A van hire company has hit out at its rivals for having unrealistically low rental rates. TLS has been renting vans for over 20 years but like all companies they suffered during the global financial crisis. However, with an end to the bad times in sight their sales director has criticised other companies for offering unrealistically low van hire rates.
Sales director of TLS, Simon Cook, said: “Last year was extremely difficult. We had to deal with our competitors setting unsustainable rates. This created a disorderly market which did not benefit anyone, least of all the customer.
“These rental companies could not have been maintaining their fleets properly with the rates they set. That includes replacing aged vehicles in the fleet. I can't imagine how the rates they set could have been profitable either".
“However, in the last quarter of the year we saw signs which suggested the bad period has now ended. While you can still get van hire extremely cheaply the prices have increased to a sustainable point.
He added: “Most of the van hire companies which offered those ridiculously low prices have either now disappeared or are finding themselves in financial difficulties. That has been a boom as more and more customers turn to reputable companies like us.
“They realised that low van hire rates might be attractive but ultimately a competitive but realistic rate from a responsible supplier is the way forward.”
Last week a van was in the news for all the wrong reasons. Police were called out to a parked Hire van in Manchester city centre when a chemical substance was found leaking out the back of it. Emergency crews were called out to the transit van in Charles Street. The fire crews and police vans were at the scene investigating for nearly an hour. In the end it turned out to be a non-toxic cleaning substance.
The Daily Mail has uncovered the story of a van hire customer who was badly treated by their rental company. A self employed electrician had rented a van and was hit in a collision with a foreign national from the Czech Republic. Although the Czech driver admitted liability in a police statement and there was corroboration from two witnesses present, the van driver never received his compensation from the insurance company MoreTh>n. After two years of waiting he wrote to the Daily Mail. Thanks to the newspaper's intervention the man was able to get back the £500 that he had paid for the rental van, plus the £100 excess he had had to pay out of his own insurance. The company also gave him an extra £100 as a sweetener in an admission of wrong doing.
Columnist Magaret Stone wrote: "When a policyholder is involved with an incident with a foreign driver, whether the accident occurs overseas or in the UK, it might take longer to deal with than a domestic accident. But a delay of two years? MoreTh>n had no suitable explanation and has made a grovelling apology. She added "It is issuing a cheque for £714.30. This covers your van hire, the £100 excess covered by the legal expenses part of your policy and contains an extra £100 to sweeten the apology."
Therefore it is a good idea to make sure that your insurance policy is suitable before you decide to hire a van. Rhino does excellent rates for fully inclusive third party insurance.
Many Rhino van hire customers use their vehicles for moving house. Moving house can be a fraught time so why not sort of your van hire well in advance? Rhino van hire has a comprehensive range of vehicles to suit any purpose. You can get large or small vans, manuals or automatics so that your trip is as comfortable and safe as possible.
Just as you don't want to forget light bulbs when you move into a new house, don't leave yourself in the dark over van hire. A little bit of planning can go a long way, especially when it comes to packing the van. Moving is a great opportunity to get rid of lots of clutter that you don't need so take the chance to throw things out and save yourself the hassle of moving dead weight. You should also pack a box of essentials such as pyjamas, light bulbs and breakfast goods to be ready for your first overnight stay.
In the same way that you want to make sure that all your utilities such as water and internet are ready to go at the new house, be certain that your van has plenty of fuel. Running out of fuel is the last thing you want and would only make a stressful situation even more overwhelming. When you book with Rhino van hire the vehicle comes with a full tank of diesel to make things easy. You can even decide whether or not you want to return it with a full tank or not, depending on which option is easiest for you. Rhino staff can fill you in on the details or you can just read the terms and conditions section.
If you had ordered furniture for your new house you would need to allow some time for it to be delivered. In the same way Rhino van hire is best booked early. Not only will you get the cheapest deals, special offers and discounts but you will get first choice from our fleet of vans. Hiring your own van and doing the work yourself is much cheaper than hiring a man with a van. However, you need to make sure you are fully covered for all your insurance requirements. You also need to be prepared to do some gruelling lifting and shoving, why not read out guide to heavy lifting for some tips to avoid any accidents!
Rhino van hire comes with fully comprehensive third party insurance and waivers against vehicle theft and collision damage. In case you are not used to driving a van you can even get out the reimbursement excess insurance option which allows you to avoid having to fork out in the event of an accident.
If you are unable to do the lifting yourself get lots of quotes from the companies that offer to do the work for you. Like van hire companies the prices offered will differ drastically. Just before you are about to move give them a call and make sure everything is still going ahead as planned.
The other jobs to be done are letting people know what your new address is and redirecting your mail. As far as utilities are concerned you need to have a record of the final meter readings. When you get to the new property make sure that it has everything the landlord said it would, and if not inform the proper agents or your solicitor.
Finally, relax and enjoy your new Home.
But the company has issued three financial warnings in the last five months about its outstanding debts and is now in last-ditch rescue talks with possible lenders.
The next banking covenant test is due on April 30 and the Royal Bank of Scotland is one of the banks which white van hire company Northgate is in discussion with.
Speaking about renegotiating Northgate’s debt with the banks, Bob Contreras, Northgate finance director, said: "I would have thought there was exceptionally low risk. Most businesses that are talking to their banks are asking for new facilities. We are asking for a waiver.
"In a downturn, we generate cash. By letting us continue to run our business, we are reducing the banks' exposure."
He continued to state that with the bank’s cooperation the share price should rise from the current blended 4.5pc standing to 6pc or more.
The problems have come about for Northgate because the rental market for vans in England and Spain has slowed dramatically.
This led the company to axe 350 jobs at the end of last year. Further drastic measures to rescue the company and scale back £820 million worth of debt include reducing the size of their fleet of vans from 500,000 to 128,000.
Market analysts have now revised figures for Northgate’s yearly profits from £42 million down to £32 million (these are pre-tax figures).
After the warning Northgate shares stood at 42pc – a 39% slump in share price. Since Northgate revealed that it was in talks with banks, several directors have bought 200,000 of shares between them and forced the share price up by two and a quarter pence.
Getting your company column space in the newspapers is always beneficial, even if it is for controversial reasons.
So when a Swindon-based van hire company came up with risqué advert, the subsequent decision by BT telephone company to axe it from their phone book might not be a bad thing.
Rental van manager Stuart Andrews-Boyer from Swindon had decided to turn a bit of banter with his mates into the company’s slogan.
He said: “There are a lot of builder-types that come in here, so there is a lot of banter.
“It became a running joke to refer to me as Stuart the rent boy.”
“Then I thought ‘hang on, we do rent vans and I am a boy.”
And so the rent boys slogan was born, along with matching company rent boy t-shirts.
Stuart continued: “The first thing you think when you want a van is ‘give Stuart the rent boy a ring.’
“The other guys don’t seem to mind wearing the shirts at work either, but you do have to remember to put a coat on when you go to Tesco’s or else you get people giggling at you.
“We were careful not to make it too risqué and you can tell it is just a bit of fun.”
He added: “It makes them remember you”.
The rent boys van rental advert was deemed offensive by British phone company BT who declined to place the ad in their directory. A BT saleswoman who visited the company said that it could lead to people thinking that the M4-based firm in Station Road offered other services.
BT spokesman Chris Orum said: “The decision to accept or reject on grounds of taste and decency was borderline as it was acknowledged that the advert was intended to be humorous. “However, BT advertising policy states that ‘advertisements should contain nothing that is likely to cause offence’ and ‘Illustrations or statements must not be suggestive or capable of misinterpretation.’ “While this can be subjective, BT also has a more specific duty to ensure that none of the adverts published are in any way misleading.”
He continued: “The deciding factor in this case was that the ‘rent boys’ part of the advert was predominant.
“BT advertising policy states ‘If more than one name is used in an advertisement, the business or trading name must be the most prominent name featured in the advertisement.’”