Scotties Rental Car New Zealand

Here’s a list of things that *actually happened* while doing business with Scotties Rental Car New Zealand:
— There was no-​one at the pickup office, despite the front gate and office being open.
— A handwritten note taped to the office window instructed me to «Press the red button for service», so I did so on a phone that had seen better days, years ago.
— A rep named [REDACTED] picked up, and at first told me we were at the wrong pickup address, but when I called back (after confirming I was at the address printed on the reservation), then told me «Well that’s just the wrong address on the site, then». Um… ok?
— I was then told by [REDACTED] we needed to go to the airport to pick up our car, which was a 45-​minute drive away. By car. Which we didn’t have.
— When I asked how we could best get to the airport location without a car, [REDACTED] said «Can’t help you», then indicated that they were ready to end our lovely conversation by remaining in a stony silence until I got weirded out and hung up.
— We ended up canceling our reservation with Scotties out of frustration, and decided to book with a different company. It turned out to be just a 3^rd-​party booking agent for Scotties, meaning we ended up with the same rental, only this time it was now NZ$ 200 more expensive because it was a holiday weekend.
— When we set out to find Scotties’ fabled airport location, there was no easily-​visible signage. We cruised around the block 3 times before finding it. It’s in the middle of some weird warehouse district — I think I saw it in the shootout at the end of Die Hard with a Vengeance. Great movie. Awful car rental location.
— The car hadn’t been cleaned yet, so [REDACTED] actually yelled at their coworker in front of us to «take it to the swamp, and clean it!». Yes, they said swamp. We did a double-​take on that too.
— [REDACTED] asked for the dates of our booking, which included Feb 14^th. At that, they looked my girlfriend up & down, then turned to me and said «February 14^th… Valentine’s day, eh? Weeeey!», then wiggled their eyebrows suggestively at me, at which point my skin decided to leap off my body, before crawling into the corner to die, moaning and thrashing around in utter self-​loathing and agony. It was at this point I started suspecting we’d accidentally wandered on-​set for an episode of the Office.
— [REDACTED] drove us to another location to pick up our car, in a car that had cobwebs in it. The place we found the car looked like an abandoned murder-​shack on the edge of — you guessed it — a swamp.
— We were assigned a Nissan Tiida (?), which also had cobwebs in it (even after a thorough swamp cleaning), the growth of which were likely aided considerably by the fact that the car struggled mightily whenever the conversation between it and my foot turned to the topic of acceleration.
— We paid USD$ 430 for the privilege of this… uh…“transportation” for 7 days. That’s more than we spent on multiple very comfortable accommodations booked through Airbnb the entire week we were there.
— When we headed back to return the car, we called a couple hours before arriving to make sure someone was there to receive it. They told us to call them again 20 minutes before we arrive to make sure someone is there — because clearly, *they* couldn’t talk to each other, working for the same company, and it being their job, and us being foreigners on the road, and all.
— So we did call 20 minutes beforehand, and were reassured someone would be there to receive the car.
— Just as was discussed, when we arrived, no-​one was there to receive the car. Oh wait, that wasn’t what was discussed — that was actually the opposite of what was discussed *less than 20 minutes prior* (–_​-​’)
Every interaction with Scotties was frustrating, and dealing with them was the worst part of an otherwise amazing vacation. On the upside, my girlfriend and I now get to use the phrase «That’s so Scotties» as a euphemism for shit going super-​wrong, but letting it roll off your back.
Thanks for the memories, guys! Next time, I think I’ll just pay through the nose to ship my own car out there, instead of dealing with you. Weeeey!

I wish I would’ve read these reviews before we went on our trip! I used Expedia to find a car rental, so our reservation was through NU, they then sourced our reservation to Scottie’s. Our car was not available for the time we had reserved it, and then had to be returned earlier than reserved as well. There was no cost adjustment made for this. The car was less than par, things didn’t work, it burned oil, etc. We had a lovely trip otherwise, so we didn’t bother to fight about it. That is, until we received our credit card bill and were overcharged. NU hasn’t been very helpful to fix the problem and Scottie’s has been unresponsive. AVOID NU AND SCOTTIES!

DO NOT RENT FROM SCOTTIES. If 0 stars was an option we would choose that. This company is a joke. We had issues with the car that was given to us, it smelled of gasoline on the inside, and when we took it to scotties to be fixed, Keith Scott, the owner, we told him in a polite manner it was an inconvenience for us to come back to pickup the car once service was complete he said «then cancel the reservation». Really? Obviously this guy has some serious anger issues if a statement of inconvenience from us elicits such a vicious response. It is your problem the car has issues and smells of gasoline. If you completed a proper quality control review of the vehicles you would have observed the issues, but obviously you didn’t. Your fault, Keith, not ours. So many many issues with you, Keith Scott. He said he couldn’t smell the gasoline, liar. If there was another rental company around we would have gone to them and left this horrendous excuse for a rental company in the dust, but there was not. As it was we took an hour of our day to trade the car, just for the day. He gave us a van, we had 4 people we didn’t need a van it was a waste of gas and it was filthy. The valet at our hotel told us the smell of the gasoline is such a hazard he had a headache just from grabbing the car and bringing it back to us. Also, the registration on the car was incorrect and when we told Keith Scott about that issue, he said «that doesn’t matter». Moron. Once we got the car back the seats were wet, soaked, we had to get plastic bags from the hotel to cover the seats so we wouldn’t get soaked. When we told the concierge at the hotel about our experience, he became enraged and couldn’t believe our experience with these unprofessional people. He wanted to know the company, we told him, and he said he would make sure to never refer them to other hotel guests.
Bottom line: This company is horrible do not rent from them. Customer service is non existent, the owner is obviously a degenerate with anger issues, the upkeep of the cars is non existent, we should have read reviews better before renting.
Also, Keith stated «this is a cheap rental» in addition to his cancel the transaction. To me this translates to; I don’t give a crap, I don’t care if the cars are safe or roadworthy, I just want your money, I have better things to do than make sure my customers are happy, satisfied, and safe, I don’t maintain the cars unless I have too, and I guess I have to now that you’re standing here.
Read reviews and you will see his wife responds to negative reviews with general comments and generally the same comments. Reviewers will state they sent multiple emails regarding their issues with no replies and Mrs. Scott will respond with «send me an email». The responses she posts are such a ruse. If they respond to this and you read their response know they are lying.

After receiving a crappy car on my first reservation in Auckland, I cancelled my reservation on the South Island over 2 weeks before I was supposed to pick it up. They never refunded me my money (I was within refundable time) and the owner hung up on me/​avoided me when I tried to get my money back.
The vehicle was not what I had reserved either. Their cars are pieces of junk. Gears didn’t shift (dangerous), super old, windshield wipers broken, gas tank door release broken (took me and a gas attendant awhile to find).
I wanted to support a family run business, but they did not meet industry standards.