Brian based in Dusseldorf, a new Tipoa customer sent us this review of his impressions of Green Motion at London's Heathrow Airport and one of the off airport rental car suppliers:
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| Green Motion Office next to Holiday inn |
Directly outside of Heathrow Terminal 1 after exiting the arrivals hall. is the bus stop is marked BUS STOP 3 and you take the bus number H1 marked "H1 Holiday Inn (M4)" There is a bus every 20 minutes from 04:42 and from 15:22 every 25 minutes. The bus ticket costs £4.50 single and £8.00 return. The journey time is about 15 mins (it goes via Terminal 3).
Green Motion have their rental car office located in separate building opposite the Holiday Inn entrance. I arrived on a busy Monday morning and their office was staffed with at least two people ( that I could see) They took 15 minutes to process the paperwork. I pleasantly surprised when I was offered a very new Honda Civic with only 8,200 miles on the clock. The overall process time was about 30 minutes, by time you check over the car.
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| New Honda Civic rental car |
It was a similar experience when I returned the vehicle. Overall time from arriving at the Green Motion office to returning to Heathrow again was 30 minutes.
The bus did stop at two other nearby hotels, both close to the M4 motorway, but the bus journey itself was only 15 minutes.
The whole process ran very smoothly, given I arrived on a Monday morning and departed on a Saturday afternoon. - On this ocassion I can definately recommend booking online with www.tipoa.com and
there is no need to avoid Green Motion as often they are the cheapest option.
I had read on the internet some less than complimentary reviews on Green Motion, but as I was travelling on toe Swindon, their M4 location was perfect, so I decided to try them. I am glad I did as the week before again booking through Tipoa Car Hire, I was allocated SIXT and I was not at all impressed with, as their location was again off airport, and not at all convenient for me at least.
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| Green Motion Heathrow M4 |
Tipoa Car Hire
We warn you not to book your rental through carentals.com. They stole over $700.00 from us. We booked a 29 day car hire in the UK but when we got to the car rental desk, they refused us. The lady at the desk called them and asked them to remove the no show cancellation which they had put on the computer because we arrived at the front of the 45 minute que, 15 mins past the 24 hours that they gave us to pick up the car. This 24 hour rule is not stated anywhere in their terms and conditions, and we were not advised of it until we arrived at the desk and were refused service. The supervisor at the Eurocar asked several times for carentals.com to remove the no show so they could honour the booking, but they too were refused. So we were forced to rent another car and fight to get our money back. Now carentals.com, who state in their ads "no cancellation fees" are trying to charge us the entire amount of a one month car hire as a cancellation fee... when they are the ones who left us stranded at the airport and refused us service based on a policy they never disclosed to us. To top it off, they don't allow anyone to blog on their site to let other people know how their service was. Good luck fellow travellers, don't let carentals.com steal your money, book with anyone else.
ReplyDeleteJennifer we welcome complaints on this blog, especially when it is about one of our competitors ;-)
DeleteJennifer, do you mean rentalcars.com ? as carentals.com specialise in Costa Rica..
ReplyDeleteVery important to get the company and domain name correct !!
I hired a car from Green Motion at the London Hilton on the weekend of the 12th October 2013, having been presented with them via a Travel Supermarket search through Argus Car Hire.
ReplyDeleteThe car supplied was nearly new and was a great car for the money but alarmbells rang when they informed you they charge up to £1000 for damage to the car, with each infraction (including returning the car dirty or late, or penalty charges) chargeable at £150 per incident – which is more than the car costs to hire for the weekend.
They also make you pre-authorise a payment of £300 on your card, meaning they can take the money from you even if you dispute the charges (and at the time of writing on the following Tuesday, this pre-authorisation has yet to clear, meaning you’re unable to access the money in your account until they let you).
I made a special effort to return the car clean and on time but sure enough, after a very enthusiastic hands-and-kees inspection for problems they spotted a small mark on the rim of one of the wheels (which I was completely unaware of causing and was unnoticeable enough that it may well have already been there when I hired the car), for which they are charging me the full fee.
Such high fees may simply be intended to encourage you to take out their insurance (although I took out the third party insurance the Travel Supermarket/Argus Car Hire online booking process encourages you to take, which leaves me chasing both Green Motion and the insurer to get my money back), but a quick search online shows that they make these kind of charges often. When a company makes more from charging you for problems with the car than from the hire of the car itself, the system seems wide open for abuse.
In short, although the car was good, the large fees they charge and make them not only poor value but very hard to trust, and I certainly won’t be using them again.
Stuart, I would recommend you take photos of hire cars when you are given the keys, especially the wheels & windows. It appears you took out (wisely) the Allianz or Mondial Zero Excess Insurance. Although it is not a simple thing, you only have to produce a copy of the invoice for any charges Green Motion made and pass this on the the third party insurer to get your money back. To save you time take photos (or video) from your phone when you collect and return the car. Then any damage that is claimed by the supplier can easily be disproved.
ReplyDeleteJust had a very similar experience with Green Motions in Heathrow.One tiny scuff on the wheel cover and they charged me 150 pounds sterling. I am quite sure this is all part of the plan, staff are incentivised and they use interesting language such as replacement fee. The documents on the car had 8 scuffs on three wheels and one clean one, which is where my scuff appeared....that means that to date they have collected a total of 1350 pounds for scuffcharges each one of which is meant to replace the wheel cover......I will NEVER use these people again, and will be complaining bitterly to the relevant authorities.....
ReplyDeleteAlex, I think you made a typing error 1350 pounds? I think you meant 150 ? This is very interesting that a number of people are being charged for scuff mark charges... I would suggest you ask the rental car company to REMOVE these wheel trims before you take the car out or remove them yourself, photo them, so there can be NO DOUBT you were not responsible for any damage. In Spain for example RECORD CAR remove all their wheel trims when they hire cars out.
ReplyDeleteNo he didn't make a typo. The staff claim that payments are to repair or replace the "damaged part" scuffed/scratched/etc, but of course they never actually pay to get them repaired, just pocket the extortionate fee + admin fee and mark the scratches on that little diagram they give the next hirer... so 8 previous scuffs means they have charged 8 previous customers £150 each plus alexander =£1350. In fact the cars are not outright owed by Green Motion but are on lease, as such returns (after say 2 years or 40,000 miles approx) are deducted for damage but nothing equaling the thousands raised by this under hand stinging of innocent customers...
DeleteTipoa you need to do a maths refresher course! Alex was exactly correct 9 scuff marks x 150 each does equal 1350 GBP!
ReplyDeleteThanks Alba, you are correct, my car had 9 scuff marks.....Anyway since then i have sent 8 emails on the topic to Green Motion ans still no refund!!!!!!!!!!!!!
ReplyDeleteNEVER USE Green Motion anywhere in the world. if your plane is 2 hours late you get screwed by this company. They take your deposit, cancel your car and leave you with nothing in the airport after a 8 hour flight. Stay away. We arrived in London after our 7 hour flight was 2 hours late. No assistance what so ever to assist us.
ReplyDeleteWilliam Do you have more detail? Clearly you didn't use tipoa.com ! When you say 2 hours late, what was said on your arrival, if you can provide detail this will help others, and I may be able to unravel what has happened and get your deposit back.
DeleteNever use them, they charging everyone for scratches, which is invisible or which is not done by us. They know wat they were doing when I went in to hand in my car, they were ready for it .
ReplyDeleteThis over zealous activity seems confined to one branch? We do receive very positive reports on Green Motion at Bristol Airport, for example. It is AWLAYS advisable to take photos or videos of your rental car, before and after the hire period, whoever the car hire supplier. http://youtu.be/J3ve9z5MR1A
ReplyDeleteI had a poor experience with Green Motion. I rented a car 13th June 2014 for a week. It took a while to sort out a car at Heathrow, then paid extra GBP10.00 for a drivers check as had not taken my passport as ID, though I had my VALID UK drivers license. Paid roughly around GBP 400.00 for car hire. All this was acceptable to me as the car was good and service desk average, though I was still upset with the 10.00 steal on my traffic violation checks.
ReplyDeleteThe bigger issue I had was I had entered a bus lane unknowingly in Oxford and was expecting a fine, which I did mention to the Green Motion desk at Heathrow when I returned the car. I was told I could pay the fine directly if oxford council will send a notification to green motion and they will then direct them to myself and I will not incur any charges from Green motion, but can deal with the bus lane charge directly.
I received a notification around the 3rd week of July saying that I was fined by the council and had a option of paying, which I did myself the very next day to the sum of GBP 30.00.
On checking my credit card statement a few days later I noticed a charge of GBP 84.00 made by Green motion which on querying was responded by saying that it is in their terms and conditions in FINE PRINT saying any traffic fine incurred will levy a charge from themselves.
This is the first time I had rented a car from them and felt the hidden charge not only over the top but also cheated in the manner it was done. I can say that this is the only time I will ever use it again. I hope someone out there could benefit from my experience if they ever decide to use this company and think twice.
I HIGHLY RECOMMEND AGAINST RENTING WITH GREEN MOTION BASED ON PERSONAL EXPERIENCE!
ReplyDeleteYOU END UP PAYING MORE THAN AT A REPUTABLE FIRM BUT HAVE SIGNIFICANT STRESS AS YOU DEAL WITH THE MOST INCOMPETENT OF PEOPLE AND FIND OUT ABOUT ALL THE ADDITIONAL CHARGES YOU WILL PAY.
You have to pay for £4.50 per person for a one-way 20+ min bus ride for which you will likely have to wait 25+ minutes (we waited over 30 minutes). This means that if you are a family of 4, you will pay £18 for the pleasure of adding almost an hour to your journey each way of your trip.
When you arrive at Green Motion Heathrow (which is just outside a Holiday Inn), you will notice a makeshift, sort of trailer like office with a desk and two clerks. Both on pick-up and drop-off people were complaining of c. 1 hour waits. We certainly waited that long upon pick-up.
Therefore renting a car at Green Motion means you will likely spend 2 hours for the process of renting a car. At Herz, Europcar, or any other reputable car rental agency, the process takes less than 30 minutes.
Now here's the rub, Green Motion is actually barely cheaper than other services. They charge more for insurance and clearly have an agressive approach toward sticking you with charges for scratches etc. Even if you take "full insurance with no excess", you will see in the fine print that they can try to charge you for any scratch that occurs on the lower half of the car as the insurance apparently does not cover the areas most likely to be scratched. Furthermore, they have various policies in place to stick you with the bill even if you take the max insurance out (e.g. if you don't report it to them within 2 hours, you're lose your insurance coverage - clearly a nefarious tactic likely in breach of consumer protection laws).
Last but not least and further supporting the makeshift status of green Motion Car Rental, upon entering the Holiday Inn when you drop off the car, you have to get a parking ticket and later claim a refund for that parking ticket. Another annoying time drain to cap off your horrible experience with Green Motion Car Rental Heathrow.
NEVER EVER RENT A CAR IN GREEN MOTION! (They deleted this post on facebook from Italy, that's why I will post in all places that I can find to warn everyone about this company).
ReplyDeleteWe had to wait more than 90 min to return the car because there was only one person to receive the returned cars and to rent new ones. More than 10 different customers was waiting to be attended. In my case I was with a 2 month baby, and I saw a woman pregnant (around 6 months), customers with small children and a old woman (around 70y) had to wait the same period than me without any preference.
After this time waiting the counter said to leave the key and not wait anymore to return the car but there was no transfer enough from Bologna branch to airport and again children, baby, old people had to wait in the sun (around 40C).
After almost two hours (!!!) we came to airport.
My only luck is that I made an insurance that covered the hotel and flight expenses, because, as you can imagine, we almost lost our flight.
We will never rent again with you and I will post it in every site that I know to avoid that any other people can have the same problem.
I really wish all the worst for this company.
I am very disappointed. This reservation was made (and paid) in July. I had to be in Cambridge for my brothers surprise 50th birthday. It is therefore unacceptable that two hours after my booking was due to start there was no vehicle. I am appalled at the staff attitude of 'sorry we don't have any cars' and that they said 'it is always like this on a Saturday'. Im sorry but I did my part and booked and paid early. It is not amusing to be told 'we may have one in after 4:30 but we have other people too'. Great response to someone coming in long haul from nz and a surprise 50th to get to. I wasted 3 hours, bus fares to go to pickup and back to airport, and forced me to make other arrangements in order to get to Cambridge. Wonderful business model. I'll be sure to let everyone know. This is piss poor business practice and not acceptable.
ReplyDeleteI have received no apology from Green Motion, apparently i should be happy that i am now getting a refund.
A way to steel money from customers – greenmotion car hire in Romania
ReplyDeleteHello my name is Yossi ruben and I'm from Israel.
I hired a car from the agency of greenmotion in Bucharest airport in Romania.
The car was "Dachia Daster" and I hired it for 5 days – from 19.10.16 till 24.10.16.
As I arrived to the airport, they took me to their boot, which is out of the arrival flights.
It was late night and they made me sine on a big contract with very small letters.
I payed what we agreed – 106 euro + 25 euro for extra driver.
But they also make me sign for a deposit in the credit card of 6111 lei (around 1360 euro) in case something happen to the car.
The contract was very long with a lot of very small letters that a normal man can't read.
When I asked about the car they showed me around 10 points on the car outside (very very small) and small scratched that were there. Most of them you can't see because it was night.
There I had a slight figure that something is wrong with this company because I have rented many times cars abroad but not met a company that mark so small point as defects on a car that is not new.
Any way we took the car and had fun in our trip in Romania although the roads in Romania are not so good and also sometimes very dirty and muddy.
When we returned the car after 5 days we were in a hurry for the plane.
I came to the station and the man there told me: you must pay 10 euro because the car is not clean outside. It was strange because people are supposed to drive with the car and they are not supposed to go and wash it before they return it. I didn’t want to argue with him since it was a small amount and we were in a hurry and I payed.
Then he said: since the car is dirty, I can't give you the deposit until we will check the car. I told him we did not have any problem with accident or anything that make damage to the car but he said they would let me know by mail after I return to my country.
When I came back home they send me few pictures that they say there were scratched that they say I made on the car like small dots and because of that they will charge me 497 euro.
They didn’t answer my mails that explain that we didn’t scratched the car and just billed me with the astronomer amount of497 euro.
I'm very sorry this is the way this company make money from this kind of events.
They say that you make scratches and charge for it a lot of money. (offcourse they don’t fix it since it helps them for the next victim)
You can't do anything and they charge you and steal your money.
The greenmotion in Romania they are a company of thieves in my opinion.
Im going to write this everywhere in the internet so people will know not to hire cars from them because they will rip you
Now I understand why there were so many dots on the car. You can't say anything and they charge you not on your blame on scratched that they say you made. It’s a way to steal money from customers. they earn money not from the car hire but from blaming the customers on things they didnt do.
Offcourse that if I was doing these scratches I would pay but if I didn’t why do I have to pay?
after i return home i read that this method of getting money from customers happenwd to other people.
I advise you all people - not to hire cars from "greenmotion" company. (at least my bad experience is from romania but i read this story on other places of this company.) you will be riped of. its a method of riping customers. this is my expirience from this company but ofcourse every one will decide for himself where to hire cars.
Yossi Ruben
Israel
A way to steel money from customers – greenmotion car hire in Romania
ReplyDeleteHello my name is Yossi ruben and I'm from Israel.
I hired a car from the agency of greenmotion in Bucharest airport in Romania.
The car was "Dachia Daster" and I hired it for 5 days – from 19.10.16 till 24.10.16.
As I arrived to the airport, they took me to their boot, which is out of the arrival flights.
It was late night and they made me sine on a big contract with very small letters.
I payed what we agreed – 106 euro + 25 euro for extra driver.
But they also make me sign for a deposit in the credit card of 6111 lei (around 1360 euro) in case something happen to the car.
The contract was very long with a lot of very small letters that a normal man can't read.
When I asked about the car they showed me around 10 points on the car outside (very very small) and small scratched that were there. Most of them you can't see because it was night.
There I had a slight figure that something is wrong with this company because I have rented many times cars abroad but not met a company that mark so small point as defects on a car that is not new.
Any way we took the car and had fun in our trip in Romania although the roads in Romania are not so good and also sometimes very dirty and muddy.
When we returned the car after 5 days we were in a hurry for the plane.
I came to the station and the man there told me: you must pay 10 euro because the car is not clean outside. It was strange because people are supposed to drive with the car and they are not supposed to go and wash it before they return it. I didn’t want to argue with him since it was a small amount and we were in a hurry and I payed.
Then he said: since the car is dirty, I can't give you the deposit until we will check the car. I told him we did not have any problem with accident or anything that make damage to the car but he said they would let me know by mail after I return to my country.
When I came back home they send me few pictures that they say there were scratched that they say I made on the car like small dots and because of that they will charge me 497 euro.
They didn’t answer my mails that explain that we didn’t scratched the car and just billed me with the astronomer amount of497 euro.
I'm very sorry this is the way this company make money from this kind of events.
They say that you make scratches and charge for it a lot of money. (offcourse they don’t fix it since it helps them for the next victim)
You can't do anything and they charge you and steal your money.
The greenmotion in Romania they are a company of thieves in my opinion.
Im going to write this everywhere in the internet so people will know not to hire cars from them because they will rip you
Now I understand why there were so many dots on the car. You can't say anything and they charge you not on your blame on scratched that they say you made. It’s a way to steal money from customers. they earn money not from the car hire but from blaming the customers on things they didnt do.
Offcourse that if I was doing these scratches I would pay but if I didn’t why do I have to pay?
after i return home i read that this method of getting money from customers happenwd to other people.
I advise you all people - not to hire cars from "greenmotion" company. (at least my bad experience is from romania but i read this story on other places of this company.) you will be riped of. its a method of riping customers. this is my expirience from this company but ofcourse every one will decide for himself where to hire cars.
Yossi Ruben
Israel
I wish I had seen this blog before.
ReplyDeleteI really don't have anything positive to say about them. Greenmotion is a scam.
They provided me with and outdated vehicle status report. The vehicle had a hidden damage impossible to spot and they charged me later over 200 GBPs for it! They used very low prices to attract me and then charged for a damage that was already there to recover their money.
Really to be avoided!
I am not sure what you mean by an outdated vehicle report? You should insist on viewing the vehicle with the GREEN MOTION member of staff, where all pre-existing damage should be agreed. The same when you return the car. If these two simple processes are adhered to, there should be no later argument or charges. Also very useful is the take photographs of the car before and after the rental https://youtu.be/J3ve9z5MR1A
ReplyDeleteI don't even know where to begin when reviewing Green Motion, we had such a horrific experience dealing with them.
ReplyDeleteIt started when we went to pick up our vehicle (Costa Rican office), despite meticulously reading all the small print when booking, we found we had to basically triple the price to get reasonable insurance cover (not stated on their website). The way the insurance works in Costa Rica is ridiculous and forces you to get the most expensive option. Also, we were basically threatened by the staff of the consequences if we didn't get the full insurance.
When we picked up the car it had a list of problems; probably a result of it being too old and frankly unfit for service. Being a Costa Rican branch is NO excuse when you are paying UK prices. The car had 2 flat tyres due to screws in them (only found this out when they went flat a day into the trip). The boot would not stay closed, the clutch & gearbox were barely operational and the car was scratched, dented and in generally poor and abused shape. The car was honestly dangerous and I have no doubt would not pass the MOT for British roads. Our rental fee was probably more than the value of the car.
When we returned the car at the end of the agreement, we complained due to the many faults we encountered and time we lost from our vacation while repairing tyres which were blatantly already punctured on pickup. The office staff were rude and entirely unsympathetic. So we made a complaint with the UK office. Even once this complaint was elevated to senior management in the UK, they still could not get a response from the rouge office in Costa Rica. But the UK office did eventually agree to a reimbursement of about £60 to apologise. Not, really enough in our opinion, but at least it was something. Except, it took over 2 months to process this refund, 4 months total and 31 emails to resolve the complaint. I struggle to understand how they made it so difficult.
Unacceptable, negligent and inept at every stage of the process; this company does not deserve to remain in business. Please save yourselves and do not use this company!
Would you say avoid Green Motion period? or just Costa Rica?
ReplyDelete