We hired a car for a month in Italy through Travel Jigsaw - the renter was Locauto (another story in itself!) We took out the excess reduction policy thinking it was giving us peace of mind in case of an accident. Well, we had an accident and as per the policy, Locauto charged us the full excess of 750 euros. The problems began when we tried to claim under the damage excess policy. They told me we were not covered because the accident was NOT our fault. We had to wait and get the excess back from the local renter! This has finally happened after 4 months but totally defeated the point of the policy which was to give peace of mind in case of and accident.
I CANNOT get an answer out of the as to where it stated in their terms and conditions that they will not pay out if it is a third party accident. It does not state this anywhere in the long list of exclusions. (A pretty major exclusion probably counting for more than 50% or hire car accidents!) After many frustrating phone calls between me in AUstralia and the UK, they now totally ignore my emails and seem happy that I have got my money back from Locauto on Italy. The fact that it took 4 months and hassle to do this seems to not bother them. I said I wanted answers to my simple question, "where does it state in your terms and conditions that I am not covered for a thrid party fault accident" and they just will not respond.
In fact I find it hard to see where whey would actually pay out under this policy as one of the exclusions is "neglicence" by the driver - well if an accident is your fault isn;t that insome way negligence? So they may not pay out if it IS your fault too!
To conlcude a sorry sage, we rented a car in the UK the following month (booked before we knew what problems we would have) and they messed up the voucher and didn;t include the additional driver which meant we were charged by Europcar over 5 pounds a day for 30 days and this also took time to sort out after the rental, all costing money in credit card interest.
Don't touch them with a barge pole! Notice that any good reviews you read are from people that had no problems at the end of their rental. The problems start if there is an issue after the end of the rental.
Their customer service is diabolical. You can NEVER speak to a supervisor (they won't call you, you can't hold, you can't get a time when they will be free and I found that when Ic alled to try and get through to the case worker, the lines were so busy you get diverted to another stream, usually people who are dealing with new rentals and know nothign of your problem and can;t transfer you to the right place.
I repeat; DON'T TOUCH THEM WITH A BARGE POLE!!!
0 comments