Rent-A-Dent Nelson claims it makes renting vehicles easy. But for the Wellington Community Choir, getting the company to repay money that was overcharged has been a long hard road.
Choir member Mike Orchard says it rented 12 vans from Rent-A-Dent for a 2-day singing tour in May last year. But it ended up being charged $1500 more than it should have. After 8 months of trying to sort out things with the company, Mike and the choir came to us.
We rang Rent-A-Dent Nelson to find out what had gone wrong. Manager Derek Robinson acknowledged mistakes had been made. He said part of the problem was that he got another rental company to provide some of the vans and the paperwork got messy. But he agrees he's ultimately responsible.
Mistakes in the paperwork meant the choir was charged by the other firm for a 3-day rental of 5 of the vans – even though these vans were rented for only 2 days. That added an extra $725 to the bill.
All the vans were charged at the rate for 12-seat vehicles. But most had fewer seats and should have been billed at a lower rate. Rent-A-Dent's fee for a 12-seat van is $145 a day; it rents 8-seat vans for $95 and 10-seaters for $125. The higher daily charge for all the vans cost the choir around $600 extra.
On top of all this, ferry terminal drop-off fees were charged for 7 of the vans – although none had been left at the terminal. That came to another $175.
Mike said the final bill was far in excess of the initial price Rent-A-Dent provided over the phone. Derek Robinson told us that before the choir’s trip he sent a booking confirmation with details of the costs – but the choir didn’t receive it. The company has now changed the way it sends confirmations, to avoid this happening.
After we contacted him, Derek Robinson arranged for the $1500 to be repaid. He says he's tried to get the other rental firm to reimburse him for its share of this but without success.
8 months after the dispute began, Mike's relieved it's all over. He only wishes it could all have been sorted out a lot sooner.
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