My son booked a manual Ford Fiesta car from Thrifty Inverness in April 2015 for one week at the end of June/beginning of July. He had only ever driven a manual Ford Fiesta and a Ford KA; that is why he booked a Fiesta. At 21 and only holding a licence for 18 months, he was not too young or inexperienced for Thrifty's standard range - apparently. He and his friends travelled 600 miles by public transport to Inverness. My son was the only one in the group with a driving licence so they were all relying on him for transport. At Thrifty Inverness my son was told that the Ford Fiesta he had booked wasn't available. He was offered: a large 4x4 Land Rover or a 2.2 litre automatic Infiniti Q50 CDi Sports car, with a 'take it or leave it' attitude. The Thrifty website states that a 'similar' car may be offered but drivers under the age of 30 CANNOT hire the prestige cars my son was offered and cannot take out Damage Liability Reduction. My son could only reasonably have expected an upgrade to be something like a Ford Focus. He would have re-arranged his travel arrangements had he known in advance but staff at Thrifty Inverness made no attempt to inform him until he arrived at the office. My son was unhappy and stranded. It is very difficult to get around the Scottish Highlands without a car. He had to accept the Sports car since his and his friends' holiday would be ruined otherwise. He handed over his licence to the Inverness staff to be copied. They altered his date of birth on the rental agreement making him five years older. When later questioned, Thrifty said this was 'a human error.' My son had never driven an automatic or anything more powerful than a 1.3 litre manual before, consequently he had a minor bump in a car park. He received nothing in writing, no breakdown of an assessed repair, no receipt, yet £1000 was taken from his bank account by Thrifty without explanation. This was the first thing I knew about the affair. When I phoned the Inverness office, staff were unnecessarily rude to me and made insulting remarks about my son. They also lied saying that staff offered to look elsewhere for a more suitable car. This was later revised to "staff would have looked elsewhere for a car." This was nonsense as staff went into great detail telling me about long-standing car shortage problems for Thrifty in Inverness. It would also have proved difficult to find a car for my son with a competitor as most suppliers will only hire to those over the age of 25. Staff also said they would email me photographs of the 'damaged' car. This took weeks of pestering and the pictures were useless when they came. Thrifty's 'investigation' into my complaint was slow, chaotic, disorganised, poor, staff were rude and the charges unjustified. Thrifty has its own department for everything so nothing is independent. The 'damage' was also conveniently assessed, by Thrifty, at £1.49 over the £1000 excess. Thrifty advertises cars for hire that it hasn't got. Thrifty did not provide the car, or similar, that my son booked and paid for three months in advance. Thrifty knew there was a strong probability they would not have the car because they subsequently acknowledged a shortage of cars at the Inverness location yet they still took my son's booking, took his money and did not inform him the car wasn't available so that he could make alternative arrangements. My son would not have had a bump in a manual, small, less powerful car that he was used to driving. I felt sick when I discovered that he'd been driving a high performance sports car. I think it is highly irresponsible of Thrifty to loan such a car to an inexperienced 21 year old and his three 21 year old passengers when their own website says he is too young and inexperienced to drive this car. BVRLA were entirely supportive of Thrifty. read more
