 24/07/2014 I have had a call from my credit card company to inform me that £1500 has been taken off the card by Hertz France. No reason has been given and I have not had any calls or letter from Hertz to inform me as to why this has been done.
Given the hell the RAC put my family through and given that we went to the Hertz dealer that your agents had told us to go to I am holding the RAC responsible.
Added to the fact the car has since broken down and has had the same fault identified yet again I would say we are owed by the RAC, I can provide proof of the faulty repair along with an engineers report to confirm the French repair we paid for was spurious.
Regards
Trevor Jefferies