Bad car hire experience for Former Transport Minister Secretary

The former Transport Secretary, Ruth Kelly, revealed her unfortunate car hire incident this week. The former cabinet minister had a run-in with a branch of Car Hire Company Europcar in France which left her decidedly short changed.

Ms. Kelly was left baffled at being unfairly charged over £1,000 for damages to a hire car. Along with her husband Derek and four children aged between 6-12, Ms Kelly embarked on a holiday in Provence, France last month. The family hired a holiday home in the area and a 7 seater Volkswagen Touran to enable them to get around and explore this French district.

However within an hour of collecting the vehicle from the company, both of the front tyres were flat. Ms. Kelly called the Europcar helpline and a taxi was dispatched to take the family to their holiday home, and a replacement car was organised.

After being reassured that they wouldn’t be charged for the inconvenience, Ms Kelly was shocked to discover upon her return to the U.K that she had in fact been billed for £1,180 from the car hire company; the reason stated as being “damages”. To add insult to injury, the mother of four had also been rapped with the cost of a full tank of petrol, despite having returned the hire car back full of fuel.

Following several unfruitful attempts to recoup the losses from her disastrous car hire experience, Ms. Kelly called in the London Evening Standard newspaper to help.

Once the paper stepped in the car hire firm backed down, reimbursing the family with the cost for the damages and even waiving the car hire cost as a “gesture of goodwill.” Europcar apologised for the inconvenience and said the charges were “made in error”.