It was August 21/10 on a friday morning I booked a rental car from Nationa Car Rental in Cobourg Ontario. Around 1 p.m. I picked the car up which was a Chrysler Sebring and to my knowledge looked to be in great shape. The drive to Montreal was great until we were 10 km south west of Montreal when I noticed the front brakes starting to act up. At that point I proceeded to check into my hotel room, once I entered my hotel room I promptly opened the service agreemtent envelope which was given to me by the rental company, I then called the roadside assistance number as any normal consumer would do. Roadside advised me to take it to the National Car Rental just down the street and exchange it for another car which I did. When I was there they gave me a lower grade car than I had at the time I asked them should I call the National Car Rental in Cobourg where I rented the vechicle from and the Montreal National Car Rental advised me to just take their car and drive it as I need and to return it to Cobourg and that the Montreal Rental would take care of contacting Cobourg from there. The rest of the weekend was great we returned on Sunday August 23, 2010 to Cobourg and returned the back up car which we were give in Montreal around 5 p.m. I took my own car which was a done up Ford Mustang which stuck out like a sore thumb and drove home. I know me specaking about my own personal vechicle seems to have no meaning but please read on and you will understand. Approx. Three weeks later was when I realized how screwed I got by National Car Rental when I received my credit card statement. A $200.00 car rental turned into just over $1, 300.00 car rental. I called the Cobourg dealership who I got into on the phone with and they told me that I was being charged for two weeks rental as well as the recovery of their own car in Dorval Quebec. Cobourg told me he had not received any notification from the Montreal dealer and that he just so happened to open up an email from them exactly two week after I returned the car to Cobourg, seems funny how I was charged for those two weeks. He said I should have never called Roadside assist that I should have called him directly to tell him about the brake problem and I told him that any customer would call the Roadside Assist telephone number which was in the envelope which they gave me at the time of renting the car. At that point I found out that Cobourg was independently owned National Car Rental Company. They told me they had tried to call the phone number which I gave them but they had taken down the incorrect phone number and they thought their car had been stolen, even though my Mustang was gone and there was a car from National Leasing Company in Montreal sitting in their parking lot. My question is if they thought the vechical was stolen would they not have called they police as they had my name, address and drivers license number??? To say the least they kept hanging up on us time and time again so we do not bother calling Cobourg anymore.
The next step in the process was to call National Car Rental customer care, they told me they would reimbursed me the fees I was charged to recover the vechical in 21 business days, which was just over $700.00. So great atleast I was suppose to get some money back from all of this. Once I had a chance to think about what I had gone through and what I deserve in return, $700.00 was not enough as the Cobourg vechical could have cost me my life as well as others on the road that day and not to mention the phone calls I have had to deal with. My next call to customer care was to be reimbursed for the actual 3 days I had the car, and not a cent more, their respond was that "Sir someone higher up will give you a call at this time". A week later no phone call from anyone, so the third phone call was made to customer care at this point they connected me with a manager who must say was very pleasant and helpful her response was we are not sure what happened to the cheque and we will look into it for you. A couple of days later surprisingly she called and left a message saying that she was able to process the $700.00 cheque and would send me two one day rental coupons. I did receive the rental coupons she promised but no cheque. I then made the fourth phone call, a point you need to understand everytime I called customer care they no history or data of my rental whatsoever, therefore I had to explain the whole story time and time again. At this point the customer care person spoke with a manager and they said this has gone on for too long and that they would look into it and see why this cheque has never been sent. The answer I received was that the cheque was never approved and sent off as I had been told many times before. They then had an agency contact me in regards to the situation and the persons name was Christopher Sanderson who advised me that the reason why there was never any money sent was because of an on going dispute between the Cobourg dealer and the Montreal dealer as to who was going to pay me. I faxed off the rental agreement and credit card slips to Christopher Sanderson as he had requested and to date have not had a phone call from him and I have also placed a couple of phone calls to Christopher Sanderson and to date i have had no response.
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