Splend

Absolute pleasure to deal with Pierre at the Melbourne hub. Geniunely blown away by his level of attentiveness, customer service and compassion. It would be an understatement to say how hugely impressed I am with him. Completely made my day and can only hope I'm lucky enough to deal with him in the future!!!!!!! I'd give 6 stars if i could :)

I recently returned my vehicle, so I feel that I can give a comprehensive review of the full lifecycle of being a Splend customer, unlike some of the reviews on here which appear to be only of the sign-up process. My very strong advice to people considering Splend is tread very carefully, they have very good marketing but that doesn’t always equate to reality. To start on a positive, the sign up was pretty good as was the initial vehicle pickup - they did a good job and getting me into a car within 24 hours. The rental agreement is very harsh, what you can do with the vehicle is limited. Additional fees for any issues are brutal - be ready for that. Thankfully I wasn’t involved in an accident, but hearing some of the other stories makes me wonder whether their insurance really covered everything - the notion of being potentially out of pocket by $1500 or liable for all the damage is concerning. The vehicle was OK but some of the issues didn’t always match the marketing spin. Uber requires you to get the vehicle checked for roadworthiness yearly and the vehicle Splend provided failed this test twice requiring extra time to rectify the issues and re-test….all costing in petrol and kilometres. On maintenance - always issues when taking the car to mycar. Once, mycar held the vehicle for hours longer than needed because they couldn’t start work as Splend hadn’t paid their bill to mycar. As a customer, if your payment to Splend is a few hours late you get stung with a late charge of around 15% (and at times quite heavy-handed and aggressive collection tactics which aren’t at all explained upfront), when Splend can’t even pay their own bills on time. At another service, mycar told me that the tyres were too dangerous to drive with safely but Splend was refusing to pay for new tyres - concerning when the rideshare business should be all about passenger safety first, and when Splend advertises a premium product that charges more than their competitors. The mycar people repeatedly said “there’s always issues with Splend” - either with paying mycar or authorising essential work to take place on the car. The vehicle is fitted with a telemetrics device, meaning Splend can follow your every move - fine if you have nothing to hide, but still feels a little uncomfortable. But it also means that the device might start randomly beeping for no reason, not the most professional image when you’re carrying riders. I also had to take the car back to change the device (at Splend’s request), and at one time even had to drive the car to an auction location just so they could see the car - all trips taking time and petrol (and contributing towards the weekly KM allowance). On customer service, the people in the depot were quite good, and there are some bright lights like Alexandra. When I signed up, you were always dealing with locals, however, over the years, Splend outsourced support to Romania. You’d think that would mean a cheaper price, but no, rental and service fees just went up. At one point there was quite a high staff turnover - my account manager seemed to change every few months. The return process was fine but Spend takes ages to refund the money that they took ahead of time, again, concerning when they’re so militant when you pay them. You’d think they could at least live by the same standards they set of their customers. The rideshare business requires some give and take, as it can be volatile. It was also concerning during my time as a customer to watch Splend’s progress as a company…starting off in Australia with on-shore service, trying to rapidly expand into other countries, offshoring a lot of support, going into liquidation in some countries (read about what happened to Splend Canada). I’d be careful about the rent-to-own options, especially when the contract gives Splend a lot of flexibility to cancel the contract when it likes - not great if you’ve put money into a car that you’re hoping to own someday. Splend had its good times but let’s just say I’m happier with my current provider so far.

After reading other reviews, seeing other peoples experiences with Splend and reading the finer details of the agreement, I decided to cancel the subscription the day after I signed it. The agreement doesn't have a cooling off period and the setup fee is $990.00 non refundable!!! Just wanted to give a warning to people thinking about getting a subscription make sure it is right for you first. I think it is a bit dishonest not having a cooling off period with a car hire/purchase agreement.