BVRLA Reviews 145

Very poor experience, Throughout Zenith and BVRA have sided against common sense and neglected the inconvenience to myself as the customer. I feel very let down by Zenith and the perceived independence of the BVRA. I will share this experience with friends and colleagues. In no other industry would a regulator draw the same conclusion based on the facts. Disappointing.

Was scammed by Alamo/Enterprise in Waverley (Edinburgh) inventing a scratch to a tyre as damage - something that loads of other reviewers on Google had experienced as well (some, it seems, on the very same car/tyre!).

I went to the BVRLA after Enterprise fobbed me off with their fake investigation and received a response that could be summarised as follows:

"You signed the legal disclaimer and Enterprise says you caused the damage so SUCK IT UP".

The BVRLA refused to investigate the six points I had mentioned, including the fact that the staff attempted to state that I had signed consent of damages (when I expressly had not) by sending me a fake statement. When I provided fuller information they said "we've made our decision. This is our final communication".

This is an industry front that pretends to help mediate problems. I would stay clear of them. I hope some MPs look into the fraudulent business models that this sham association is trying to hide. It's almost criminal the way it is setup.

Terrible!

I approached BVRLA to mediate a complaint against Enterprise Rent-A-Car, expecting a fair and professional resolution. Instead, what I received was a complacent, biased, and completely ineffective response that showed zero effort in investigating my case properly.

Here’s how BVRLA completely failed in their role:
1. They took weeks to respond and simply repeated Enterprise’s false claims instead of actually investigating my complaint.
2. They ignored clear evidence showing that Enterprise had overcharged me for a Premium SUV but provided a Standard SUV.
3. They falsely stated that Enterprise had refunded £50—this was completely untrue at the time they made their decision. Only after further escalation did I receive a lower, incorrect refund of £41.63.
4. They refused to hold Enterprise accountable for misrepresentation, contract breach, or financial loss caused by their failure to provide the correct vehicle.
5. Their so-called “dispute resolution” is nothing more than taking the rental company’s side and dismissing valid consumer complaints.

After wasting months waiting for them to do their job, I realized that BVRLA is nothing more than a rental industry puppet, working to protect their members rather than consumers. Their incompetence forced me to file a legal case against Enterprise myself.

Do not waste your time with BVRLA. If you have an issue with a rental company, take legal action immediately—BVRLA will do absolutely nothing to help you.

I had to engage BVRLA following a dispute with Drivalia when I rented a car with them, despite me being a loyal customer for 10 years they charged me £240 to upgrade to the next category despite being told at the point of rental that they did not have the category of car I booked originally!

I received initial correspondence from BVRLA and was told to expect a response within 30 working days.

I received a second email advising me that the case was taking a little longer than expected.

Yesterday I received their findings (within the 30 days) and the result was positive in my favour.

I appreciate the opportunity to engage with this service as I would not want anyone else to feel the way I have in this matter, it has caused me unnecessary stress and anxiety.

If anyone ever needs to use this service don't hesitate to do so.

Thank you

I am sure that the problem that I have it with a rental car company (Sixt Dortmund) - which looked like a scam - could not be solved without their help. Thank you!

What a relief it was to have the BVRLA to help with my issue when the car rental firm treated me really badly. They were quick, professional and most of all they gave me some hope that I could get my issue sorted. Dealing with large multinationals is so difficult, the car rental company didn’t listen and then they stonewalled me. Thankfully Laura and the team at the BVRLA helped me find a resolution. The funny thing about it all is that I’ll actually go back to the company that I had the issues with because they are the best!! I hire a car weekly for work and I’d stopped and gone to a competitor but now knowing that I can get support for any future issues around complaints from the BVRLA, I can go back without fear!

Don't expect these people to take your complaints seriously, to take action, to hold people to account or to provide you with a satisfactory response. You'll be left disappointed.
I'll let their response to my complaint and my subsequent reply speak for itself:

We are writing to advise you that we have completed our investigation into your complaint against Zipcar. Having carefully reviewed the information from both parties we are now in a posit our comments and observations.
We understand that you seek for the charge on your account to be removed.
You comment you parked the vehicle correctly and received a ticket in error. You state that was not resolved and you were not able to use your Zipcar account for a while due to the balance.
Zipcar have sent their apologies for the issues you faced. They state the images originally of the vehicle in the bay were not clear and that the delay was due to the issuing authority providing clearer photos until January. They've therefore removed the outstanding charg account and as a gesture of goodwill for the issues you faced, they've added £20 of driving credit for you to use.
We hope that the above can help to resolve your case to your satisfaction and we would l you for bringing the matter to our attention.
We value feedback on our alternative dispute resolution service, please click here to answer questions on the service you received.....

My response;
Your telling me I waited a month for that?? Are you for real?
I was locked out of my account (and still am btw) unfairly for 3 whole months.
The amount of unnecessary stress I went through trying to have myself heard by these people, trying to reason with these people, trying to get them to treat me fairly only for them to ignore me at every opportunity and when they couldn't ignore me they just fobbed me off with lies.
From the get go all I asked them for was what anybody would expect to receive from the onset - evidence of a contravention because without that they should never have bothered me or my bank account in the first place. Instead of saying haven't got it right now let me restore your account in the meantime they doubled down on their farce and suspended my account altogether as if it were me in the wrong.
I spent a lot of time on this with the countless phone calls, emails, complaint process through resolver and got nowhere due to their lack of response. ( Did you ask them for copies of their communications to me, responses to emails or the complaint through resolver?)
How did it take you a month to investigate this? There wasn't much by way of paperwork to go through - they were mute, literally, and I'm pretty sure you didn't read all my correspondence to Zipcar because if you had I cannot see how you would come to the conclusion that 20 quid driving credit that I can't even use as my account still says suspended is a fair or just outcome for me. All I see if that your signing off on the notion that it's fine and dandy for a business to behave in a manner that causes their clients unnecessary stress and to their detriment for no good reason without consequence.
It's outrageous but not unexpected. Least I know not to expect any redress through your channels in the future and won't waste my time.
All that's left for me to do is to relay my experience on trust pilot and other platforms for awareness and hopefully it'll save other people from wasting a month of there lives looking for their injustices made right in places they aren't going to find it.

Thanks for the life lesson!

After my experience with this company i looked online to find many many other people going through the exact the same process, almost using identical words that i have. The thing that was suspicious at the start was the lease company i unfortunately used was pushing me hard to speak with BVRLA and were overly keen for me to take my complaint to this company. Of course this raises suspicion and I immediately thought will i be treated fairly and have my situation looked at with an in-partial person, of course this did not happen and they did not investigate anything but they made out that they did however. As the photos they used to justify the 'alleged issues' were not clear one bit or warranted to justify the lease company trying to scam/extract me for money on my vehicle for works i had already carried out a few weeks before. Which does take scamming/frauding tactics to a customer to a whole different level, then it this endorsed/approved by BVRLA even though its blatantly obvious that this lease companies suspicious scamming tactics would not be acknowledged or properly looked into.

Its not rocket science to know that the lease company must pay a subscription of some sort to the BVRLA and both look after one another, rather than investigating properly and show some level of treating a customer like myself fairly. Its a waste of anyone's time to take your complaint to the BVRLA, when they clearly had no intention of properly investigating the case or answering simple questions, unless you keep repeating yourself.....like 'how do they fully investigate and how do they arrive at their decision' but in the end they give you a 'cover themselves waffle answer' that does not really mean or explain anything.

I approached BVRLA with a complaint against Enterprise and had faith they would investigate fairly but the process is clearly biased and not robust. No real sense that they measured the service by Enterprise against their standards. A fair investigation should consider all evidence and perspectives equally but this was clearly not the case. Enterprise contacted me 5 weeks after I had returned the vehicle to tell me there was damage and we were at fault and BVRLA did not think this was questionable practice, despite Enterprise calling me on the day the vehicle was returned 5 hours later to advise of it's safe return. I wouldn't use BVRLA if looking for impartiality.

This is meant to be a resolution company of then car hire industry.....who pays for the service they provide.......oh yeah it the hire companies, had a complaint and it sided with the hire company , absolute waste of time and effort to resolve something that was already certain....for the car hire company , looking into taking this further , don't waste your time ....

if I could give them zero star I would this company is just waste of time I have made a book in confirmation come through Enterprise now after 1 year the protecting big fish take my advice stairway from this company do not waste your time life to complain to them instead go to the court

Absolute disgrace and the worst part is the members of the BVRLA know they hold no weight yet advise you to make a complaint and any direction given by the BVRLA they will follow. We hired a campervan off spaceship rentals. It was filthy upon contact less pickup. We immediately advised the rental company and have proof. The cooker also did not work so we could not cook in the camper and had to spend more money while on holiday eating out. Space ship also prolonged the fix time and kept delaying us telling us a repair would happen that day (causing us to cancel plans and other bookings) only to be rung late afternoon and repairs delayed again. This went in for 4 days. They finally replaced the van and offered us 94 pounds in compensation. Told us to make a complaint with the BVRLA. It appears these rentals companies know if they offer even 2 pound in compensation it will looked upon favourably by the BVRLA. The first email I got from the BVRLA was rude and did acknowledge the evidence I had provided. The second email I got after escalating the matter to a manager, acknowledged my evidence and the manager even stated the rental company had lied about not knowing the state of the van which was a blatant lie with email proof from me. Yet even with all the evidence the rental member gets away with their behaviour. Shame on you BVRLA even if you can't help with compensation you should be holding a higher standard of members and enforcing change when blatant lies have been found.

I raised a complaint against Europcar committed a list of unlawful actions against me, who mislead me put me into danger, forged contract in the system, made unlawful deductions and more... The Europcar stated 32hours ago the BVRLA will not investigate my complaint. I called the BVRLA immediately and they confirmed there is NO DECISION in the system and the she was very curious how dare Európcar state anything like this. Today 32 hours later I received the email from someone from BVRLA who does not do her job because referring to evidence that I have not seen and the Europcar lied to me and to my Solicitor too they denied terminated contract and lied on many different ways. There are documents about it the Európcar system contains modified fake information. But this person from BVRLA she doesn't care and insane amount of unlawful actions that the Europcar made. And seems this is also an unlawful action when the other party knows about the decision which was not done by BVRLA officially and I just received it 32hours later. The BVRLA staff denying they told the Europcar what will be their decision however the Europcar sent it to me 32hours earlier to me. The Európcar stated at 09:29am on the 3rd of December it I called the BVRLA and the worker worker who answered the call and find my case in the system, she stated at 13:46 on the 3rd of December there is not been pick up by a decision maker, there is not decision made in their system. She was shocked when I did read out that Európcar sent to me regarding the BVRLA decision. She asked me to send this to them, because this is a problem. I have received the zero work from this company at 17:31 on the 4th of December !! NOW THE BVRLA DENIED ALL THESE THINGS. This organization is a hoax.

Please do not waste your time - your complaint will not even be reviewed and your case will be closed. Clearly created to support the leasing organisations and not interested in helping the general public and paying consumer.

Terrible experience.

Zipcar mislead and misinformed myself of their shady practices, they never acknowledge my complaint. All they do is putting charges with no reason whatsoever and even by the phone their agents constantly lie and never acknowledge your concerns.
BVRLA looks after it’s corrupt members more
than addressing complaints from the public.

I have a complaint with Hertz where they are accusing me of damage and charges to me that are fictitious.
I took my complaint to BVRLA after a Google search and, on seeing a link attached correspondence from Hertz.
It appears to me that BVRLA look after it’s members more than addressing complaints from the public.
These people are accountable to the government apparently.
I suggest leaving the country.
Update…breaking news…got a result.
Their procedures can trip them up if you have your wits about you.
They provided me with enough evidence to beat them if it went to court, which I threatened, plus going to National Press.
They revised their demand and dropped it with immediate effect.
Stay strong and tell BBC Watchdog too so it can address this cowboy attitude

Well I’m glad they aren’t a firm of solicitors defending me! What a complete waste of time. Keyboard warriors with delusions of grandeur.

I asked them to mediate on a booking that I'd made with a company that claimed to be a BVRLA member. Their reply was that this company ( Yellohire.com ) was not a member despite displaying their membership details & links. I expected them to take some action to correct this fraud but it appears that they simply wrote to them asking that they remove the BVRLA link from their website. Nothing has happened, Yellohire is still claiming membership & I'm £200.00 down.