Nationwide Hire UK Reviews 

This company doesnt employ human beings... this is obvious as i have been emailing them for 4 days now and asking when they will be collecting the car and i get a standard email respose every time. I haveasked to have a human being respond to me but got a standard email repsonse quoting the small print of "we ahve 3 days to colelct the vehicle ".
I see no reason why you would arrange a hire ebtween specific times and dates only to discover that the car wont be collected when it was arranged and that the company can choose to collect it at any point in the next 3 days or later - who knows- i cant speak to anyone about it.
Then they tell you you are responsible for the vehicle - howcan i be responsible for a car i hired to be collected at 6pm yesterday which is sitting on the road outside my house. My contract and insurance with Nationwide ended at 6pm yesterday.
"put the keys under a plant pot" they suggested n their standard response ....i am so likely to do that and leave a 2026 Toyota Corolla with its keys outside my property - can you imagine who would be responsible if it got stolen.

This is an awful company to deal with - well i think it is as i havent any evidence that any human beings work their yet - maybe its all AI which would explai the lack of human reposnse or empathy or giving a damn at all.

I booked a 7.5t tail lift (rental total £20) to move the ageing in-laws from Buckinghamshire to Cornwall (no flexibility on dates). Four days before drop off I received the text message below (doubling the rental price). I am awaiting a refund. I will update if not received promptly. I will let other buyers decide if they think this is a scam/trap, but I would urge all potential customers to not trust their booking system or pricing. Don’t get trapped into a ridiculously high rental price because they have left you no time to book an alternative supplier!!

Text message received…

This is an important message from Nationwide Vehicle Hire about your upcoming booking:

We have availability for your vehicle, however, as we have to source it from a branch of suppliers outside of the usual delivery radius due to many branches being fully booked as we are in peak season and availability is very limited at present, it will incur an additional delivery and collection charge.

The ADDITIONAL price (on top of what you have already paid), should you wish to go ahead, will be a total of £719.76

Please let me know if you would like to still go ahead and we can take the extra payment, as this is currently the only option we have in your location. If the extra costs aren't suitable, we can cancel the request and fully refund you.

I apologise for any inconvenience this may cause.

Regards
Nationwide Hire

Incredibly poor customer service.
Having booked at an agreed price over two months before, they tried to increase the hiring cost by 40% in a take it or leave it offer just 48 hours before pick-up. I declined. The response from the agent on the phone was abysmal and dismissive. Even when answering, he didn't even announce the name of the company and clearly needs some training. Come on, you can do better than this.

Awful Service - After hiring a van Nationwide took an additional £92 from our account, when enquiring what this was for they advised the van had a PCN which they then sent to me. I paid this immediately and queried the £92 they had taken. They advised it was an admin charge. When I enquired what the admin charge was for and requested details to their complaints department, I received a email reply advising the charge stands and no further email will be responded to. Advice to anyone wanting to book with them use your credit card so you can claim back any money they simply decide to take from your card without explanation.

The vehicle I hire arrived with the gauge showing 3 bars of fuel and I returned it with the same, they invoiced me for refuelling 9.5L of fuel and provided images as proof of the discrepancy. When I pointed out that the images were from a different vehicle they said the invoice still stands and they wouldn't give me a refund then stopped answering my emails.

I filed a case with the county court to get my money back (I won). As of yet I have received nothing so they will be getting a visit from the bailiffs very soon.

Hired a van one way. It was delivered and collected. Absolutely no hassle at all.
Very good value, as a one way trip.

I booked a car over the phone for a weekend in July 2026. The checks were made via email ahead of the rental. All helpful and efficient and made the delivery and handover of the car on the predetermined time and day easy and quick. The car was picked up after the rental. It is likely I will rent from Nationwide Hire again and happy to recommend them.

The car arrived on time and was as booked. It was picked up after the hire term without any problems.

good all round service from Nationwide hire . excellent friendly customer service would recommend .

Van itself was great as was the customer service from the rental depot but Nationwide Hire themselves are useless and would recommend going directly to the company if you can avoid paying the intermediary which is NW. chat bots, terms that are unenforceable and vehicle left for days with no follow up. Avoid if you can.

A booked a car to hire with Nantionwide - a numeber of weeks before the hire date. I had to cancel the booking, a few days later. I have been charged a cancellation fee of £42 - this is very heavy handed. Actually almost all reputable car hire companies, only charge fees on cancellations, if cancelled on the day of hire. This was not communicated to me, nor were contract documents made available before agreeing to the hire of the vehicle.

Booked a van for 10am delivery. Didn’t arrive till 14:30. Staff acted like this was normal. No concept that you might have planned your day around the arrival time. Other than that was a decent vehicle.

Commercial business hiring a 7.5t box van. From the start communication was awful, with very abrupt staff. We booked the truck for Friday, all paid for (at extortionate rates compared to my normal supplier) to be told later that none were available, but we could have one for Tuesday morning, this then later changed to Tuesday 5pm. 5pm came and went, couldn't get hold of anyone to find out what was going on. I started calling at 8am Wednesday morning, spoke to 3 different people who promised to call back and didn't. When I eventually got hold of someone, they told me a previous customer extended the hire by a day. If a truck is booked its booked, shouldn't happen. they then told me truck would be delivered between 4 and 5pm Wednesday. At 1pm a Luton van arrived, no use for our purposes so I turned it away and called Nationwide again to find out they didn't have a 7.5t available and were cancelling the reservation. Throughout I had to chase, no communication, offhand staff and very poor service. Will never use them again and would advise others not too - they don't own any vehicles and rely on 3rd parties to provide, the 2 I use regularly will not supply them as they don't want their name dragged through the mud by this incompetent company. Avoid.

This company is a complete rip off. They left the car in a public bay without informing me where I could collect it. I had to call when no-one arrived to drop it off. I left the vehicle in the same bay after the rental period and paid for parking for a day. They collected it more than week later. It incurred parking fees which they charged to my credit card after 28 days so that they could refuse to listen to my complaint because it was more than 28 days after the rental period started.

Initially, everything about Nationwide Hire UK seemed fine. Unfortunately, that changed when the minibus was delivered early and we were told we could use it, only for us to later be charged for additional days’ hire.

The vehicle was moved to a secure location before it was used for the agreed hire period. We then received a demand for payment for damage that we strongly dispute. We had taken photographs in accordance with their terms and conditions, but Nationwide Hire UK argued that their evidence carried more weight because, according to them, the vehicle had already been used before our photographs were taken.

They also claimed that we had completed and signed a pre-hire “walkaround” inspection. This simply did not happen. We have CCTV evidence showing that no walkaround inspection was carried out. We did not sign the paperwork or use a PDA; instead, the documents appear to have been signed by someone else on our behalf. Most concerningly, the signatures shown on the delivery and collection documents are not even consistent with each other.

To make matters worse, Nationwide Hire UK has now charged our bank card without our authorisation for the disputed damage and additional hire charges.

There are also significant questions around the hire dates. The vehicle was delivered at approximately 7:30pm the evening before the originally agreed hire date, yet we were subsequently charged for additional hire days. The vehicle was also collected two days after the agreed period, apparently without any corresponding charge. This gives the impression that the vehicle was being left at our premises to reduce their own storage costs, while we were then being charged for additional days.

Throughout the dispute, we have found their approach to be extremely one-sided. Despite attempting to raise our concerns politely and provide evidence, we have felt that our position has simply been dismissed rather than properly investigated.

Based on our experience, we would strongly advise others to think very carefully before hiring from Nationwide Hire UK. Keep extensive photographic and video evidence, document everything, and do not assume that the company’s inspection records will accurately reflect what actually happened.

For us, this has been an extremely disappointing experience, particularly when it comes to the handling of disputed damage, additional charges and customer service. If we could give zero stars for customer service, we would.

Booked a van hire over the phone. Gave address, driving license details (inc 3 pts penalty details). They then took payment, sent me confirmation email, followed 4 minutes later by cancellation email - citing pts on my license. They then refunded my hire, but charged me £42 cancellation. Tried to dispute cancellation charge as they knew of my pts before taking my money and they refused to discuss. Terrible customer service!

Called 10 minutes before a booking made a week ago to say they couldn't fulfil the order until later in the day. Gave me the suppliers number to call. The supplier said they couldn't get to me at all today. Called Nationwide back who contradicted the supplier. Then said (and I quote), "we are just the broker, I don't know the reason why there is a problem". Nationwide employee got angry with me when I calmly expressed my frustration. Ended up cancelling and going with a local firm who were much better.

Terrible service, do not use this company. I booked a camper van for a weekend away only to be told, with only 2 days to go that they were 'unable to supply the vehicle booked" and that they were unable to supply an alternative so would have to cancel my booking. When I phoned the number provided the guy who answered sounded as though this was nothing unusual and asked what I expected him to do about it. (offer some form of compensation perhaps? Or at least sound bothered?). No attempt has been made to compensate me for the fact that I'll now have to pay extra to find another provider at the last minute. which will be expensive if I can find one at all. The only thing this company has done which is remotely professional is to refund my money quickly.

The van hire itself was no problem, the issue is entirely about the drop-off/collection service. Because I was in central London, parking is a nightmare, so I used the drop-off service for the guy to deliver the van, which was great. The problem is the collection...it is in the small print, that you have to park the van somewhere secure and of course where I was would have racked up charges, so I realised I could not leave it where I had arranged the collection from. So they charged me £42 extra to change the collection point. I did not realise that it can take Nationwide days to collect the van. I left it in a residential car park with a resident's pass on it, which was ignored and I have had to pay £96 in total. If you do the drop-off/ collection service, you need to park the van somewhere secure and not liable to charges...if anything happens to the van it is on you and their admin charges rack up and I didn't hear about the extra charges for nearly two months..

Extremely rude, unhelpful and like to hang up on you when they do not wish to hear your situation.
When vehicle was delivered, the person gave the keys and left.
Upon returning we are now waiting for the vehicle to be collected. Customer support attitude absolutely sucks - horrendous and will not be using again