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Taking car rental company to court, general advice wanted please

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  • Taking car rental company to court, general advice wanted please

    Hi,
    Not sure what information you need so I will give the outline and answer any subsequent questions as best I can. Sorry for the wall of text

    I had a car rental arranged at a UK airport in July. When I arrived at the airport I followed the instructions sent to me by the car rental company. Which were to call a specific number and the car rental company would send a car to pick me and my family up and take us to the rental location. The rental location was not in the usual airport rental office where there are several companies under one roof and a regular shuttle bus laid on by the airport. So the only option was to call the rental company as instructed and use their pick up service.
    I called the number given several times and it was never picked up, just rang and rang.

    The company web page gave no details for the local office so I was unable to find another contact number for the office from the official web page. I did eventually find the local office details on google maps with a direct phone number. I called this and got a recorded message stating that the office was closed and there were no facilities for after hours pick ups.

    The rental was arranged for 9pm, an online booking via the company website, not a third party site. I started calling the number given to me at 9pm.

    By 9:30, with no answer from the number given and a recorded message from the local office stating the office was closed I gave up and managed to arrange car hire at a much higher cost due to the last minute nature of the booking from a company at the airport car rental office.

    After getting home 4 days later I contacted the car hire company from the contact form on their website stating what had happened and asking for recompense (cost of the original booking with them, cost of the last minute replacement booking and a small sum for the distress and upset, about 700£ in all) or I would initiate legal proceedings in 14 days time to recover the expenses. They responded with the comment that I had failed to show for the booking and they owed me nothing and that I should have given them my flight number so the rental office would have been aware that my flight was delayed....
    .
    I had given my flight number when making the booking, the flight arrived on time at 7:30pm and the rental booking was for 9pm to give us as a family time to clear customs etc. Luton airport can be very very slow. for arrivals and I planned for this.

    So I responded that I had not failed to show for the booking, they had failed to answer the phone several times and given me no other contact info in the event of their phone not being answered. And my 14 day deadline still stood.

    They responded stating that as far as they were concerned this was not their problem. (paraphrased)

    I responded stating that I felt it was their problem and my deadline still stood.

    Their response was that it was not their problem, with my name misspelled. (not particularly relevant, just got my back up a little more...)
    So, after the 14 days had passed I went to money claim online and started a court action.

    The claim was made and issued, They sent in their defence, We both received and submitted DQ's. The court mediation service arranged a 3 way phone call to try to mediate a settlement. The mediation call was unsuccessful, I was prepared to settle for 50% of what I was asking just to get the thing over with, the solicitors acting for the car rental company refused to accept that and made it clear they would win at court and I was wasting my time.

    That was on the 31st of October.

    My question is what happens now? I understand the court that will hold the hearing will contact me with "directions". How do I know which court this will be? What timescale should I expect before this letter is sent? I asked for local court but how do I know that it will go to this court?

    This is all complicated by the fact that I do not live in the UK but am using a relatives address as a service address, as per the moneyclaimonline instructions. So I have a very limited window to respond to posted documents. It would help an awful lot if I knew when the service address should expect to get letters so I could warn or prepare them to be extra careful with the post.

    I will be honest, I am not confident in the moneyclaimonline website or procedure and am beginning to wish that I had just used old fashioned paper to deal with this. And getting to the court is not an issue, even though I am abroad, I visit the UK very regularly to see family, I will just combine the court hearing with a family visit.

    Any advice on timescales etc would be very much appreciated.

    Thanks!
    Tags: None

  • #2
    Re: Taking car rental company to court, general advice wanted please

    MCOL is normally quite efficient, though as with any other business there are the occasional glitches.

    The next piece of paper, and it is paper, is the Directions questionnaire where you, as a private individual, select the court where the hearing will be held. You can download it from the internet. You serve it on the court by email and and also the defendant, also possibly by email. I believe it is at this time (not sure) that you tell them when you will NOT be available. You will then get the document transferring the case to the court you selected, and later be given a date for the hearing a a date to send in any documents.

    While it's with MCOL you can track the status.

    Timescales? How long is a piece of string? we're talking several months.

    For the paper only stages can you not send it to your relatives for printing out and sending?

    Comment


    • #3
      Re: Taking car rental company to court, general advice wanted please

      Hi, Thanks for responding so quick, the Directions Questionnaires have been sent out and sent back. (Although the defendant never sent me a copy of their DQ.....it does show on MCOL as submitted) That all happened before the mediation service call. I did specify a local (to the service address) court and noted any dates I couldn't attend. Is it guaranteed that the case will go to that court?
      So MCOL should show when the court sends out any paperwork to the service address?
      I can print out things no problem. My real worry is not getting documents that the court sends out reliably. That is why I am a little nervous that MCOL might not show exactly what is happening as it happens.

      Comment


      • #4
        Re: Taking car rental company to court, general advice wanted please

        Hi if mediation has failed the claim should sent to the local court for judges directions.

        nem

        Comment


        • #5
          Re: Taking car rental company to court, general advice wanted please

          Originally posted by narvysamy View Post
          I did specify a local (to the service address) court and noted any dates I couldn't attend. Is it guaranteed that the case will go to that court?
          So MCOL should show when the court sends out any paperwork to the service address?

          . . . . That is why I am a little nervous that MCOL might not show exactly what is happening as it happens.
          The next thing you should receive is a letter from NCCBC (MCOL) to tell you the claim has been transferred to your local county court (the one you named on your DQ) because the Defendant has the right to nominate where the Hearing will take place.

          There will be nothing more for you to see on the MCOL website after that.

          You will then get a Notice of Allocation/Hearing from your local court. It will give you the date and time of the Hearing. It will also give you the estimated length of the Hearing.

          It'll also tell you that you must file (at court) and serve (on the Defendant's solicitors) a Witness Statement 14 days (or it can be date specific) before the Hearing.

          What was the gist of the hire company's Defence and did you learn anything during the Mediation which gives you a clue as to why they feel they should fight on?

          Mediation is Without Prejudice so it cannot be referred to at any stage during the proceedings (i.e. not in your WS or at the Hearing) but you know what they said at the time and it may help you plan how to tackle the next stage.

          Di

          Comment


          • #6
            Re: Taking car rental company to court, general advice wanted please

            Hi Diana,
            Thanks for the detailed response.
            The companies defense is that there was someone in the office at the time I called as evidenced by their cctv.
            During the mediation their solicitors stated that I should have taken the shuttle bus (There is no shuttle bus, the email sent to me before the rental pickup clearly states that....) and that I obviously called the wrong number. My mobile phone call records clearly show the number I called. It is the same as the one given to me by the company to call and get their driver to come and collect us.
            Their defence seems to be based on the fact that there was someone in the office. I am not arguing that, I am claiming based on the fact that their emailed directions to me clearly state call this number and we will come to get you and when I called (several times), no one responded. And there was no other public facing information that gave me any other options.
            The information they sent me before I was due to collect the rental clearly contradicts any points raised by their solicitors.
            I am being clear here? I am a little worried that if I cannot explain myself clearly now I am going to come a cropper in court.

            Comment


            • #7
              Re: Taking car rental company to court, general advice wanted please

              It sounds a fair claim to me. The fact that there was someone in the office means nothing, that someone was not answering phonecalls as it was approaching the end of the day.

              Comment

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