Nationwide Hire UK Avis 

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.

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

Whilst using the message service I was rudely told to have a good day mid conversation , obviously got bored and had something else to do, they seem to have the edge with their collect and deliver service, and they know it!

Brand new Van, clean and delivered/collected for us. company also allowed us to take the vehicle to ireland.

Above and beyond being utterly r@ped for the hire of a death trap. I now find my account has been charged under the "terms and conditions" without authority. Then today I call and some nonce starts giving me the "terms and conditions" spiel. What a shower of c@nts. DO NOT USE THIS COMPANY. I BEG YOU. IF THEY'RE GOING TO STEAL YOUR MONEY, THEY'RE NOT WORTH DEALING WITH. Maybe they're losing business and are not bothered if you are disabled or they loan vehicles that endanger your wife and child. Maybe they're too far up their own alimentary canals to realise.

Supposedly, ‘hired’ a towing vehicle to collect new caravan, and received a cancellation email in the late afternoon - before early morning pick-up - despite checking with a member of staff shortly beforehand to ensure that they had received my e-documents and that all was well

There was no apologetic call to ensure that I had seen their email - so I suppose I was lucky not to have wasted even more time and money driving the 4.5 hours to ‘meet’ the driver, who would not have been there

Their emailed explanation seemed perfunctory and ‘copied and pasted’. I can only conclude that my day’s rental was too smaller a deal for them, and perhaps they had had a more lucrative offer elsewhere

On a more positive note, my fee was reimbursed the next day - but small recompense for my lost time, lost money, and lost confidence in this national firm

Our van was delivered before time stated which was great and chap who delivered was so helpful and friendly was happy to pick up at different location which benefited us both would use again if ever needed

Booked a Van for two days. Van turned up 5.5 hours late, no communication other than one phonecall first thing in the morning telling me it would be late, but no later than 12pm (due 10am), nothing at 12pm, so I called them - they told me 12.30, same thing at 12.30 they told me 1pm, 1pm they told me 1.30pm... You get the idea...
Naturally I complained, and asked for a 50% refund which I thought was more than reasonable as they had missed the whole day - I didn't need the van in the evening, I didn't need it when I was sleeping at night and I had paid three lads £15 p/h to help me move house. Waste of time and money to have them sitting there on their bum waiting to load a van.
The company offered me £24.35 refund for the inconvenience from a c.£300 hire charge.
Terrible experience, terrible communication, terrible after care.

Booked a van for house moving. Vehicle didn't turn up as promised, phoned the company and was told I'd receive a call back only to then receive an email cancelling the van, called back and the guy put the phone down on me. Ended up having to hire another van elsewhere. Very badly let down by nationwide hire UK. Terrible service.