Hi guys, I had a terrible experience with Rentalcars.com for my 13 days’ car rental (Over $2100) and lead me to think if they are a real scam. 1. There was a change of flight and arrival time by Singapore Airlines. Thus we contacted Rentalcars.com a few days earlier and asked if it was possible to pick up the car late. Rentealcars.com provided me with car supplier's contact details to liaise with. They had also helped me email them to inform about this late pickup. 2. The car supplier was well informed and thus a late collection arrangement had been made in advance. On the day of collection, I reached the car supplier outlet and my car was there for collection. However, upon checking their system, they found out that they were not able to process this booking given the reason that "booking site" had marked it as "no show", and the payment was held back by the "booking site". 3. I contacted Rentalcars.com on the spot immediately, initially they asked me to rebook on rentalcars.com, but there was no extra vehicle available as the last car was reserved/locked under my previous booking. After negotiation, their customer service staff agreed that I could book with the same car supplier there directly and call them again after that for a refund since it’s not my fault. (They should have voice record on this) 4. After I got the car, I contacted rentalcars.com, they told me that I could only appeal this case after 13 days when my rental ends. This was a bit weird and I requested to settle this earlier, but they refused and told me that it’s their policy and nothing else can be done. 5. After my trip, I contacted rentalcars.com again. They told me it would take 28 days for them to “investigate” and at the end I don’t think they had done any investigation, but simply replied me with a template email that no refund can be granted as I didn’t arrive on time. 6. I had tried to argue that we had well informed all the relevant parties in advance (we have emails as proofs, in fact, rentalcars.com had even help us email car supplier), now they just claimed that they could not honor the booking due to late arrival? And they ignored the fact that their staff had verbally agreed on the refund if I still booked the same vehicle for the same period from the same car supplier. Unfortunately, all our reasonable arguments were simply ignored by them. At such, I begin to seriously think if Rentalcars.com is a real scam. if they do not allow late pickup, why did they ask us to contact suppliers to make any special arrangement? They should inform us to cancel and rebook instead. (when we first contacted them, it’s still within free cancellation period.) And after that, they lied to customers and tried to deliberately delay the refund process so we would miss out the credit card dispute deadline. I can’t believe a huge company like rentalcars.com need to commit this kind of scam.. And as a victim we do not know if there is anything else we can do to claim back the loss. Many travellers might I talked to the car supplier (which I believe it's Hertz) at Perth airport outlet, hoping for a late pickup but unfortunately they closed at 11pm and could not wait for me to arrive. They suggested that I could pick up the car the next day at their downtown outlet. I agreed as I didn't expect there could be any issue since I had paid in full for 13 days, and collecting the car after a few hours doesn't change anything, plus, both rentalcars.com and the car supplier were informed about the delay of flights in advance. Since Rentalcars.com passed me their contact, so I assumed Rentalcars.com expected me to settle this with the car supplier on my own. 5. 6. Thus I tried all possible ways to contact Rentalcars.com on the spot as my kids are waiting on the street. Finally, I got an Australian number on chat and managed to talk to a customer service staff (who refused to give me his name at the end of the phone call) at around 1pm+. He told me he was unable to revise the booking and I could only cancel and rebook. However, there was only one car left there and had already been reserved under my previous booking. It's too last minute to make a new booking on rentalcars.com. 7. I tried to explain to the staff that it's not my fault as I had informed this late collection in advance, in fact the car supplier had also reserved the car for me right there. I did ask him to help revise/reopen the booking or offer any help. Unfortunately, he didn't offer any. He only advised me to probably wait for 3-4 hours to try again, which if I understood correctly, is probably to wait for the system to release the car under my previous booking. 8. As mentioned earlier, I left my kids waiting on the street as I thought it should be a simple and smooth transaction. I could not afford another 3-4 hours' waiting, so I asked him if I could book directly with the car supplier company since I'm here. Initially he did mention I needed to book on Rentalcars.com, but after hearing my frustration and explanation, he said he could make it an exception. I just needed to call the number after I made the booking and provided him with the booking reference number. Thus I decided to pay extra and booked directly with the car supplier company to end this drama after almost 2 hours' solution findings. 9. However when I came back and called your hotline and was told I could not get the refund as I didn't book through your website. I was really frustrated after going through all these. There is definitely a miscommunication somewhere. a) You might go through the voice record btw me and the first agent, he could have misunderstood what I mean but I believe I had made it very clearly that I could only book on the spot as their last car was locked under the first booking. At the same time I requested a refund as rentalcars.com whom could not honor me the redemption. At the end, he agreed with my request and that's how we ended the call. b) It seems there is another party involved, "thrifty.com.au" between “Rentalcars.com” and Car Supplier “Hertz or Dollar”, so probably the booking had been marked "no show" by "thrifty.com.au" instead of "rentalcars.com"? And the "booking site" that the car supplier company referred to and expected me to contact was "thrifty.com.au"? However I had booked through "rentalcars.com". Thus when I heard the booking was cancelled by the booking site, I could only assume it's done by Rentalcars.com and immediately contacted your site for assistance. It could be a much simpler issue to solve if your side could help coordinate with the other corresponding service providers/partners to find out what’s wrong and being the one point of contact instead of pushing us around, as we, as a customer, do not have a full picture on what's going on and who were involved in this process. As we have been loyal customers of Rentalcars.com for years, I sincerely hope your management could seriously look into this and see how to prevent this from happening again in future. I believe a full refund of our booking on Rentalcar.com is what we deserved as I had tried all my ways to solve this issue to keep my original booking which we had no intention to cancel if our addressed issue (simply a late or next day pick up) could be better handled. Thanks very much for reading and looking forward to a favorite reply.