Why is this becoming our problem??

We hired a car from their PE branch from 21-28 March 2022. The rental agent did issue us a Vehicle Quality Check form, number *** after which we did receive the car keys. She indicated to us that we can just proceed to the parking bay, take the car and leave. There were no employee of Europcar in the car park. We did do an inspection of the car ourselves, and discovered that the boot lock has been tampered with and is damaged. This however was indicated on the Vehicle Quality check form (yellow page) with a circle on the boot and we did proceed.

To our surprise we received an email from Nokumphila Zilise on 28 March indicating that the lock has been damaged by us and that a claim would be lodged against our name. (Ref ***4). We responded by indicating that we did receive the car like that, and also forwarded the Vehicle Quality check form to her. We never heard anything from her again.

On 5, 7 and 8 April we made contact with Wayne Erasmus from your PE branch. We did provide him with the same information and he indicated that the matter is receiving the necessary attention.

Now on 8 April we receive an invoice from Anela Nonjinja indicating that their is now an outstanding balance on our account?!?!

So although we did report the mistake that Europcar made on 4 April 2022 to them, the staff members in PE did not investigate the matter and merely proceed to hand the issue over to the accounts department to the detriment of their customers. Not only are they withholding our deposit but also claim an extra R6392 for something that was not our fault!!

We have tried several times to contact the branch but they seem to be unable/unwilling to solve the issue, although Thandokazi did indicate the existence of the broken lock on the prescribed forms.

We are wondering how many customers are paying for the same lock???