Location: UK
Incident location: Hawaii
I booked car rental via one of those money comparison websites (maybe it was Kayak?) and I paid the amount in full to Wisecars which then issued a voucher with a Dollar car rental company.
When I got to the destination, the agent at Dollar informed me that they had been having issues with Wisecars and most of the bookings through them had been cancelled but after checking, she said that my booking was fine. So I got the car, left my card details with them and went on my trip.
4 months later, I noticed there was an unauthorised charge on my credit card for the same amount again. After calling the credit card company, I was told it was from Dollar and I reported this charge as unauthorised and it was refunded to me via cc company.
I then started receiving invoices from Dollar for that trip and after contacting them (which was super difficult), it turned out that Wisecars never paid them the monies (that I paid to Wisecars to rent the car) so they decided to charge me directly instead. I said that they should take that up with Wisecars and not with me because my booking was through them. However Dollar are insisting that because I rented the car from them, they have to charge me.
I am very confused about all this. Does it mean anyone can pretend to be a 3rd party, take my money and then bugger off with it without paying the car rental company? This seems ridiculous. Now they are sending a Canadian debt collection agency after me. (Shellco?)
I need to clarify what I can do and what my rights are as I am reading conflicting info on this. Has anyone been in this situation before? Getting hold of Wisecar is even more difficult but effectively I am being charged twice for the same thing and I find it wrong that I don’t seem to have any protection as a consumer.
Additional info: I live in Uk and rented the car in US and the debt collection agency (shellco) seems to be Canadian, in case that makes a difference. Can this be enforced internationally?
What steps can I take to resolve this? Dollar don’t seem to budge and are telling me to cooperate with the debt agency (I haven’t yet been contacted by the debt agency but I assume this will be the next letter). Surely my contract was with Wisecars, not Dollar and Dollar should be going after Wisecars, not me? The fact that they retain my CC details and charge me 4 months later seems also odd. They should have told me when I picked up the car that I need to pay again and redo the contract, but as far as I remember, the person seemed adamant that my booking was ok at the time and I don’t think I signed anything new again.
HELP!!
Comments
Your agreement with Dollar started when you picked up the car. You owe Dollar for the use of their rental car.
Wisecars owes you for what you paid them.
> Dollar should be going after Wisecars
You rented with Dollar, and likely signed paperwork saying you are ultimately responsible for making payment.
You are Wisecar’s customer, and you need to work with them to pay Dollar or refund your money so you can pay htem.
Just reverse the Wisecars charge and pay Dollar. Any time some scammy company tries some shit like that with me they don’t even bother engaging/fighting the disputed charge because their time is better spent scamming more people since most won’t.
I just dispute and indicate that they did not deliver the service I paid for, which in your case is accurate. You paid them to arrange and ultimately pass along funds for a car rental, which they did not do.