Received abusive communications and they have tried to track my location.
After leaving a review on this company I have received abusive emails. My personal experience of this organisation has been awful and I have reported this company to numerous organisations including the police - my story is below.
Within the emails sent to me by Sussex Car Rentals were threats of small claims court and the police just for leaving this review with suggestions that I was “harassing” their business by leaving a negative review - an attempt to intimidate me into not sharing my personal experience. Other quotes from this company included in these emails were "Bigger then your Deceased husband", which was a response to me calling them a “small man” - this has be reported to the police as a death threat. And the use of misogynistic language was mindblowing, which included "I beg youuuuuuuu also maybe tell your husband to man up and call because his wife is spending his money on court cases" and "You’re the silly woman who’s getting her self in a lot of trouble by admitting she’s not a customer but threading to leave negative reviews when she’s not a customers!" and this company also replied to this review, before Trust Pilot deleted it, referring to me as a "mentally unstable women whose husband clearly needs to keep in check" and that "she's one unsafe and clearly off her meds" and "As you can see this woman has never been a customer and clearly suffers from alcohol or drug misuse" after I refused to back down on posting this review.
Even more scary was that within these emails were two links to an IP logger address which can illegally track your location and I also received a separate email from the owner of the business with another IP logger link, again, to illegally track my location. This organisation uses threats, intimidation and attempts at stalking to scare their victims into not sharing their personal views.
While, as the company stated, I wasn’t the booker/customer of the hire car, I was the passenger. The car was booked via telephone, we received email confirmation of the booking that included the pick up address. When we arrived at our allotted time, the car and staff were nowhere to be seen and no one was answering or returning our calls. After waiting for approx. 45 minutes, we had to leave to get alternative transport to the important appointments that we had booked. Later that day, we received an email from this company who said they had canceled our hire car the day before and we were sent an email and that we would be refunded in 10 days. That email and refund never came and a further £100 was taken off the card we used after leaving a bad review. This £100 charge for leaving a bad review is in their T&Cs - read them carefully. In the UK, we have laws that say people can express their thoughts freely. So, if someone shares a true and honest opinion about a product or service, they’re protected by the freedom of speech law and Sussex Car Rentals are not legally allowed to charge you £100 for leaving a bad review and therefore can't take small claims court action against you.
Unfortunately, this is not just my experience. You can read other very similar reviews left on Google and Facebook Marketplace.
For those of you may have been scammed by Sussex Car Rentals, I’ve shared some helpful tips
- Call 101 and file a police report if you feel threatened, intimated or harassed by this company
- Report them to Trading Standards, through Citizens Advice
- Report them to Action Fraud
- Report them to the Information Commissioner's Office if they break the data breach and privacy law. I had to do this as they replied to this review by continuously sharing my personal details publicly without my consent, which Trust Pilot had to delete on four separate occasions.
- Cancel the card you used to book the hire car with asap and notify your bank of the fraudulent transaction so that banks are aware of this company.
- Once you have cancelled your credit / debit card, leave an honest review on Trust Pilot, Google and Facebook to help inform others. He will fight to have your review removed, so be patient and work with and send your any proof you have to Trust Pilot
- Contact Citizens Advice Bureau as they were really helpful in providing additional support and guidance on how to take this company to small claims court to get the money back. Please note that there are fees associated with doing this.
It’s been a struggle to have this post stay after going back and forth with this company and Trust Pilot. Sussex Car Rentals flagged this post as a fake post and then as defamatory. Thank you to the customer integrity team at Trust Pilot for your patience as you reviewed the communications from Sussex Car Rentals and verified my post as not being fake and dismissing the claim this content was defamatory, as this is a true account of what happened.