My partner and me had to move from the UK to Spain with our dog and all our belongings, so we contacted J-Hire.
We spoke to Ken and he was very helpful, but even since the beginning it seemed like we were going to have problems with this company: we spent one week only To book and pay the van (no phone answers, problems with their computer system...).
Finally we paid to rent the van, after asking if the vehicle had an insurance to cover our trip, which was going to be very long and full of risks (we never drove a 6, 5x3 m vehicle before and were quite worried about it). We were told it was insured, but we were never offered an extra insurance. Of course, we do not have any proof of it as everything was done by phone.
Our nightmare started we made a dent in the van when we went inside a parking. We were told to not worry and to discuss the problem once arrived.
In addition, the day we had to return the van, we phoned the person in charge in Spain to let him know our arrival time. It was 10 a.m and we still had three hours way as we had to go home to unload and come back to deliver the van. He said we were going to have to pay an extra day because it was too late already (which means an extra £140). In order to avoid this extra payment, we went directly to return the van and had to ask a favour to our friends, who had to come with two vehicles to pick all our things up.
Besides, the indications this company gave to find their office were not very clear and we stopped and asked for instructions. We had to wait in the middle of the village because the person in charge, Roy, did not want to give us any instructions but to wait for him, which lasted nearly one hour. When he finally arrive and drove us to their office, he started being highly rude and disrespectful, not to speak of his racist allusions. This person, working in Spain, did not speak a word of spanish and allowed himself to insult his clients every time he spoke. He was also threatening us about the high cost the repair was going to be (as we had not contracted the extra insurace which was never offered).
This occured on a friday afternoon, and we were told to wait until monday for the head office's answer about the repair. We received a phone call on monday morning and were told that the van was already in a garage being repaired and that it was going to cost us £1100, which we should pay before 1p.m if we wanted to avoid and extra charge. All this happened by phone, and we were not showed any receipt from the garage showing the details of the repair.
Because of that, we refused to pay and contacted our lawyer, who said we should not pay anything until they sent us a receipt. We also spoke directly to the garage and they explained everything more clearly, in Spanish and not threatening us to pay quickly. The final price was now 900 €! which was quite different than we were told before and meant an extra charge of nearly 400 € (they were trying to extort money from us!).
We do not know if the company behaved this way because we were either young and spanish but we think they should never treat a client this way.
We would like to advice everybody to be aware of J-HIRE LTD and read carefully the rental conditions before choosing them, and specially to have a proof of everything dealing with them by email, because they will always try to do all transactions by phone as I supose they do not wish to leave proof of their ransomer company.
0 comments