Auckland Travel Forum

Hi,

hope someone can help me on this, we have booked with a company who have offices in Auckland, I will not mention who they are, but I'm getting a bit concerned about them. They took our deposit, which isn't a huge amount, but within 4 weeks we are due to hand over a very large sum to them as we are hiring for 7 weeks.
I have tried to ask them questions by email twice, and all though I have had an automated responce, both times they havn't replied, this doesn't seem a very good sign to me, is it a question of take your money and then don't care.
Yes I could ring them, but costs and time difference makes emailing much better for me, is there anywhere I can reserarch this company to check it out, I did that initialy, and found some good reports on them, but anyone can write them, is there perhaps a tourist body or similar that they would have to be registered with, I know I'm sounding paranoid, but I was only asking basic info questions that they should have come back on.
Let me know your thoughts anybody pleas.

Wandaling.

Presume that they are on the Search List constrained in this Government web site ?

http://www.tourism.net.nz/search/

Hi puerto lover,

thanks for that thought, yes, they are listed on there, but does that mean anything, after all it's just advertising money to tourist offices.
But it's good to see there listed.
Anyone else?

Wandaling.

Have you tried faxing them? Write them that they are not answering your emails, hence the fax...

Have you tried faxing them? Write them that they are not answering your emails, hence the fax...

Email me their name, and I will let you know my thoughts. There aren't too many crooks here, so mostly the campervan companies are ok.

Yes, email the name to Pam (kiwi) or me. I also have personal contact with Tourism NZ, so can investigate more.

Please let me clarify something:

The website named above is not the official website of Tourism New Zealand. This website does not control any information provided by the supplier. Also you and me can send them a website address and make them list your real or invented company. This, of course, does not mean that this unnamed campervan rental company is out of business or never been in business. It just means not to sigh in relief when you find a company listed in their directory but investigate with official sites. The website BTW lists motorhome rental companies I have never heard of and never seen a van on the road - which again does not mean that the company does not exist. Not even I know all rental companies in New Zealand LOL ;-)))

The official tourism website is:

http://www.newzealand.com/International/

The government related website is:

http://newzealand.govt.nz/

So here is the link to the motorhome list of the official Tourism NZ website (for Auckland only):

http://www.newzealand.com/travel/getting-to-around-nz/transport/transport-options/transport-listings.cfm/activityitemid/11/regionid/1/startrow/1/activitycategoryid/1/seed/141008.html

You could try googling the company name.

If the company is listed on any scam website or anything like that it will show up in the results

I did that, nothing has come up, her company seems ok from what I can find so far :-)

Wandaling has emailed us the name of the company...

So... I have called the number and an even friendly lady replied with the name of the rental company. So Wandaling, you should really try to call them during your evening hours to find out about your problem. At the moment the time difference to the UK is 12 hours, so if you call between 9 and 10pm you should reach them easily.

What I found strange is that the telephone number is registered in a different location to the site of the company's address. Also they do claim to have an office in Christchurch but there is no telephone number listed in the White/Yellow Pages. I will check out tomorrow if there is such company at the address they give on the internet.

Tourism New Zealand have not heard of the company but they said this does not mean it does not exist. They recommend to call.

Is there no member in Auckland who could check out the address near the airport?

Because... still it is possible that someone answers the phone and the company does not exist.

On the other hand companies do exist and operate even if they do not answer emails. They are desorganised, do not have enough staff, etc. Just in the past two weeks I had to call at a tourist company ten times because they never returned calls although I had 14 customers for them, and I can see the office from my window... So not everything is bad when they do not answer emails from overseas, it is just not very professional.

Hi,

thanks to everyone who replied, and especialy Kakapo2 and Kiwi, I am still researching the company, one site it said it was established in 2000, if that was the case surely i would have found more than one happy customers, I know that if they are genuine and my holiday goes ahead and I'm happy, I will shout from every forum to say so, until then, who knows. But I hope to ring them, my time this evening, in the hope I can catch them at the start of there day.
I will post back to let you all know what happens.

wandaling.

On the registered companies website you can see that the company was first registered in 2005.

Check out here:
http://www.companies.govt.nz/cms/banner_template/CNAME

I would not worry too much about customer comments. First of all, I have never written to a rental company after having had a wonderful holiday by using their cars. I told them when I returned the car, and that was it. I would only write if I had not chance to tell them. I also think such small companies do not permanently update such comments - as they do not even find time to answer your emails...

But still, I hope you reach them by phone. I will check out the office in Christchurch later in the day.

Finally I have checked out the company's site in Christchurch. It exists, shares the place with another company, and a motorhome with the company's design was parked on the roadside. So everything should be fine, just the office staff you are dealing with seems to be a bit sleepy.

Thanks KaKapo2,

all your help greatly appreciated, also everyone else who offered advice, in my mind I'm sure it's
okay now. After our holiday, I will post about how things went, it will be in the new year though, as
we are visiting other countries and don't get back into the UK until Feb 09, three fantastic months of
memories and lots of photographs.

wandaling.

Get in touch. I work with the majority of the camper van companies advising travelers which ones to use.
I can get you a straight answer direct............

Looking forward to reading all about your trip!

wandaling it would be great if we had some feedback on how your trip went and how the company panned out.
Since writing in this thread earlier, I have seen some very grotty and tired and rundown looking campervans. Mostly the low cost ones. I hope they do something about them before this coming summer.

Would really be good to know - although the campervans of this company looked good when I checked them out.


But have you seen: last member login in February...

Yes I know .... still hopeful one day we ma hear :-)