Soest - Ulm part 3: Crabby Car Rent Company

Dawn broke as a dark blue Volkswagen entering a parking space in Ulm, sheer silence welcomed the road-conqueror after fighting the uncomfortably noisy Golf Plus, dimmed street lights ignited the vague shadow of darkness, mystic mist along with thin haze surrounded the loneliness, frozen air speared tired skulls harshly, sound of crows from distance marked the new day in another land of grace. Knowing that you might need a barf bag after reading that pathetic poetry, I should supposedly cut the exaggeration out, although it did described how I started the first day in Ulm where there was no one around, partly because I arrived much too early than I was expected, to be exact 3 hours too early though. Anyway, back to the main topic of this note, I would describe that the first day in Ulm was quite dreary because I arrived in a body covered with incomparable drowsiness after all night driving, meanwhile I still had to keep my eyes open for at least the next eight hours because it was my first day of work! But this was just a niggling little thing as a result of exhaustion and was therefore not worth to be considered very much, until I found out what was about to happen in the next days as I tried to return the car to the car rent company, SIXT, back. Before you proceed on reading I would like to point out an actual fact that the mishap was not entirely SIXT’s fault and I was not an honest customer either, so be advised that the upcoming story shouldn’t be imitated by anyone else since this was not an exaggeration like the poet above and I am not joking, it might result in bankruptcy of this company and a not-least unemployment.

Of course, as a new resident of a city, I would have some paper works and stuffs to go through, such as organizing daily transport from where I live to the company; fixing internet connection; registering to the citizen office; and some other minute details. These major things obviously had to be finished as soon as possible mainly because they were quite top priorities, but at the day of my arrival I just didn’t want anything else aside from a bed. I would bravely admit that I almost fell asleep at my first day in the office and yet later on in the afternoon, I still had to unload my stuffs from the car and return the dull Volkswagen to SIXT office, albeit not of quite such importance to the world at large. I couldn’t simply just drive home, and then take a deep slumber. The drowsiness had really hammered me down that I asked my supervisor to get out of the office earlier in order to fix things I could do that day as soon as possible. Later on as I arrived at SIXT office, I asked at the personnel on the desk whether I should refuel the car by myself or I just pay more for the fuel, but then the business didn't work that way. Instead, SIXT charged me 3 Euro for every liter of fuel lacked in the tank. This cost had also been included with the service charge and what I mean with service charge here is driving the car to the nearest gas station which was just about 500m away from SIXT office. Mind you, the fuel cost assumption was almost 300% more expensive that the actual fuel price. Being startled by the ludicrous surcharge I decided to refueled the car by myself and frankly, I couldn’t work out a sensible reason of why people would pay much more for service charge rather than the fuel itself. After some inconsiderable minute of driving, I arrived at the gas station and immediately refueled the car with standard unleaded fuel which cost me around 28 Euro. But then on the way back to SIXT, I realized that I didn't actually brim the tank. However, the fuel indicator displayed just slightly below full position, I therefore declared that the car had an ostensibly full enough fuel. Back to SIXT office, I just handed the car keys and finished the administration, I was also informed that the rent deposit would be debited back to my bank account within one week. As I assumed that everything was cleared and in an urgent whim of a bed, I left the office and headed straight to home.

"This is actually the perfect case if you want to pick a quarrel with some German because you would definitely train your German skill."

Over the next week as I hadn’t managed to have a settled life, the first terrible ordeal started to kick in. Out of 92 Euro which was supposed to be returned, SIXT only debited half of this amount to my account and that was initially very puzzling because I thought that I had cleared things out. Until I printed out the rental bill, I discovered that SIXT actually charged me the additional rate for the cost of 13 liters petrol. To give you a proper perspective of how much unmistakable rubbish this was, I will let you know that this number of fuel is almost equal with a quarter tank of Golf Plus. This was plainly a load of cobblers because how could it be possible, that the fuel indicator actually displayed just slightly under the full position, meanwhile it needed 13 liters of petrol to get it full. I sincerely understand that this is plainly an awful contemplation, but any personnel at SIXT return station in Ulm could have driven the car to visit their grandmother somewhere in the middle of the town, reported that the car was lack of fuel and simply just charged the fuel on me. I didn’t care if they refused to examine the car condition while I had been in their office, but I supposed that further charge would not be taken into account after I stepped out the office. As bereavements go, I chalked the mishap up to some SIXT personnel’s incompetence during administration process and was quite ready to argue about this riff raff. Yet, I belatedly realized that aside from the last fuel receipt, I didn't have sufficient proof to support my argument. So, I could only sent the scanned file of the last fuel receipt to SIXT customer service and told them that it was just down to trust issues that I didn't ask for receipt in the first refueling because I plainly had no idea that this would happen. I also told them that I had blown in total more than 48 Euro just for the fuel cost of the car, meanwhile the simple fact was I couldn't even recall how much I had spent during the first refueling. But one thing for sure, I had jacked up the price a bit. Please don’t tell a living soul about this, I beg of you! Despite my minor mishap and in dread of losing customer's loyalty, I honestly believe that people at SIXT would rather burry their heads in the sand and give my money back, which might also be the reason why they debited the rest of rental deposit to my bank account within the next few days.

The whole process from I drove the car until I received the complete rental deposit took an implausibly two weeks long. However, this is actually the perfect case if you want to pick a quarrel with some German because you would definitely train your German skill and Goethe Institut Indonesien doesn’t offer this in any of their classes at all, not even in an intensive course. Though I used English most of the time to emphasize how unhappily disappointed I was with this occurrence. All in all, I sincerely thank SIXT for being very thoughtful and would say that they actually put customer satisfaction on their top priority. And by now after a deliberate consideration, I am about to take back what I have just said. Today, as I am finishing this note, I receive another daunting news from SIXT and this time, they really are the most irritating company in the world I have ever been dealing with, as I will point out in the next series in June. Until then, enjoy!