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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!
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!
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