Beware the pitfalls of hiring a car.

Byline: victoria MACMILLAN BELL

THE summer holidays are drawing to an end and tales are filtering through of the usual dramas, stung by a jellyfish, food poisoning and general airport chaos.

There is another performance that has come to light more so this year and that is car rental 'agreements' and I put agreements in inverted commas as this seems to be the one thing they are not.

I'm going to touch on a story which I feel needs to be highlighted as a warning to the rest of us when it comes to settling the car hire bill and how wrong it can go.

Take one hen weekend and an MPV booked through a well known rental company.

A figure was quoted by email having been assured that there was an MPV available. This quote was to include delivery and collection, as confirmed on their website.

Taking precaution, the hen called to confirm this the following morning to be told that all local MPVs were out and that she would have to pay a supplement for delivery as they would have to try and get one from another branch. But this is included, no?

Another MPV was located in London and the hen chose to collect it herself instead of paying the supplement. It was agreed over the phone that the car would be returned on Monday afternoon. On collection of the vehicle from a London office the staff member told her that he knew nothing of this and that the car needed to be back by 9am on Monday.

The hen chose to have the vehicle collected instead on Monday as part of the pre-arranged deal, to include free delivery and collection.

Nobody turned up until Wednesday to collect the car, the hen having called the office repeatedly since Monday but with nobody answering and no voicemail. Apparently the phone system 'wasn't working quite right'.

When somebody did finally turn up to collect the MPV, he asked to be reimbursed for his travel and time expenses.

The hen went from pillar to post until a few days later, her bank statement showed that not only had the rental company added a supplement for collecting the vehicle, they had added VAT to this journey over and above the tax already put on and all without informing the hen. The company never returned the full deposit claiming that the hen hadn't tried hard enough to trace the collection driver and this was to cover the extra days incurred.

The moral of this tale is that due to the odd 'cowboy' outfit, it is imperative that you read ALL the small print and get a copy of the rental agreement before you commit, no matter what size the company you are dealing with. Take no chances. in association with Chevrolet