Pete C.

In January of this year I hired a car from Green Motion's branch at Manchester Airport for a short three day period. When I collected the car the rep pointed out a scrape on one of the alloy wheels and when I checked around the car quickly I didn't notice any other damage so accepted it as it was and made the first mistake of not taking photographic evidence of every panel of the car in fine detail. I have hired cars quite a few times over the years and found it unnecessary to record anything other than existing visible damage. I then made the second mistake of not going around with a fine toothcomb to find every miniscule blemish on the car but as I thought I'd looked it over pretty well I believed there was nothing more to do. How wrong I was.

When I returned the car another rep inspected it and drew my attention to a miniscule windscreen chip close to the nearside pillar and well outside the swept area of the screen and a small depression near the edge of the roof, just behind the B-pillar, so small I could barely see it even close up. I protested at the time that there was no way either of these occurred while the vehicle was in my charge and was told not to worry about it but put my belief in writing anyway.

A few days later I was shocked to receive an invoice for £1205, being the standard excess, and a copy of their damage matrix which I immediately challenged. Having been in the motor trade and industry for 50 years I have a good knowledge of repair methods and costs and knew that the dent could be repaired for well under £100. Another invoice followed with an estimate from their "approved repairer" which reduced the charge to just over £760, still about ten times the true cost of repair.

Due to the fact that I had no proof that the damage did not occur while I had the car (a mistake I won't make again) I accepted that I would have to pay and offered to have the repair carried out by a qualified and reputable specialist at my expense and their convenience but this was turned down flat. I offered to pay a realistic amount of £100, providing quotations and credentials from the specialists but this too was turned down. I escalated my concerns to the local, then national, customer service departments with no joy, then took my concerns to the industry's dispute resolution service who, despite having guidelines on types of repair which supported my claims, said that they couldn't rule in my favour because they "are unable to discuss the repair costs and as Green Motion are entitled to choose their repairing garage as the owner of the vehicle, the BVRLA does not dispute the repair charges".

So I am stuck with being cheated out of £760 for damage which I know I am not responsible for and can't afford to take legal action against them.

Shortly after this, and unaware that it was the same company, my wife also hired a car from a different branch of Green Motion and had issues with them which were fortunately resolved but not without threatening action.

This company systematically cheat their customers with overpriced repairs and other charges to the extent that ALL specialist insurance companies providing car hire excess cover exclude rentals from Green Motion but cover hiring from ALL other UK companies. What does this tell you?