It was August 21/10 on a friday morning I booked a rental car from Nationa Car Rental in Cobourg Ontario. Around 1 p.m. I picked the car up which was a Chrysler Sebring and to my knowledge looked to be in great shape. The drive to Montreal was great until we were 10 km south west of Montreal when I noticed the front brakes starting to act up. At that point I proceeded to check into my hotel room, once I entered my hotel room I promptly opened the service agreemtent envelope which was given to me by the rental company, I then called the roadside assistance number as any normal consumer would do. Roadside advised me to take it to the National Car Rental just down the street and exchange it for another car which I did. When I was there they gave me a lower grade car than I had at the time I asked them should I call the National Car Rental in Cobourg where I rented the vechicle from and the Montreal National Car Rental advised me to just take their car and drive it as I need and to return it to Cobourg and that the Montreal Rental would take care of contacting Cobourg from there. The rest of the weekend was great we returned on Sunday August 23, 2010 to Cobourg and returned the back up car which we were give in Montreal around 5 p.m. I took my own car which was a done up Ford Mustang which stuck out like a sore thumb and drove home. I know me specaking about my own personal vechicle seems to have no meaning but please read on and you will understand. Approx. Three weeks later was when I realized how screwed I got by National Car Rental when I received my credit card statement. A $200.00 car rental turned into just over $1, 300.00 car rental. I called the Cobourg dealership who I got into on the phone with and they told me that I was being charged for two weeks rental as well as the recovery of their own car in Dorval Quebec. Cobourg told me he had not received any notification from the Montreal dealer and that he just so happened to open up an email from them exactly two week after I returned the car to Cobourg, seems funny how I was charged for those two weeks. He said I should have never called Roadside assist that I should have called him directly to tell him about the brake problem and I told him that any customer would call the Roadside Assist telephone number which was in the envelope which they gave me at the time of renting the car. At that point I found out that Cobourg was independently owned National Car Rental Company. They told me they had tried to call the phone number which I gave them but they had taken down the incorrect phone number and they thought their car had been stolen, even though my Mustang was gone and there was a car from National Leasing Company in Montreal sitting in their parking lot. My question is if they thought the vechical was stolen would they not have called they police as they had my name, address and drivers license number??? To say the least they kept hanging up on us time and time again so we do not bother calling Cobourg anymore.

The next step in the process was to call National Car Rental customer care, they told me they would reimbursed me the fees I was charged to recover the vechical in 21 business days, which was just over $700.00. So great atleast I was suppose to get some money back from all of this. Once I had a chance to think about what I had gone through and what I deserve in return, $700.00 was not enough as the Cobourg vechical could have cost me my life as well as others on the road that day and not to mention the phone calls I have had to deal with. My next call to customer care was to be reimbursed for the actual 3 days I had the car, and not a cent more, their respond was that "Sir someone higher up will give you a call at this time". A week later no phone call from anyone, so the third phone call was made to customer care at this point they connected me with a manager who must say was very pleasant and helpful her response was we are not sure what happened to the cheque and we will look into it for you. A couple of days later surprisingly she called and left a message saying that she was able to process the $700.00 cheque and would send me two one day rental coupons. I did receive the rental coupons she promised but no cheque. I then made the fourth phone call, a point you need to understand everytime I called customer care they no history or data of my rental whatsoever, therefore I had to explain the whole story time and time again. At this point the customer care person spoke with a manager and they said this has gone on for too long and that they would look into it and see why this cheque has never been sent. The answer I received was that the cheque was never approved and sent off as I had been told many times before. They then had an agency contact me in regards to the situation and the persons name was Christopher Sanderson who advised me that the reason why there was never any money sent was because of an on going dispute between the Cobourg dealer and the Montreal dealer as to who was going to pay me. I faxed off the rental agreement and credit card slips to Christopher Sanderson as he had requested and to date have not had a phone call from him and I have also placed a couple of phone calls to Christopher Sanderson and to date i have had no response.

Incident
National Car Rental Commits Negligence by Not Having Snow Tires on any of its cars for renters going skiing in the mountains. And I understand NO car rental companies at Denver Airport have cars with snow tires, studded or not. Through Priceline I rented a Chevy HHR at Denver Airport that apparently with 25, 000 miles had very little tread on its tires. None of the cars in the row I chose from had sufficient tread on so-called all-weather tires. National says front-wheel drive cars are all that's needed to drive in the heavy Colorado snow at 10, 000 feet. Wrong. I pulled into the Dillon Post Office a few weeks ago and slid sideways going at 2 mph into a car. The right bumper was damaged on my car and there was damage to the car hit: sidewall of a Subaru came off. The car proved incapable of climbing the driveway from my condo without a running, sliding start. I would drive slowly in this car especially on turns since it had NO traction. Now National wants to charge me $1, 100 for the damage to the car and they still insist that bald tires on a front-wheel drive car are sufficient to avoid any claims of negligence on their part. This is SNOW COUNTRY. Such negligence will ultimately cause deaths. All car rental agencies at Denver Airport should offer renters snow tires, studded or not as part of the deal. Snow tires are not on their list of "accessories." Most of the locals here know that even a 4x4 is not good enough and that snow tires with good tread are needed. How do we get car rental agencies to ensure that their renters do not die in one of their death traps?

Damage Resulting
Economic damage claimed by National $1, 110. Economic damage claimed by car hit: $1, 450. All due to a slide into a parking spot going 2 mph.

At 4.08pm on 27th May 2010, I made a transactional booking with the National Reservations team in the UK over the phone.
I was told that the the computer had lost the details and so I went through the booking again making a second payment at 4:13pm.
Again I was told that the system had gone down and therefore no payment had been taken and no booking made.

However, after calling my bank I was told that BOTH transactions had been successful.
Each payment was for £213.63.

I called back the Reservations team and was told that no reference to my booking(S) remained on the system.
They asked me to call the Customer Services team.

I called and after explaining the above was put on hold for 5 minutes and then directly transferred to the Reservations team again.
Again they explained that needed to talk to the Customer Services team.

I called the Customer Services team again and explained the situation.
This time I was put on hold for 3 minutes before the line went dead.

First of all, National Car Rental have taken an unlawful payment twice from my account of £213.63.
And did not provided me with ANY reference.

Secondly I wasted over 30 minutes trying to sort the matter out and get a refund.

This is completely unacceptable behaviour from National.
I am disgusted with my treatment and the lack of help in resolving this issue.

All I wanted to do was to book a car for 5 days.
I have used National Car rental for over 3 years, booking and renting cars every few months.

I am left out of pocket with no help or refund at this moment.
My only course of action is to continue to call (at MY OWN further expense to get my refund).

I am seriously disapointed and let down, and feel I want to take this matter to the highest authority, and of course will promptly make use of a rival car rental firm from now on.
Yours Sincerely,

Mr Justin D Goring

I reserved car rental through National/Atesa for my vacation in Spain for 272 EU. Upon coming home I discovered that invoice I got was for 378 EU. Explanation was that this is for insurance. It was never mentioned to me in advance.
Also, after five days car broke down and was towed away. I was charges for 210 EU for car repair. Atesa claimed that wrong gas was put in the car. I provided the copy for gas station receipt but got no positive results.
Customer Service is terrible - would not respond for two weeks.
My advice - stay away from National!

I returned the car on the 10th june and I was told that the access money will be refund after 3working days. The National rental car charged me 1month advance payment thru my credit car. To my dismayed to discover, after 70 days later, that my credit card had been charged debited the differences. After multiple (a dozen) phone calls during a one-week period, to the Customer Service Dept. at National Car Rental in Dubai, I was finally sent an email, on August 19, 2009, by the dubai rental office indicating that my credit card account will be refunded the differences amount. I was told may different people it will take 3 - 5working days from the date I spoke to them.

I have attempted to speak with an agent or the manager at the car rental office at Abu Dhabi and stated that I would like to lodge a complaint. Mr VJ has the nerve to tell me this is such a small matter to complaint. I called National Car Rental's Customer Service in Dubai and forward my compliant to her. If you still want to use their services, make sure you have the time to chase them your refund. I hope this happen only in Abu Dhabi.


My experience should be a warning to others. National Car Rental has terrible customer "service" practices in Abu Dhabi. They difficult to reach via phone, they are not truthful about what a customer can expect, they contradict their own information, they do not follow through when they say they will do something (such as refunding!). Most of all, they are almost without exception arrogant and rude when they cannot think of anything else to say in reply to the question, "Where is the refund that you told me has already be processed?"