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We contacted Nationwide Vehicle Rentals and it said that it had investigated each case study to provide a response. It said that it was worth noting that during busy periods of the year it sees an unprecedented demand for various groups of vehicles with a utilization in the high 90 percentile. As a result of this demand any eventuality such as breakdown, accident or last minute extensions presents a significant difficulty to Nationwide Vehicle Rentals and its supply network when taken with trying to source a replacement vehicle under time constraints that unfortunately can lead to it cancelling a reservation.

It said this does not happen often however it is inevitable and can be beyond the control of NVR when it does occur. It said it will always endeavour to source a replacement vehicle of a similar group before cancelling the reservation. It said its priority is the safety of customers and unfortunately if a vehicle doesn’t meet its pre check criteria NVR cannot allow it to be driven.
It said it does work with suppliers who are able to provide it with additional vehicles during its busy periods to alleviate some of these issues, however this year it said it has been heavily let down by it’s key supplier and therefore its ability to provide alternative vehicles has been hindered.

It said it has looked at each case in depth and raised with management to understand the full case and steps taken to deal with each issue/process, it said that due process has not been carried out for all cases but that it can see that in relation to Watchdog’s test booking due process has been adhered to.

It said it has recently taken on a new management team and all the learnings have been provided to them as feedback to understand and implement more rigorous processes and more importantly adequate monitoring to ensure those processes are followed.

With regard to Dan, it said he was allocated a vehicle that had a diesel filter issue and was in limp mode this was only discovered once the vehicle had been collected from the previous customer in the morning, in order to stull fulfil his booked NVR reached out to its suppliers to provide a vehicle – the suppliers advised they would be able to source however later on advised that they were no longer able to assits [at which point the customer was notified].

It said it has looked into Dan’s refund and it seems as though it was denied when processed, NVR said it has raised this with its accounts team as to why it wasn’t followed up and that normal procedure would be to contact its merchant to assist or request BACS details from the customer. It as now been advised that this has been resolved and Dan has received his refund. It said dan will now receive a full and final response to ensure it has addressed its concerns.

It said Charlottes vehicle was in a road traffic accident, the vehicle was hit from behind and was no longer safe to drive. It said the customer was informed once the team was made aware [vehicle collected and subsequently assessed]. It said it was unable to source a replacement vehicle for this rental and therefore regrettably the booking had to be cancelled. It said it can confirm this refund has now been processed, and it has been raised with its accounts team as to why this wasn’t processed in the right timescales. It has now implemented more stringent procedures to both monitor and ensure payments/refunds are processed within the allotted timescales.

It said to note if the customer has provided all the relevant details, then it will not need to be in touch with them until the date of rental.

It went onto say that when Charlotte placed a booking for a minibus which was later confirmed with payment taken and then cancelled by Charlotte, albeit within less than 24 hours of her rental commencing which resulted in a full cancellation. As is noted in its terms and conditions alongside the charges that apply which Charlotte agreed to at the time of booking, it notes that Charlotte’s deposit of £1000 has been returned.

It went onto say that its reservation agents do not have access to the route plan and/or delivery plan for each day so they will not be able to confirm timings unless directly advised [on the day of delivery] by the delivery team. So, although they can confirm the booked slot they aren’t able to provide any other information to customer in lieu of this unless of course they have been notified specifically of an issue with a vehicle.

It said it has fed back to its marketing team to ensure that all advertised companies are whom it has worked with closely and that anything it believes doesn’t give a true representation of its relationship has been removed and that this will be monitored going forward to ensure it is adhering to appropriate advertising guidelines.

You can watch the VT here, on iPlayer for 28 days - /iplayer/episode/m00247kq/the-one-show-23102024