Hired a car, cancelled it prior to start date, no money back yet

mauro.sk

Hi

I have a quick question regarding car hire online.

I am 27, I've had my lincence for less than 2 years (I know) and before we were going on holidays to Ibiza in August I was looking up car hire online.

The cheapest I found was on www.autosbravo.es but when I read their T&C it said that I must hold my licence for over two years so I emailed them to ask if an exception could be made.

I got no reply so one morning (like four days before going on holidays) I sat down and rang them - but I didn't ring them, what happened was that I had about 10 tabs opened with different car hire companies, I happened to ring a different company and I asked if it was ok that I only had my licence for less than two years. Having been sure that it was ok I processed with my booking on autosbravo.ie
The same day I got a reply from them saying that it was not possible to hire a car if my licence is less than 2 years old.

I emailed back saying that I rang Maria and she assured me it was ok and that I had already processed with payment - they replied that no girl called Maria works for them so that's when I realized I messed up.

I replied back - apologized for the messup, explained what happened and asked them if they could cancel my reservation.

What followed then:

Got an email saying no problem, they need my account number to which they will refund money - emailed that.

A day before I went on holidays there was no email confirming my cancellation so I rang their branch at Ibiza airport and cancelled my booking over the phone - the guy said "Ok, Your booking is now cancelled, I will pass this onto our acccounts and refund will be issued".

When I came back from holidays (two weeks later) I had no money back in my account or email confirming money had been refunded.

So I rang them again - they had all my details already, the guy said he wasn't sure why money hadn't been sent back yet so he assured me that it will be sent back. I got an email then saying that money will be refunded less 15%.

Just out of curiosity I emailed them where on their website does it say that 15% fee would be applied when cancelling policy - they said it was to do with bank charges or something.

And ever since (its been almost two weeks) I haven't heard anything from them, I've emailed them several times but got no response.
My last email was that if they don't get back to me I would have to take legal action (just to scare them, obviously I wouldn't do anything as I don't know how to go about it).

I haven't been to ring them in past two weeks as I work every day during the week and their offices are closed on weekends, also their office hours are werid as in their offices are closed before I come home on my break (when I would be able to make phone call).

The amount isn't anything huge - its 300 euro but its the fact that I still haven't got it back that is annoying me.

Any advice regarding this would be greatly appreciated as I don't know how to get them to refund my money !.

thebiglad

Try contacting European Consumer Centre, they may be able to help or advise you further

http://www.eccireland.ie/home.php

Jarren

If that ECC option won't work for you, contact your bank to commence chargeback procedure.

sandin

mauro.sk wrote: »

The amount isn't anything huge - its 300 euro but its the fact that I still haven't got it back that is annoying me.

Any advice regarding this would be greatly appreciated as I don't know how to get them to refund my money !.

€300 not huge? - its still nice and would get you a weekend away in the lovely sneem lodge hotel from where I just come back from :D:D

ECC is probably best option - send them an email to say that you will be starting an ECC court case within 7 days and give them a link to the spanish site equivalent (google will help you in that)

If you paid by credit card, then possibly you could do a chargeback, but you'd have to show proof of cancellation.