Yorkhill

United Kingdom

I recently hired a tipper truck via the NationWide Hire website for 1 day and paid £167.99 As per website T&C the delivery instruction stipulate that the truck should be delivered to a specific address. My home address has no direct vehicular access from the road stipulated in our address but has access from the road behind us so I put the delivery address as the house beside this access point and waited on the day with my mobile. The booking required my mobile number and T&C stipulated that 'The main driver of the vehicle must be present on delivery and collection to sign for the vehicle at the requested time of delivery' The hire period started from 1100 and I had taken the day off work. I checked the road and found the vehicle before 1100. It was locked and left and no attempt had been made to contact me. I contacted NationwideHire immediately and they reported that the keys had been put through the post box of my neighbour. The residents of this house had just left for a weeks holiday. I contacted Nationwide 3 times that day and most days subsequently by phone and email (attached). NationwideHire declined to put me in contact with their local agent and from the start refused to accept responsibility for putting the keys thro the door of a locked house and not contacting me. I never had possession of the truck Despite multiple phone calls/emails no attempt was made to resolve the situation - I enquired whether the local agent had a spare key but was refused contact details. The following week I informed NationwideHire that the resident had returned but no attempt was made by NationwideHire to contact them to collect the truck. Eventually the resident gave me the keys and I again contacted NationwideHire and they finally collected the truck. I have never had access to or used the truck. I discovered yesterday that NationwideHire had debited £1343.84 from my account They have also subsequently changed their T&Cs from 'The main driver of the vehicle must be present on delivery and collection to sign for the vehicle at the requested time of delivery' to 'The main driver of the vehicle usually should be present upon delivery and collection to sign for the vehicle at the requested time of delivery, however, on some occasions if you are not at home, we will post the keys through the letterbox so please make sure you provide us with the correct address at the time of booking' Customer Care has been singularly unhelpful I have had to initiate a legal process to try and recover the money I can only advise anyone thinking of using this company to not do so