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Woman alone on Belgian Mway at night, terrible service & problems to get carback

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I was returning from my father’s funeral in Belgium (he had died suddenly the previous day) when my vehicle suffered a breakdown.
I telephoned the number I was given by my insurers, explained that I was a woman alone on a foreign motorway at night (nearly midnight) and no street lights. I was told that this was the RAC but that I was not covered.

I was then given the telephone numbers of all the other breakdown companies for me to try. This I did to no avail.
In the meantime, the Belgian police had arrived and wanted my vehicle off the road.
The police told me that they were now calling a towing vehicle and that I would have to pay if I had no cover. I was very upset by this time and not sure what to do.

I rang the RAC number again and this time the person told me that I was covered after all, perhaps an error in taking down the registration number. At this point the recovery vehicle arrived and the driver spoke to the RAC person and agreed that RAC would pay for the recovery. The RAC person told me that they would book me a hotel asap and a taxi to take me there.

I was then driven with my car to a depot (I know not where) and waited over an hour for a call whilst the driver/depot owner wanted to go to bed (about 2am by then). The RAC person called back to tell us that they could not find a hotel as there was an important bike race in Li*ge and all hotels were booked. They would try further afield. The depot owner kindly offered to let me wait inside rather than leave a woman alone on the pavement waiting for a hotel/taxi that may not come.

Much later, we received a call to state that a hotel had been found about 40km away and that they would now call a taxi which should come in the next half an hour or so. I would have to pay Euro 120 for the night in advance but would be reimbursed. Luckily I had about that amount in my account but found the price extravagant. I certainly would not have agreed had I been told that I would only get £30 back from RAC. Since I was very tired and lost at this point I agreed.

At 8am on 25th April, having topped up my phone with overseas credit (in total I had to do this 5 times), I rang the French call centre number again and was told that they would ring the depot after 9 and find out what was happening as there was no one around so early. I explained I didn’t know where I was or where the car was which was rather stressful. I receive no call back and had to phone them again. At this point I was told that they could not diagnose the problem that day and that I would have to get a hire car in Li*ge that had been reserved for me. I explained that I was not in Li*ge which they seemed to not be aware of. I was then told a taxi would come in the next half an hour and that the car would be ready at 12.30. No taxi arrived and I phoned again (twice more). By this point I was panicking and frustrated and again feeling very lonely and upset.

Avis did deal with my booking but had to make several phone calls as their booking form stated that the RAC were not paying and that I would have to pay for the hire car myself. Again this was very upsetting as I do not have that sort of money or credit. After a couple of calls from Avis to the RAC, the matter was eventually sorted and the hire car was issued after I had to leave a deposit again on my own card.

Moreover, I had no ferry ticket and the RAC told me I had to book and pay for this myself but I had no wifi and no way of booking. The RAC did not offer to do this for me and just assumed it would happen somehow!
My phone was topped up again but I had no 3G internet access. The staff at Avis felt sorry for me and booked the ferry on my behalf from Calais to Dover on their work computer.

I then drove to Calais. I got lost a few times as I had no map or satnav and could not use my phone to navigate. After topping my phone up, I spoke to the RAC in France (more international calls) and was told that there would be a taxi waiting for me at the Ferry port to take me to Europcar where a car would be waiting.

When I arrived in Calais at Avis in the centre of town, where the car was due to be returned rather than at the ferry-port, the office was closed and there was NO taxi waiting. I walked into the nearest open shop and asked them if they would kindly call a taxi for me as I didn’t know the numbers and I had no way of using a public telephone had I found one.

Once I came off the ferry at Dover I realised that there was no taxi waiting and got one myself to Europcar. The office was closed and there was only an out of hours number. I phoned this and stood waiting for 20 minutes outside whilst the owner came from his house to sort the car out for me. Apparently this was normal practice as the RAC would not pay for him to wait for the customer.
The car was booked out although not without trouble as I did not have my counterpart driving licence with me (not knowing I was going to be renting a car in the UK when I left home the day before) and I could not prove that I had no points on my licence.
Over 24 hours after I first rang the RAC. I returned the car to the local Europcar office.

Once I had returned home I called the RAC to find out what was happening with my car or indeed where it was. It took several calls (I am lucky that I work in an office) for them to get back to me and explain that the Belgian garage thought it was the cam belt and it would cost 2,000 to have it fixed. I still did not know where the car was. I requested that the car be returned to the UK for repairs.

I was then told that I needed to prove that the cam belt had been changed within the last two years as otherwise I had been wilfully negligent and the costs would all be mine to bear. I could have, apparently, just driven over to Belgium to my father’s funeral in order to break down and get the RAC to repatriate my car.

As I had only owned the car for 18 months I wasn’t sure how to prove this and got upset that this was needed and that it was implied that I would be lying.
I telephoned the garage from which we had bought the car and asked for their help. They explained that they had changed the cam belt as part of getting the car ready to be sold. They kindly offered to send me a confirmation note that the cam belt had been changed on headed paper and signed by the director of the garage (which they had no obligation to do). I then sent this on to the RAC by pdf, thinking that would be the end of it and the car would be returned soon.

The RAC told me that this was not acceptable proof and that they needed an invoice. I put them in touch directly with the garage as I did not know what else to do. The garage owner phoned me to explain that they had spoken to the RAC and that the RAC had asked for an invoice, they had explained that they did not have one as they did not invoice internally, which the RAC thought was strange. He explained to them that they had been in business for many years and that they were a bona fide business which the RAC could look up and check out. They would not however issue an invoice as this would indeed be fraud rather than the genuine letter they had sent.

The RAC told me that the case would have to be referred to a supervisor and then to some kind of “board” for a decision as to whether my car could be returned to the UK or not. I started making enquiries with my local garage in case I had to fetch the car myself but this was going to be very complicated and expensive.

Eventually after some chasing, I received a call stating that my car would be returned to the UK in the next two weeks. I was surprised that it took two weeks to get to the UK. I was also told that the car would be delivered at the garage I had chosen on a Saturday or a Sunday 24/25 May. I wasn’t sure how this would work as there may not be anyone there at the weekend
Indeed the car arrived, ONE MONTH AFTER I BROKE DOWN, and he wasn’t there. Luckily the neighbour took the keys and the car into his yard so that it would not be stolen or damaged.
My mechanic checked the car and found that it was not a problem with the cam belt but that it was the water pump seizing up which had caused the cam belt to fail. I couldn’t believe that I had had to go through all this stress and the cam belt wasn’t faulty after all. Why put someone through all this trauma when they weren’t even sure what the problem was?

I then proceeded to send through my expenses on the correct form and by signed for post as directed. A week or so late, received a phone call stating that the taxi receipts were missing. As I know I had sent them, I telephoned the RAC. They stated that I may have done but they only had pdf copies as it was another department who actually had the receipts and they therefore couldn’t check whether they had merely not been copied. I stated that I could send him copies but that their instructions stated clearly that only originals were acceptable. I was told that this did not matter and I should email the copies which I did.

I was also told that the hotel bill would only be reimbursed up to £30 as per the policy. However, on the night of the breakdown this was not mentioned and I was told that I would have to pay the hotel up front at 120 euro but that the cost would be reimbursed. Tired out, in a foreign country at 3am in the morning, I took the RAC person’s word for it and paid. I think I should have been told this as I would not have agreed to pay this sort of money for 4 hours in a hotel room without tea/coffee/breakfast etc….. I emailed the RAC on 5th June to make this complaint but only received a terse response stating that “that was the policy” and nothing else! Terrible customer service.

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