Requested cancellation through staff, but "Coordinator is not staff"... Hyundai Rental Care collects rental fees without management

Photo by Hyundai Rental Care website capture

[Asia Economy Yeongnam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Kang Sharon] “I clearly requested cancellation through the visiting inspector, but rental fees have been deducted for over a year.”

A, who runs a company in Busan, used the water purifier rental service from Hyundai Rental Care starting in July 2018, and last July received a phone call from a visiting inspector.

“Dear customer, your water purifier rental period has expired, and we will replace your water purifier with a new one at a lower cost than before.”

Since the office was not in use, A requested to stop and cancel the rental service.

After that, there were no visits from the inspector and no management service. A, who naturally thought the cancellation was completed, recently discovered while reviewing card statements that rental fees had been transferred for over a year.

A contacted Hyundai Rental Care’s customer center to verify the facts and requested a refund of the monthly rental fees but was refused.

A Hyundai Rental Care representative said, “We confirmed the customer’s request to stop the service through the coordinator (visiting inspector), but the coordinator is not a head office employee, so even if the customer requests, cancellation does not occur.”

This means that the water purifier return is not done through the visiting inspector but the customer must call the head office directly to cancel.

They added, “We will refund four months of rental fees,” but drew the line by saying, “Full refund is difficult.”

As rental consumer damages increase for various reasons, the Fair Trade Commission took corrective action last November on 13 types of unfair contract terms, including monthly rental fees, installation fees, and removal fees imposed by rental service providers.

According to the Fair Trade Commission, seven major rental service providers including Hyundai Rental Care were corrected to bear the costs of removal of goods not only at initial installation but also when the contract is canceled mid-term due to customer circumstances, contract expiration, or the provider’s fault.

The Fair Trade Commission judged that it is unfair for providers to shift cost burdens to consumers for their own business operations.

A made another request for a refund of the unfair monthly rental fees on the 29th of last month but was refused again.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.