BOOKED MONTHS IN ADVANCE WITH INSURANCE.

VEHICLE BROKE DOWN, WEREN’T OFFERED A REPLACEMENT.

We hired a hippie camper from Apollo late last week and within a few days, the clutch went and it broke down requiring towing to a garage.

We should have been given a replacement - we purchased insurance with them after all?! However, we were told they had no replacements at all and couldn’t process this. They said they would refund us for the days we weren’t using the camper. GREAT.

As it’s during Easter, all hotels etc have been booked up by other travellers and so we are now in a position where we find ourselves stranded having to pay over the odds for accommodation just to get by.

During a lot of phone calls, it seemed blatantly apparent that Apollo were trying to get themselves off the hook and trying to get out of the problem - which, being their faulty vehicle, was completely their problem, not mine!

Although they have offered us a slightly better compensation package (again, after numerous phone calls of me stating my complete disapproval of the way they were treating us), it turns out it’s nowhere near enough. We have had to change our trip plans as we can now no longer go to Milford Sound (all accom booked and no campers available from any other companies).

I feel if their vehicles were properly serviced, a nearly shot clutch would have become quite apparent!

We will be claiming the compensation for any further expenses we have to pay for accommodation during our stay in New Zealand. They’ve really let us down and you can tell their customer service operators are trained to try and offer you the smallest compensation packages to try not to offset their own margins. Pretty rank, really...

We’ll be sure to keep you all updated about their response to cover our accommodation expenses. Failing a good response, I’ll be seeking advice from my solicitor.

Reviewed over 5 years ago