Car Next Door

Welcome to the Community @fernaj,

I moved your post into this existing one about CND. The numbers of issues, the seeming opaqueness of alleged damages and resolution, and how their ‘customer service’ works is not a once off.

It is always best to check companies before doing business with them than after when a problem arises. A search just now reveals a few sites where customers are somewhat happy and some where the majority have had costly issues. While many CND customers might have had trouble free CND rentals when there is an issue maybe not, and considering overall reviews takes a bit of insight.

Not saying the good ones are not genuine, but a useful allied topic is

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Hi @fernaj, welcome to the community and it is disappointing that you have also had a bad experience with CND.

Thank you for pointing out that CND have agreements and terms available for consumers to review as part of the decision-making, prior to renting a vehicle through their platform. These agreements and terms set out the risks of the rental and what processes are in place in the event something goes wrong. It is disappointing that in your case, these agreements and terms were potentially ignored (such as the dispute process or that if the scratch was very minor in nature, it would be considered as general wear and tear by CND and not subject to damage charges).

If business don’t uphold or follow their own agreements and terms, it is very much something to be very wary of. It also appears from your post (and the terms and agreements in place), that CND tend to wipe their hands of any responsibility in relation to the rental taken place. This is also concerning as such, as indicated in earlier posts, will have significant reputational issues for their business. Online platforms like CND are driven by reputation. If no one uses them due to a poor reputation, they have no business.

The other concern is that there are two parties one needs to deal with in the time of a dispute - CND and the vehicle owner. This creates an environment of ‘fingerpointing’ where one pushes the responsibilities to the other party resulting in no one wishing to effectively deal with the issues at hand. This is itself is also possibly another key factor when decision to use CND. I, like yourself, possibly won’t ever use CND due to information posted in this thread. The risks are higher than I would be willing to accept.

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hi @PhilT, thanks for moving my post! I did see this thread, but didn’t realise it was better to just ad to the existing chain. I totally agree. I think a lot of people persist with CND in the hope that they don’t have a bad experience, e.g. even one of my friends is still using the service despite my experience. Since CND is generally a decent service until you have a problem, I can see why people try their luck.

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thank you @mark_m ! I’m still thinking about whether I will pursue an ACCC case, but these questions/points you posted are a good starting point for me, so thank you for commenting.

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hi @GeorgeL, yes that was the first question I asked when they first raised the dispute with me. They told me that many owners have fleets of cars and it’s not unusual for disputes to be raised months after the incident. The car was loaned out in the five months, but there’s a scratch in my after photo that wasn’t there in my before photo. It means the owner only noticed it much later and used it as an opportunity to get his entire bumper, which had large pre-existing scratches, fixed. I raised that point with the owner, but he also ignored it. I was always willing to pay part of the cost and wanted proper mediation, but CND didn’t offer me that.

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Seems like a flawed process. There should be a time limit regardless to claim.

The owner should/would have an obligation to mitigate further damage from subsequent loan out usage. Because the quoted repair costs for within days after damage was made versus quoted repair costs for 5+ months after the damage may differ a lot!!!

If they claim and quoted repair costs 5+ months later, I think you should have the right to access every before and after photos taken from each subsequent loan out of that car over that 5+ months. That would give you photo evidence of whether the damage was worsened over time from subsequent loan outs.

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An other ask might be to know whether for each other instance of damage evident the same repair claim has been made on every other hirer? That in itself would seem dishonest if it is occurring. Can CND show that it is not?

Alternately assuming all the other damage evident is due to the owners use and one very minor portion by a single hirer - is it fair to ask a single hirer to restore all the other damage evident?
A simple prorata if there are 10 items to be repaired in the one job, should the hirer who caused one only pay 1/10 of the cost?

Perhaps CND’s contracts are fair and address these issues fairly. Above all is whether CND ensures transparency in all it’s dealings? How can anyone be sure!

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Yeah the whole process seems unfavourable to the hirers. CND definite would not be a service I’d use. If I need a ride, I’d take an Uber instead LOL

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The whole process is so open to abuse that there really is only one answer: Don’t use the service.

I guess there’s room for argument about that. 24 hours is clearly an unreasonable expectation e.g. owner has gone away for the weekend.

At the other end of the scale, 5 months looks rorty. It seems as if the owner has batched up all the accumulated little dings and dents (which makes sense from the point of view of total cost to repair) but is trying to get the latest person to complain in this topic to pay for all the damage i.e. damage caused by other hirers, both prior and subsequent.

Having said that, we don’t have transparency over whether every person who hired between then and now has also been hit with a charge. This could be massive double dipping or might not be.

@fernaj, were you provided with the quote from the repairer? i.e. to back up the charge against you.

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@person yes, CND sent me the quote that the car owner had got from their standard repair partner. It actually does say in the request for quote “please only quote for the circled damage”, and the scratch I was seemingly responsible for is circled. However, the reply from the repair company simply says “$655 for bumper repair”. All the comments above suggest that it’s very possible that more bumper damage could have happened since I rented the car, and I don’t know how easy it is to work out how to charge me for a percentage of the damage, but it surely wouldn’t have been that hard to work something out, or at least reply to my emails.

In case anyone is interested, the CND staff member (not Support team) that I’ve most recently been in touch with hasn’t replied to my email for 12 days.

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It is usually standard practice to replace a bumper if it is damaged, as it is often cheaper and more durable solution than a repair.

However, if the repair partner recommends such an approach and there were other similar scratches on the bumper, the repairer could issue quotes for each repair being replacement of the bumper. Say there were 5 scratches, this could be 5 separate invoices totalling $3275.

If the bumper had pre-existing damage on its hire, it could be a money maker for someone as the bumper isn’t being repaired between hires and each hirer is paying for repair work which wasn’t done.

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There are also numerous services offered by mobile repaired and touch up paint specialists. Free quotes on line from your photos or in person.

EG
Mobile Car Scratch Repairs Brisbane - The Touch Up Guys

Blue Jay Dent and Scratch Guys – Mobile Service – We come to you!

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Using them for compensation purposes is an ill founded thought because enough seem to low-ball quotes to get the work off the net but often raise them when they get to the vehicle because of ‘un-seeable’ damages on the photos or similar stories. Some seem to be less than honest or perhaps even unqualified repairers according to some reviews. Search the mobile repairer reviews on ProductReview, including those for touch up guys; many seem location dependent where some operators are fine and others not so much.

For the former group (low ball quotes) the customer is given a choice of taking the higher quote or not but apparently many take it because they want the repair done and the repairer is in front of them ready to go.

We had a personal experience with one and that was how it went. The on-site quote was $500 above the photo-based quote of $600. On seeing it claimed he had to do an entire door not just fill and paint the chip, same around a headlamp where the whole panel would need respray. OTOH his work was excellent and still enough below panel shop quotes ($1,800 and up) so we were not too fussed although irritated by ‘the game’.

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As I said … there is no transparency.

Perhaps one or two customers would refuse to pay and it’s not worth pursuing them (if there really is massive double dipping) because some other mug customer(s) has/have already fully paid for the repair.

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It may be worthwhile customers/borrowers with concerns refer to the following from the CND web site. Note such documents can be amended or change over time.

https://www.carnextdoor.com.au/terms-of-use/damage-policy

The first caveat in the CND Terms of Use/Damage Policy

The Policy has a bet each way with the following direction to owners,

Followed by what appears to extend that out a further 42 days. After that time CND advises it will not assist in pursuit of any claims between an owner and borrower.

The Policy also refers to the Members Agreement taking precedence. This includes specific reference to the insurance cover provided. The mandatory cover had a $2000 excess. The optional extra cover reduces this to $500 excess for a less than modest $1.50 hourly or daily $18, IMO. The insurer appears to be an entity established to serve only CND. I’m not familiar with the Asian based underwriter. Others may be.

There is more to read from the policy including the provision of cash settlements without any obligation on the owner to have the damage repaired. A further point of interest is that borrowers are not able to review or approve quotes for repairs.

The one detail that appears to have changed is around the ability of owners to bank paid claims. Some further clarity concerning how cumulative/successive claims on borrowers are to be resolved/handled, (extract only, there is more in the linked doc).

The hire agreement arguably penalises a lack of diligence by the borrower, but not necessarily the owner. Fair or not fair?

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I only read that quickly but it would seem that the timeframe is for the Owner reporting the damage to CND. “Reporting” to the Borrower might occur later still.

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FYI - Car Next Door have awful service.

I note though… If you had Trip Cover it does advise the following in their PDS/Policy Wording… Page 7, Section 7.

“Trip Cover is provided on the condition that:
● you notify us (or the Manager notifies us on your behalf) of the claim within 30 days of the Event resulting
in the claim, and that Event arose during the Booking Period”

Car Next Door is “the manager”.

Therefore they should be required to notify you within 30 days otherwise you aren’t covered by the Trip Cover they have sold. By delaying the damage they have stopped your right to make a claim should you need to.

I’m lodging it with the ACCC - I suggest others do as well… They need to be sorted.