Green Motion - Manchester Airport

Most horrific rental experience ever. And I've rented many cars over the past few decades. Pick up location is terrible. There's a clue when you realize that all the other rental companies are together, but this one has it's own 'special' bus.

They fobbed me off with a lower class vehicle, pretending it was the same as I booked (no, a Toyota Corolla estate is not the same size or class as a VW Passat estate). The vehicle was in a horrendous state. Never seen so many dents and scratches. It was missing the wing mirror cover too, which made it impossible to adjust the mirror from inside the vehicle. The rear suspension had seen better days too. Or maybe this was just because they gave me a much smaller car than the one I booked and therefor it couldn't cope with the extra luggage/weight.

Their customer service is beyond a joke. When I reported all the issues (several times), I was just fobbed off again with weak excuses. The worst part was when I was told I could not replace the car at another Green Motion branch (which was a small detour to my planned itinerary), because they are all franchises and have no links with each other. The best they could offer was for me to return the car to the Manchester branch (without a refund for the remaining days!) and make my own way to their 'sister' branch and then rent a car from them. Wow, what a great customer-oriented solution. This would have not only cost me much more, but would have also meant the loss of a full day during my 4 day trip.

And when it comes to the 'green' in their company name, the only green I detected was the color of money. Which they are very happy to take from you, without any decent product or service in return. No environmental credentials to be spotted anywhere.

DO NOT RENT FROM THIS COMPANY. They may appear a little cheaper (and to be honest, not even that much!) than the usual and trusted big names, but you will pay for it in the end with a horrible product, service and experience.

Fantastic from start to finish, Emri dealt with us, he was amazing, even got an upgrade, did cost more to add another driver. But it was so worth it, will definitely be back, thank you Emri????

I turned up to pick my hire car up only to be told I need to pay this and that even though I already brought additional cover through 3rd party company so a cheap quote ended up becoming quite expensive the same thing was happening with the person next to me in the que. I also paid a 400pound deposit that still hasn't been released by the merchant which is green motion over two weeks after I dropped the car off. I'm now on holiday with 400pound less than I thought. They hold your money for no reason rather than releasing it as soon as the car is dropped off. Pay more use someone better.

Trying to make me responsible for damage for I didn’t.

Bad experience

This company is the most despicable bunch of offenders that I have ever come across. Their business model is set a low price to get the customers in then find any way to trick them that they can find. We hired a car from them at Manchester in June for four days. We had taken out full insurance with the company who brokered the sale. On arrival we were told that this insurance was junk. If we didn’t take their insurance and cancel what we had then we would be charged the whole of the excess irrespective of the actual damage. They also required us to leave a charge on our credit card of 2500pound as a deposit against any damage.

The car we were hired was a well-used car that had a lot of damage marks on it. We brought this to their attention and took video but they just shrugged it off as ‘we know about that.’

We returned the car as agreed and nothing was said about any problem.

After about three weeks the 2500pound charge on our card was lifted. The end of the matter we thought.

Five weeks after that we received and email which was an email for a total of 600 pounds which was supposedly for damage to the car as well as for two items we had paid for at the time of hiring. There was no information about what the so-called damage was or who repaired it or invoices or receipts from the repairer.

I wrote to them telling them that this wasn’t on, after 8 weeks with no contact they expected me to believe they had only just discovered the damage. The response was to access my credit card and debit 500Pounds.

I have just had the money returned to me by my bank after I made a charge back against these people and set out how the trick worked.

Unfortunately, I didn’t look at the reviews for these sham srtists or looked for media coverage of the dodgy charlatans.

Do your self a favour and avoid these people like the plaque.

Terrible customer service !

Small scrach clearly from previous

Rental charged £ 160 unjustified !

During end inspection confirmation

that there would be no charges !

Terrible Customer service !

Stay away from this company !!

This was booked through Airline, I will never book this way again. If you do when you inspect vehicle I recommend taking a video of the entire car. I know for a fact that no damage was incurred by myself during hire of the vehicle, however on return the person who inspected the car went straight to a small black mark on the bumper (without checking the rest of the vehicle) and told me I had incurred the damage, there wasn't even a pretense of making a proper check. This mark, which you could have polished out with a rag, was charged at £351. I honestly feel this was like a sting operation, please make a very detailed inspection of the vehicle if you are in the unfortunate position of having to use this company. I obviously didn't record the state of the car in enough detail, my mind on other things as I had hired the car to travel to my mothers funeral.

We booked flights including car rental from the USA to Manchester England, returning after my mother's funeral. The flight we had booked was delayed and we were re-routed to Paris, then from Paris to Manchester England. Instead of arriving at 8am we arrived 6pm the same day, we then waited 40 minutes for a bus to take us from the airport to the Green Motion parking lot. We talked with Ritz from Green Motion, who informed us the rental car had gone. However, he did have one car left and the cost was $1115:82 and a further charge of $33:47. The car had half a tank of fuel, but he would throw that in at no charge so just bring the car back empty. I asked about the deposit we had already paid, that's gone mate you will need to take that up with your booking agent. my wife asked if they did bereavement rates, he then got very aggressive and said that he was insulted we should ask such a thing. This is the only car I have left do you want it or not! take it or leave it. We had no choice but to pay and take the car, on doing paperwork he said there was also a $50:00 deposit but you will get that back when you return the car. On dropping back off the car to the same employee Ritz who checked over the car and then parked it up, I asked him about the deposit. He said it's only $50:00 quid mate, I asked if there was any problem with the car, he said no, and you will get your deposit money back in 7 to 10 business days. Very disappointed, it's been over 7 to 10 business days recived nothing.

Hired car through manage booking option of airline I was flying with.

Hire car location not ideally situated as not in hire car village with other car hire providers thereby reducing options in event of any disagreements.

At desk when collecting car I was specifically told that my booking had no insurance included despite the documentation with voucher suggesting otherwise and that I needed to take out full insurance of £50 per day. I was then given a long winded explanation of why the relationship I had in this instance was different from what l might previously have had with other airlines / car hire providers. To appease me I was given car with Satnav (that I didn’t need) and had the mileage excess waived (that was unlikely to be used) for my 2 day hire.

When taken to car I was told that there was no need to check car over as I had full insurance.

On returning I complained to airline and directly to Green Motion. Green Motion replied to the airline that I quote “Due to the customer arriving without a valid credit card, they did meet the terms and conditions, the rental station had the right to refuse the release of the vehicle, with no refund. However the rental station has offered the customer an excess waiver that will reduce or remove the excess on the rental, which allows them to continue with the reservation.” (I presume they meant DID NOT MEET THE T&C’s above).

I responded saying that I had 3 credit cards on me and was then asked to provide proof that I had sufficient credit on the cards at time of transaction which I did. I was then advised that the issue was that I used an Amex which wasn’t acceptable to cover excess despite the fact that the original booking was made with same card. That was a fob off as I only produced card at final stage when the required documentation for the full insurance had been signed. In addition I was paying for full insurance and the question of paying for the excess was not in question. As it happened I have an annual policy to cover the excess anyway and wouldn’t have needed to pay anything other than having amount blocked on card in case of accident. (cover process) However the fact I was forced to take out full insurance meant it was a non issue.

The final straw was when Green Motion responded to the direct complaint to them saying that what I had paid for was the excess insurance on the CDW. This was also a complete lie as two people when I had picked up the car had clearly told me I had full insurance and this was backed up by their actions. Also I would question the level of insurance of £50 per day charged to cover CDW excess which is certainly excessive, especially considering that a quote I received from one of their more well known competitors was £42 per day for full insurance and half that level for CDW excess.

The biggest mistake I made in this saga was not checking any review sites before booking. I have never ever seen such a even split between 1 and 5 ratings that gives me the impression that there is a ‘strategy’ when opportunistic approaches are adopted (in my case short duration and not based on uk mainland).

Needless to say I or anyone I know is likely to use Green Motion at any time in future.

There hire rates are very cheap for a reason, they will claim you have damaged the car and take it from your deposit.

Please do not take the chance, im going to take them to court.