Car Hire and Me

I popped back to Britain for four days to spend some time with my parents. The return flight from here to Stansted was 26 Euros, which represents the most excellent bargain. I decided to book my hire car through Ryan Air, with a newish company called Green Motion, based at the Hilton Hotel at Stansted. The price was reasonable, and I thought that a company based at the Hilton must be, perhaps, a tiny cut above the more ordinary competitors at the car rental park. My expectations plummeted as I sat waiting in the office, late at night, to pick up my car, as the two previous customers returned from the car park to have additional damage they'd found added to their contracts. One woman came back to say that one of the wing mirrors was hanging off and had been inexpertly patched with gaffer tape. What sort of a wreck was I, the last customer of the day, going to be left with?!

Imagine my sneaking glee when I was presented with a brand new turquoise Mini Cooper, with just 1000 miles on the clock! Instead of the decreed quarter tank of diesel, it was more than half full, and I only had to return it a quarter full. It still smelled shop fresh, possessed some degree of car IQ, and it had a host of weird and wonderful gadgetry inside. It drove like a dream! I suspected that Kevin had secretly organised for me to have a cute car, but he says not...

I headed south on empty roads, sailed through the Dartford Crossing, and was soon with my parents. I paid my £2.50 online, and then added the car to my Dart Charge account for the return journey and any other little northward jaunts. Not paying the charge, my contract warned, would result in £105 being taken from my account. I smugly knew that that wouldn't apply to me. Me and the Dartford Crossing were old friends!

I returned the car, had it passed as perfect on return, and off I flew back to France. On my return, I checked online that my payments for my Dartford crossings had gone through properly, and to remove the hire car, only to find, horror of horrors, that the payment of £2.50 I'd made for my first crossing had gone to pay for someone else's northbound crossing at 1pm that same day. On phoning the Darford Crossing people, in a flurry of worry, I was told that the penalty letter had already gone off to the car hire company... sorry. Green Motion said that they would pass on the penalty letter to me and take the £105. Yes, I tried to explain that, actually, they had better alert the 1pm crosser that they will have a fine coming their way, but no. I must go through the whole process of proving my innocence, then send the Dart Charge 'no penalty' confirmation letter to Green Motion. They will then refund the £105.*

You'd think that the car hire companies could just get an account and charge the customer their £2.50 for each crossing directly. This sort of muddle must happen all the time! What a mess, and I really don't like my careful planning and honesty to end up covering for a dirty no-good non-payer! I do have a little suspicion that the northbound driver was an employee of Green Motion. I hope so. Green Motion, fine thyself!

I also think that the Dart Chargers could probably save time, money and upset if they just held their horses with the penalty letters, or if they let you state a time of crossing when you pay. Silly system.

There was something else that went wrong on the roads of Britain. On Tuesday, I left my parents in Tonbridge at 9.45am to travel to Ipswich to see my daughter and co. The journey takes around two hours, tops. Well, that's if you don't sit, stationary, on the slip road from the M25 to the A12 for two and a half hours. I cried great tears of 'what a waste of time'. The salubrious and seductive interior of the Mini brought no joy. I looked around at the faces of other drivers caught in this same web. They were coping. No-one else was crying. I considered screaming. I started to regret the large black coffee I'd had at my parents'. I couldn't find a reason for the delay on any of the radio stations, but I found comfort in the fact that other people, including lorry drivers, who know about these things, were sticking with it. When we eventually moved a bit, and reached the roundabout, the police nonchalantly diverted us away, in the opposite direction. There'd been an accident on the roundabout. Fortunately, I was directed on to the A12, going in the opposite direction, so all I had to do was find a loo and turn round, which I managed. I arrived in Ipswich at 2.15pm, and soon forgot the abject misery of the previous four hours. But I haven't yet forgiven British roads.

* Car hire is not an easy breezy area for me. I have 'previous'. After hiring a car here in France last November, we still await our 107.51 Euro refund. I'd booked through Atlas Choice, which involves cheap prices and a car from Enterprise at Limoges. When we arrived at the car hire office, they didn't have a car for us, despite us having already paid our 42 Euros. The Enterprise man assured us that it was entirely usual practice for us to then pay Avis 107.51 Euros to hire one of their cars, and then Enterprise/Atlas would refund 'the difference'. We needed a car, so we went ahead with this little arrangement. By March this year, we had eventually been offered a refund of 65 Euros. We have explained that we have paid out 107.51 Euros, plus the original 42 Euros, so we need the whole amount of 107.51 Euros refunded. It is now May and we have received nothing at all. The people at Atlas just simply cannot seem to understand the Maths. Kevin was not impressed during the latest phone call, just yesterday, when the uncaring customer care man told him that he, Kevin, was not understanding. Kevin's a Taurus. Don't wave that red flag at him! We're currently waiting for Marleen in Accounts (apparently the only one who knows about our case) to return to her desk. She was on holiday yesterday and is on a course today, so they say...