Bidvest Car Rental is cut from the same cloth as every other car rental company - STAY AWAY!

TL;DR: Bidvest Car Rental cares more about their bottom line than their customers and is yet another car rental company to stay away from.

(I'm reluctant to even type out this review because it seems South African car rental companies couldn't be bothered about their HelloPeter reviews or Net Promoter Score. Anyway, here goes...)

I rented a car from Bidvest from 5-9 December 2019. I was bumped up to a higher group car, which was cool - a Hyundai Accent. THe car had some dings on it which had been noted before my inspection, and were pointed out during my inspection with one of the staff.

Upon returning the vehicle, I was alerted to scratches and dents on the left rear fender and bumper. However, upon closer inspection it could be seen that these were old and could not have occurred during the time I had the vehicle. Further, these scratches were very difficult to spot unless you were going over the car with a fine-toothed comb, and analysing every centimetre (in hindsight, what I probably should have done and recorded a video thereof.) Nonetheless, I was informed by a staff member at reception that they could not find record of these scratches and will launch an investigation. I wasn't given feedback of the outcome of this investigation, which was to conclude that Friday, however I did get my deposit returned to me, minus the rental charge, so I assumed that all was well.

My grievances with this incident is as follows: - They were hiring out a vehicle which had damage from a previous renter. Why would they not address the damage before putting the vehicle back in the fleet, thereby alleviating the chance of any ambiguity and headaches arising? - They were prepared to pin damage on me that I could not have caused, and had I not made noise they would have gone ahead and done so. Is this ethical?

I should probably take this up with their customer care department, however I do not have the energy, patience or airtime to do so, especially after the amount of chasing after them I had to do for a previous incident where someone rear-ended me at a red light (still waiting for my refund for an incident that happened in June last year!)

To sum up, Bidvest Car Rental is as ************ and shady as every other car rental company in South Africa. If you can make alternative travel arrangements, you'd be better off doing so than considering them or any other company.

See article: https://www.georgeherald.com/News/Article/Motoring/car-renter-beware-***