250 car hire company complaints made in Dublin

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Car Rental News - 03/11/2007

 

Consumers are complaining about car hire company practice quite a bit.

To avoid problems, the European Consumer Centre (ECC) in Dublin is advising travelers to become more educated about what is involved when hiring a car. In addition they are urging companies to make information more accessible to customers in order to avoid the onslaught of complaints the Centre has received about car hire companies in the past two years.

The ECC has documented 250 complaints against car hire companies in the last two years. In 65 cases, the ECC Dublin intervened on behalf of the customer to achieve a refund or compensation from the company.

Half of the complaints received by ECC Dublin were against car hire companies based in Ireland and the other half were against companies based abroad.

The most prevalent problem faced by car hire customers was in returning a damaged car. In 17 cases, car hire companies added unforeseen charges to the bill and in 15 cases there were accidents and faults improperly dealt with.

Other common problems include bookings which did not match the records of the car or with the insurance.

There is a lot of fine print involved with car hire contracts. It is a good idea to know what the terms of your hire are and ask for clear and explicit details about all of a car hire company's charges and fees before driving away.

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