Woodford Car Hire Reviews 

Thieves. Thieves. Thieves

We've used Woodford car hire a number of times and been very happy with the service.
Unfortunately, I now need to add our recent experience to the growing list on Trustpilot.
Following a hire from OR Tambo, we've been charged for toll fees on roads we didn't travel on, and at times we certainly didn't use the vehicle. For a week of our hire, the car was parked up at a game park, so not on any highway.
I've emailed twice now, asking that they check the information they have received and passed on, but no response.
Holding the credit car authorisation has enabled these charges to be debited from my account. It's not a huge amount, but I fear part of a trend which is now occuring.
Sad to see that a previously super company are now causing their customers such issues.

Returned my rental on the 13th of February 2024. Unfortunately, the reviews about this company are true. They do not return your deposit after you return their vehicle. they advertise this will be done in 72hrs. I contacted the call centre on the 19th February 2024, provided my reference and the person I spoke to told me "the deposit wasnt released, but she did it now". I accepted this and waited 3 days. Today is the 22nd of February, still nothing. I held out on leaving a review until the whole process was complete since the rental experience was good up until I realized they going to make me waste my time trying to follow up on what is mine.

Worst car hire company ever. If there was a -1, I would rate them that. Woodford in OR Tambo is the worst. Don't ever hire a car from them. My husband hired a car from them and when we fetched the car, the guy at the parking lot, when we took the car said we are good to go without doing an inspection of the car. We realise that there was a dent on the car, my husband went back to the airport a few days after they asked him about the inspection sheet, we told them that we were informed that we can go without doing the inspection. Now they telling my husband he won't get his deposit back because of that dent and it wasn't even my husband who dented the car. Woodford OR Tambo is a scam. They are not to be trusted. Don't ever hire a car from them.

Keep well clear !! If they have your credit card they will charge you for every scratch ion the vehicle even though you never caused the damage and it was on the sign out damage report - incompetent or dishonest. Let’s go with incompetent to be kind

Booked a car with safety seat for my 4 year old child. Booking was made 10+ months in advance. When we arrived to CPT, after 24 hours of travel, to 30+ degrees heat, they told us that they’re out of safety seats. After a half hour waiting we left the place without the seat. Effectively having had to put our child in danger. Another family had the exact same problem the same time. We had to return the next day to pick up the seat. The first seat offered to us smelled heavily of vomit. Swapped the seat by myself - so the other family probably got that one later. Had no support from customer care as they answer in 24 hours. They finally responded 3-4 days later with the question: how do you rate the support. Wouldn’t recommend, especially if you need a safety seat.

I rented a car in Durban where the damage to the glass was fixed, when I returned the car in Johannesburg they said I had damaged the windscreen. I showed them the inspection report, which proved that the damage was already there before. Despite this, they kept money on the credit card. Extremely unpleasant experience, do not recommend using such a company

Absolutely horrific experience with Woodford Car Hire. They rented me a car with a chunk of rubber missing from the front wheel (arrived late at night so could not do the full visual inspection and so they instructed me to do so in the morning which is when we noticed how unsafe the car was). Took 1.5 days to swap it out to a safe car, which only happened since I went to another location as they did not return any emails or call despite their WhatsApp respondent escalating the issue. They have issued no apologies, have not replied to emails on return to address the issue, and cost us 1.5 days of our trip (plus many hours dealing with this continued issue). Do NOT rent with them (Enterprise, National, Alamo). Use Hertz instead.

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Edited 3/28: Adjusting the review from 1/5 to 3/5 as I eventually did hear back from management regarding my experience and an effort was made to resolve this to an agreeable outcome.

This company is absolutely FRAUDULENT. We hired a car and my deposit still has not been released since December . I wrote an email to their customer service email for them to release my funds . I got an email back that funds were released on the 31/02/23 employee called Tracy David responded from an email with a gmail dot com on the 12 of Jan when I emailed their professional customer service email. On the 16 of Jan she then again sent an email requesting the bank to release my deposit of R12500 instead R12 000 was deducted from my account on the 16th of Jan, this was again after they asked for my card number to “ request bank to release my funds” . I have not been aware of this until now when my bookkeeper asked me what was going on . The car was returned fully fuelled up yet I also got R-417.25 and R383.24 deducted as well. I WILL be suing this company for fraud .

I rented a Toyota Starlet for 5 weeks in December. The booking, pick up and drop off was very easy. The car was new and wonderful to drive.
I was supposed to return the car at 8.30am, but my flight was at night. They allowed me to return the car at 3pm without charging me an xtra day.
I highly recommend this company and I will use them again when I visit SA.

There are hundreds of warnings online from tourists like me who have been scammed by Woodford Car Hire - clearly their business profit model consists of taking R25,000 out of a customer’s credit card without permission as their routine practice and then ignoring all requests for explanations and replies. In the rest of the world, South Africa, that is called theft.

I’m an Australian business executive and I hired a car from their Cape Town Airport branch in November 2023 for 10 days. I had full walk-away insurance cover with nil excess. Nil excess - Mr Suleman, do you, as the owner of the company, actually care what this term means in a car rental contract ? Or is this how you get rich in a corrupt 3rd world country ?

The rental car was then accidentally damaged on its side panel while under my care. I called Woodford immediately to report the damage (my 1st ever with any rental) and reminded them I have full insurance cover for all damage and a nil excess (which I paid a lot of extra money for when I hired the car). They said just get a police report for the damage and deliver that when I hand back the car and it will all be fine. Did all that. Then 2 weeks later I discover a R25,000 unauthorised debit from Woodford on my Australian credit card - no email, no warning, no explanation, no letter, no justification. Now 2 months later I’m still waiting and waiting for a reply from them to explain how, contractually, they can debit my credit card for damage when the contract shows I had a nil excess so there is by definition nil payable in the event of any damage. I have repeatedly asked them for the evidence that they are entitled to debit my card for R25,000 - no responses ever. So over to my Australian credit card company’s lawyers to dispute this.

Let’s drive this consistently corrupt company of South African thieves out of business by not using them. Don’t by deceived by the cheerful staff at the airport office - behind the scenes the company’s admin policy seems to be to scam you by stealing money out of your credit card, no matter what your contract says, and then ignoring all requests for explanations. Just read online how many people have experienced exactly this. Typically corrupt South African business practice and no police action is ever taken. Don’t rent a car from Woodford Car Hire.

After returning my rental car at Johannesburg OR Tambo Int. Airport, I received a final Rental Agreement / Invoice. This includes an unexplained "E-TOLL" amount of R459.74. The particular vehicle I hired was not equipped with an e-toll tag (confirmed by rental agency staff when I collected the car) and I paid all appropriate toll charges throughout my trip with cash at the toll booths so there should be no additional toll charges. I contacted Alamo customer services about this multiple times who said they were passing it on to their local agents in South Africa (i.e. Woodford). After 5 weeks I have yet to receive any communication from them - let alone an explanation. If you rent from these people (and I will not be doing so ever again), you are basically writing a blank check for them to deduct money from your credit card!

Value seemed to be good in the beginning. I was able to quickly overlook the fact they didn't fill up the fuel tank before i was handed the keys then asked to bring it back full. The real pain is the fact that after returning the vehicle, not only did they not return my bond but they charged my card, then again, until i realised this and had to cancel my card as nobody from Woodford has been able to fix this administration issue. That was 4 months ago and i am still waiting for re imbursement. DO NOT give them your card details or they may steal from you too.

A very helpful lady at the call center escalated on our behalf and she resolved the issue for us by the following day.

Dear Woodford Car Hire
As per my wife's previous emails to you we had already sent an email to your customer service so please stop replying to us b=y saying email customer service.
We are getting NO RESPONSE and feel it is ridiculous you have charged us R3000 for e-tolls for the week we were in the Kruger National Park. The E-tolls from OR Tambo to Kruger are around R20. We have emailed all the proof of this. Is there possibly fraud going on in your company where someone is stealing your customers money as it is on a credit card.
Please can you sort this out asap.

Service is bad , i haven't received my deposit , when i call them they say ,they will get back to me in 24 hours . another thing they wrote on their invoice was their car came back empty while it was full , they not gonna pay full deposit . king shaka airport , those people works there i feel like they fraudulent.

Worst comfy iv ever delt with taking money I didn’t know about hiden fees I can’t find on the agreement and they holding a deposit iv been locked in a battle over this with my self for a month becuse they won’t reply to emails or any thing

Heavy fraudulent company in Johannesburg Aeroport

We rented a car for 8 days. Turns out they’ve been taking money off my credit card + didn’t get back the refund till today. It’s been a week and their policy says after max 72 hours the money will be refunded. Watch out for this company. Also don’t give them your credit card. God knows what they’ll do with it behind the teller. We reported this issue to a investigator in South Africa

It was a distaster. It ruined the start of our holiday in SA. The car we booked was not available (Renault Triber). The only thing that they offert were smaller cars but that was a joke for a family of 5 with luggage. No upgrades, what other compagnies normally do. The other stupid things is that the guy at the desk let me do all the administration for half an hour and then told me the car was not there. I ended up renting a car at Avis instead of Woodford. Avis had great service with honest and polite people. When I came back at the Woodford desk to cancel the booking another guy told me that Woodford sold all the Tribers half a year ago. Why not inform costumers about this??? Because of all the extra time it took to get a suitable car we were to late at the Kruger gate. We had to pay extra money to get in. We will never rent at Woodford again.

I have not had my deposit refunded since the 6th December. There is no answer when calling customer care and no response to emails. This is THEFT.

The service at Cape Town international branch was great. However I do not understand a system that can take your money but cannot issue the refund.

Paid €750 deposit. Handed in my car with no damage. It was all signed off. But never received my money back. Customer service did not help me, only replied with standard answers, his name was Syabonga Ngubane. Horrible service.