car hire dublin

i booked a car for collection in los angeles.on arrival at the dollar car rental desk i was told it would not honour the hire forlower voucher. i phoned london and was told there was 'a contractual problem', that ishould hire my own car and by the time i got home the us payment would be cancelled. it wasn't and i have been charged $1,041 (about[pounds sterling]650). hire for lower promised

car hire dublin, to repay me within 28 days but didn't. michael greig in customer services told memy repayment had been stopped by chairman nick stolberg as he was 'arranging paymentdirect from dollar'. verybad news i am afraid, particularly foranyone who has yet to take their holiday and

has booked car hire through hire for lower,which also calls itself american car hire, autos abroad, direct car hire, and usa rent-a-car. this company has locked its doors in archerstreet, in london's soho, and vanished. a sign on the door asks people to phone, but its main administrationnumber has a taped message which says you are being connected. then you get no furtherwhile the reservations number simply plays music. your letter is one of ten i have received.some people have the impression that there is an isolated dispute between hire for lowerand dollar. wrong.

a doctor from eastbourne, east sussex, toldme he flew to dublin, only to be told by budget that he could not have the car he had bookedthrough the archer street office. similar tales involved san francisco, atlanta, jacksonvilleand spain. hire for lower's vouchers bounce and families are then given false promisesof refunds. the scale of the problem is shocking. sue jones, trading standards manager at westminstercity council, which covers archer street, told me: 'we have received more than 500 complaints,the majority from customers who purchased car hire vouchers from hire for lower, onlyto discover that they were not accepted by car hire providers overseas.' companies houserecords show hire for lower is still in business,

but jones believes the company has collapsedand liquidators have been appointed. she says the best bet is to reclaim money from yourcredit card company, assuming you paid with plastic. i understand that some customers have beentold by their card companies that it is too late to reclaim, since they booked their carsmonths ago and credit card chargeback rules cover only 90 days from the date of the deal. this is a red herring. card companies are obliged under section 75of the consumer credit act to repay customers if a company goes bust before delivering thegoods and more than [pounds sterling]100 is

involved.

hire for lower is headed by nick johann stolberg,a 43-yearold millionaire with a list of directorships running to eight pages, if you include the26 companies he ran that have been dissolved. last year he bought a six-bedroom villa inst tropez, next door to joan collins. stolberg did not respond to my repeated invitationsto comment on the plight of his customers.