seeing as you asked: We hired a car from Europcar, dropped it off at Ebbsfleet eurostar station on a sunday, so just put the keys in a dropbox a week later they sent us a bill for £1200, then charged £1450 (ie cashed the £250 deposit as well as charging the 1200). Their reasons were a damaged seat adjuster (never touched it - anyway they have abandoned this) and a full valet. The valet is 1 ridiculous , the car was left in a very aceptable state 2 they claimed fag ash - not us matey, and mud and grass. True there was a bit of grass on the floor, We nearly picked it up ourselves it would have taken a couple of minutes at worst. 3 They've sent us now two sets of photos, taken at two different places, neither of them being the drop off car park. When I ran a company we had a Damage procedure with a witness called immediately if a customer returned something in a bad state. Nowadays any sensible company would take photos the moment they opened the car door. The photos whenever they were taken show the floor in a much worse state than we left it, ie someone has sprinkled some grass cuttings and whatever, but still nothing that a vacuum wouldn't sort. No mess shown on the seats etc so no reason for a valet. My OH still boils at the pics of used tissues, she made a point of removing them as it wouldnt be nice for other people to have to pick up. They sent us some hard to decipher copy bills, but there was an amount captioned valet for £60. It's for this that they are charging 85, but still no explanation as to the difference. They've also double charged, cancelled bills and then charged them anyway and whatever. Hopeless. Dishonest and incompetent. Like I said resolver.co.uk is useful. The card company have resisted a bit but have "put into dispute" all the various amounts charged, so ok so far. But today Escrocar said they are sticking to the £85, so it's war. I'll look at the Europe procedure that seems v hopeful thanks

We are british, living in France, being diddled by a uk car hire company (trustpilot rating 0.5/5!) for a rental when we were in UK. Using a UK credit card. We are using resolver.co.uk (which is good) as are the company. But it keeps going on, they keep charging semi-random amounts on the card which we have to get frozen and so on. It really has been a considerable amount of trouble by now. We've got the "bill" down from £1450 to £85, so we are making progress. They are only claiming now for a valet charge which is baloney. Can I use the uk small claims court procedure without having to attend? Should I? Is there some better alternative (like getting a hearing in France would be handy). Is it correct the claim would have to be restricted to the £85 plus actual expenses, nothing for hassle and distress and time spent? Thanks

I hope it's ok to revive this old thread. We are british, living in France, being diddled by a uk car hire company (trustpilot rating 0.5/5!) for a rental when we were in UK. Using a UK credit card. We are using resolver.co.uk (which is good) as are the company. But it keeps going on, they keep charging semi-random amounts on the card which we have to get frozen and so on. It really has been a considerable amount of trouble by now. We've got the "bill" down from £1450 to £85, so we are making progress. They are only claiming now for a valet charge which is baloney. Can I use the uk small claims court procedure without having to attend? Should I? Is there some better alternative (like getting a hearing in France would be handy). Is it correct the claim would have to be restricted to the £85 plus actual expenses, nothing for hassle and distress and time spent? Thanks

Does anyone know what happens re fixed term investments of 85000?

I'm too new to PM you, which would be better. I got interested because they've just taken over a p2p lender, I challenged them about this bad reputation and I've got an email from a high up saying they are better (including a very low rate of reversals by the Financial Ombudsman they say which sounds good to me)

I've just had an email from a high up at paratus which says (paraphrase), they are not like that any more. Comments anyone?