Argus Car Hire

Marco Polo123

Hi .. Just wondering if anyone has any experiences with this company. I have had the worst customer experience ever. No car when i arrived in France - had to pay extra to another company to get a car (which Argus said they would refund) and now 3 months later no refund of the €300 and they won't return my emails...

EKRIUQ

Marco Polo123 wrote: »

Hi .. Just wondering if anyone has any experiences with this company. I have had the worst customer experience ever. No car when i arrived in France - had to pay extra to another company to get a car (which Argus said they would refund) and now 3 months later no refund of the €300 and they won't return my emails...

Have used them about 8 times in the last 2 years, no problems. They act like a broker looking for the lowest price so maybe the fault lies with the Car hire company that Argus booked you with.

What did the Car hire company say when you produced the carhire voucher? And could they not arrange an alternative car €300 seems alot extra to have to pay it normally only costs an extra couple of euro to upgrade a car.

This could be a case where Argus blames the carhire company and they blame Argus:(

Del2005

Marco Polo123 wrote: »

Hi .. Just wondering if anyone has any experiences with this company. I have had the worst customer experience ever. No car when i arrived in France - had to pay extra to another company to get a car (which Argus said they would refund) and now 3 months later no refund of the €300 and they won't return my emails...

Small claims court.

Namesco wrote: »

Have used them about 8 times in the last 2 years, no problems. They act like a broker looking for the lowest price so maybe the fault lies with the Car hire company that Argus booked you with.

What did the Car hire company say when you produced the carhire voucher? And could they not arrange an alternative car €300 seems alot extra to have to pay it normally only costs an extra couple of euro to upgrade a car.

This could be a case where Argus blames the carhire company and they blame Argus:(

The OP had to hire a car off a differnet company not get an upgrade.

jor el

Used Argus in September to book a car. Booking was with Alamo/National in San Fran and everything went fine.

Was the rental agent listed clearly on the booking form, and was there a proper booking reference on it? What did the agent in France say to you? Was it that they had no record of the booking, or, was it that they actually had no cars at all? If they had no cars, then it's not really Argus' problem, as it was the agent who didn't keep an accurate record of what they had vs what was booked.

However, Argus should have refunded you the money you paid them for the unfulfilled booking, and 3 months is way to long to wait for that. You should have used a credit card charge back within weeks reporting to Argus, since they hadn't refunded you. At this point, they may not be able/willing to charge back, but you could contact your bank to ask anyway. Failing that, Small Claims is the way to go.

EKRIUQ

jor el wrote: »

However, Argus should have refunded you the money you paid them for the unfulfilled booking, and 3 months is way to long to wait for that. You should have used a credit card charge back within weeks reporting to Argus, since they hadn't refunded you.

But Argus only take a small booking fee, its the car hire company you pay for the hiring of the car. Hardly worth taking them to court for €20

del2005 wrote:

The OP had to hire a car off a differnet company not get an upgrade.

Did the car hire company have no cars at all?

opa01_2000

Namesco wrote: »

But Argus only take a small booking fee, its the car hire company you pay for the hiring of the car. Hardly worth taking them to court for €20

But his contract is with Argus. Their contract is with the car hire company. Argus should refund the customer and then get their money back from the car hire company.

I think Argus are the Ryanair of the car hire world. When things go well they're fine and have some of the best prices around. When anything goes wrong (and it will as they're the best prices around) there is little support from Argus, no way of getting any help, no telephone numbers. Like Ryanair - you get what you pay for.

ejmaztec

opa01_2000 wrote: »

But his contract is with Argus. Their contract is with the car hire company. Argus should refund the customer and then get their money back from the car hire company.

I think Argus are the Ryanair of the car hire world. When things go well they're fine and have some of the best prices around. When anything goes wrong (and it will as they're the best prices around) there is little support from Argus, no way of getting any help, no telephone numbers. Like Ryanair - you get what you pay for.

I've used Argus twice, and only usrd them the second time when they gave me discount by way of compensating me for the first-time screw-up. They screwed up the second time as well, putting me off them for life.

I think that comparing them to Ryanair is giving them too much credit.

waxon-waxoff

Argus used to be a car hire company until recently but now they just have a broker website, the same as ebookers, carhire3000 etc.

The website is still run by the same family though and they had a terrible track record in customer service while renting out their own cars. They got away with it as its mostly tourists rather than repeat business.

jor el

Namesco wrote: »

But Argus only take a small booking fee, its the car hire company you pay for the hiring of the car. Hardly worth taking them to court for €20

No, I paid the full rental amount to Argus, up front, with nothing to pay to the agent at the airport (National). I assume this is the case with the OP, unless the amount he actually paid the other car company (300?) was way above what he had agreed with Argus, and wants them to honor the original deal.

Marco Polo123

The car hire company no record of the booking... they (Alamo) went into Hertz, Avis etc to see if they had cars.. eventually Europcar had one but at a higher rate than the rate I had with Alamo thro' Argus. Argus told me pay them the full amt so they would refund the diff. I can't charge back the Europcar amount as they were up front on teh charges... What I can't get over is the bad cs.. I can get over some technical glitch but Argus made no attempt to rectify it was down to me and the girl in Alamo to go hunting for a car in the rest of the agencies in the airport

ejmaztec

The usual method, with both Argus and Nova Car Hire, seems to be that you pay an amount when you book, which I assume is the commission. When the car is picked up, the car-hire company puts a reserve on your credit card. You spend the next two or three weeks trying to avoid tail-gating psychopathic drivers, so that you don't get taken to cleaners with the insurance excess.

It's only after you return the car that they make a dash for your credit card.

Assuming that the deposit is the commission, last year, Argus collected 80 odd Euro, compared with the €40 odd collected by Nova. These were on bookings of the same category vehicle. On this basis alone, I'd say that Argus is the pits.

I mentioned in an earlier post that I had been overcharged by about €40 this year. At least Nova went to the trouble of finding out why. Alamo charged an extra €2.15 per day "Road Fees :rolleyes:". This wasn't included in the original quote that I had received, although Nova assured me that it's in the t&cs. The quote, as far as I'm concerned should have included it, as it was supposedly a standard charge.