*********** staff result in blacklisting

I will keep this short ,sweet and to the point as I have wasted enough of my time on this poor excuse of a business or shall I rather say the *********** staff that put the company's integrity in disrepute.

I had sent my vehicle in for repairs and the insurance arranged for a rental car during this period. After a month I returned the vehicle and was then informed thetnwould release the deposit 7 working days later and also advise whether there are any additional charges or damages. I eventually some time later received a call from Avis head office from a lady called Petro. She advised that there was a stone chip on the windscreen and that same would cost in excess of R 2000.00 . I then advised that the agent did not mention anything when we returned the vehicle and queried it asking her to forward supporting evidence to my email address and if same confirmed it it wouldn't be a problem. Regardless to say I never received a mail. The next call I received, in less than a month later than I returned the vehicle was from a credit collector. Imagine that. What had transpired was that some Avis representative or Petro herself had failed to input my email address correctly and I never received the mail. Which is also very upsetting as every email has an mail undeliverable alert system which would have flagged the issue with Avis. Let's tie it down to tardiness shall we or human error ergo. Moving along, I was obviously very perturbed at this point. I then printed all the correspondence which showed that they had left out letters in my email as well as a customer document that was filled out by an Avis representative labelled "dummy" so as to serve as an agreement that was completed by a customer. This already constitutes dishonesty. On this relevant document the representative of Avis had not only captured my email address wrong but my mobile number too. Imagine that. The very same number that they have on file and which they phoned me on to inform me of possible charges now had changed all by itself and obviously prevented them from getting into contact with me to resolve the matter. I took all this supporting documentation to the Menlyn branch as this is where it had happened, time out of my day,diesel out of my car, all because either the branch or Petro in accounts couldnt capture data correcrly and accurately. I then spoke to the manager on duty and he confirmed same and that same was a fault on their side. I demanded that they remove my name from this credit collection list and I will happily pay for damages incurred but not for incompetence in regards to executing communication. The manager then said he would sort it out and get back to me. An entire month went by,now stretching this to two months and I still received calls from the credit agency. Now not only have they put my name in disrepute, after they has admitted to the fault and committed themselves to remedy the matter they also did not get back to me. I then proceeded to further waste my time by phoning them and demanded to speak to the branch manager and he initially handled it very professionally and said that he would investigate and revert back to me with the findings. Just to note I did not contest the charges the value has been available all along and still is at any point that Avis start behaving like a professional business. He had phoned me back just to say that he understands same but I have to pay the admin/ penalty fees from the credit compny if I want to get my name off. Can you even fathom this??? Have we gotten to the point where we as consumers are being ******ed by businesses for their employees' incompetence ? I refused. I do not think that a national brand like Avis has this kind of policy. Rather I think it's a case of individuals who are representing the brand and putting Avis's integrity in jeopardy by not taking responsibility for their errors. At who's cost? The client's? That's ******* and *****. Let's throw defamation of character into the mix too. I will be escalating the matter to head office as I believe the relevant *********** staff members need to be held accountable and the customer experience be remedied. I have advised the manager that I will not pay penalties for their incompetence and that the amount outstanding will be in my bank account earning interest and readily payable when they have remedied there foot fault. All in all I wouldn't recommend the Menlyn Branch. It is shocking to think that this is what is happening under the radar of Head Office. I would be very concerned if I were them. I ran the West rand depot of 180 trucks for value truck rental and our policies and procedures for vehicle rental are much more stringent than that of Avis. It's scary that you have appointed personnel like these.

If nothing comes of this I will sue for defamation of character and ensure no other consumer has such a bad experience.