Whatever next... ‘Super Dooper’ car hire cover?
Probes a world of scams and scandals
TRADING Standards officials investigating a scam art investment firm exposed by The Mail on Sunday have broadened their inquiries to include a London sales company.
In 2017, I reported that a reader who was cold-called by Imperial Collectables Limited had been persuaded to invest £18,800 in works of art that has since been valued at less than £1,000.
The company was run by Nicola Jane Surin, and I revealed that she had previously been sales manager at another scam business, London Carbon Neutral, that had been investigated by the Insolvency Service.
And the carbon credits scam was linked to yet another rip-off firm, Blakeney Bridge Wine, based at the same address in South London. Salesmen who coldcalled potential victims were told to offer wine investments to anyone who refused to buy carbon credits – and vice versa.
Investigators from Bromley Trading Standards and the wider region are leading what they describe as ‘a large and complex investigation’.
This has already targeted Imperial Collectables and Blakeney Bridge Wine, but has now been broadened to include a third company, Route One Marketing Limited.
This was run by South London businessman Absalom Martin, 27, who closed it down last year.
While inquiries continue, investors with Imperial Collectables have been asked not to dispose of their pictures.
Investigators say the artwork is ‘evidence of any offences and it may be necessary for some or all to be produced in court.’ J.W. writes: I am an 80-year-old veteran of the 1957 H-Bomb tests on Christmas Island. Despite medical problems from my service years, I am still an avid traveller and booked with Rentalcars UK to collect a car from OK Rent a Car at Malaga Airport. The booking included Collision Damage Waiver (CDW). On arrival at OK Rent a Car, it appeared there were only two customers ahead of me, so I was happy. However, I found that anyone who paid €18 (about £16) could jump the queue. This ripoff meant I had to wait almost an hour. Then the agent told me my CDW was useless, and I needed to pay another €84 (about £75). Feeling harassed, I paid. WHY do car hire firms generate so many complaints? They seem to make up the rules – and their charges – as they go along. They know that anyone arriving at an airport simply wants to collect their car and leave, so they place obstacles in their way to milk them of more money.
They know that customers returning a car just want to jump on their plane and fly home, so it is easy to bill them after the event for scratches and faults that may never have existed. And I know that just by saying this, I can expect a tsunami of letters and emails from car hire customers who have been mistreated.
You gave me a copy of your booking with the firm Rentalcars and this clearly shows that CDW is included. But at Malaga Airport, the Spanish firm OK Rent a Car was anything but OK with this.
It produced a huge list of almost every car part that could possibly be damaged, with prices running into thousands of euros that you could be charged if you did not pay all over again.
I asked Rentalcars what it thought of its Spanish associate describing its CDW as useless.
It told me that as far as it was concerned, the CD W was included in the price but was provided by the Spanish company, and was ‘the standard compulsory insurance cover that is required by law across the EU’.
Baloney. Utter rubbish. Totally false. There is no such EU law and nor is it the law in Spain.
But Rentalcars had a further card up its sleeve. The price you paid did include CDW, but it did not include‘ Super CD W’ (SCDW). According to Rentalcars, SCDW is top-up insurance that reduces or waives your liability to pay excess charges in the event of an accident, incident or theft. So, it does what customers might have thought CDW does in the first place.
Rentalcars did explain that its CDW ‘certainly is not useless’. It limits the driver’s liability for bodywork damage, the company told me. But SCDW covers more. In short then, the British firm says the Spanish firm was not telling you the truth – but this does not help you or get back the extra £75 you were charged.
I tried hard to get a comment out of Spanish firm OK Rent a Car, but it stayed silent. I expect it is too busy dreaming up a scheme to charge customers to top up their top-up. What next – Super Dooper CDW? A fair and honest car rental industry is clearly out of the question.