Ripemoff - they're not coming back anyway!

<p>I hired a car from Europcar on the strength of an advertisemnet on the travel website I was using, just £5.99/day, as we were visiting for a month but not travelling much this sounded like a good deal, what a mistake to make. Always ensure you really go into the fine print before signing anything, my own advice that was not followed.</p> <p>Arrived in Durban, King Shaka Int Airport, went to Euro car office and they wanted a credit card, 'For what?' I queried, Oh there are fees, taxes levies and more that still have to be paid! First instinct was to say to hell with it and go next door, should have done.</p> <p>The first vehicle, a Hyundai i20 with 13K on the clock, had such bad raod noise from the tyres and a very bad whine as it approached 100KM/H and got worse thereafter that that they changed the car two days later at the Pietermaritzburg branch. I neglected to check the new car thoroughly and found thyat the petrol tank was not full, this car, a Toyota Etios?, was so much quieter that I just carried on.</p> <p>I nursed the car, ensuring that I parked well away from potential damaging doors at s/markets etc, and at the final wash, done by an adult family member the day before it was returned, there were no visible imperfections.</p> <p>On Sa****ay 30/04/16, we travelled back to King Shaka airport, I was going to park in a bay at the rental returns but an employee signalled us to park straight on in a 2nd row of cars that were being returned, 3 in the front row and we were the middle car of the 2nd, I handed him the keys and asked what else we had to do, nothing more he rep****.. As we were moving off with our cases a 3rd car parked to the drivers side of ours, slightly back of a straight line, this was at about 15.25hrs.</p> <p>We started to make our way towards the terminus, not in any particular hurry as we were checking that we had everything, suddenly the Europcar employee comes running up and declares that there is a dent in the cars rear offside wheel arch, the other cars had gone at this point, I retuned and witnessed that there was indeed a very slight dent in the wheel arch, obviously caused by somebody opening a car door without thinking. Then came my 2nd mistake as the employee said that I needed to fill in a report form, as we were going to checkin he would fill all the details if I would just fill in any relevant bits, i.e. name, address and what damage there was, which I did and then left.</p> <p>When the bill arrived online the 1st thing I noticed was that we had been charged an extra days rental, for late return of the car? Besides the fact that we had returned the car well within the allocated time, we had boarded our aircraft and taken off on time on SA****AY 30th APRIL, 2016 at 18.40 HRS. On the bill it states that the car was only returned at 06.56 Hrs on SUNDAY 1st May, 2016, at which time we had already landed and changed planes in Dubai.</p> <p>Despite querying this anomoly, and receiving an automated e-mail stating that the matter would be looked into and I would receive a reply in 3 to 5 days, I have still been billed nearly four times the daily rate I paid on my credit card and yet no reply. I have informed my bank of the *****ulant implications of this action and they are now looking into the matter on my behalf, I doubt whether Eurocar will ever see me, or any of my numerous extended family and friends again, even if they were the last car hire firm in existance.</p> <p> </p>