Stermat Car & Van Sales

I hired a van in December 2016. I was given the emergency no. in case of issues, did checks and off I went..

The steering was pulling and by the time I got home (6m away) I was pretty glad to get out. 2 hours later I looked out and realised the rear tyre was flat. Rang the number but no answer; msg left and text sent... and still no reply. Eventually sorted via AA, which involved having to wait until gone midnight.

When I returned the van the following day I was charged £10 for the tyre repair, even though I'm convinced it was soft when they gave the van to me, given my drive home. I was marched to the cash machine and I handed over a tenner. He was pretty intimidating and I felt somewhat nervous at this stage.
He also had a go at me for contacting the emergency number and told me I should have rung the main number. Right. Well maybe they should tell you that instead of giving you a totally different number to ring, that they don't answer.

He also told me I had scraped the wing mirror and they would have to charge me £100 for a new one. It wasn't broken, so I couldn't see why they needed a new one. Seriously? On a hire van??!
There was a scratch on the plastic casing. I couldn't prove I hadn't done it, so I said I thought £100 was unreasonable.

He then said he would watch CCTV of the van before my hire to look for the scratch (he said he would be able to tell from footage whether it was there previously or not - amazing film quality then..) and he would charge me £150 for his time.
He told me he would take the money using the carbon copy he had of my card, taken at the time of hire - and it might even cost me more if it took him a long time.
So £250+ for a scratch.. and it was up for debate who caused that. However, still an aesthetic issue only.

He told me he was the boss and 'could charge what he liked'. I was not feeling at all safe (I am female and he was aggressive) and I left as soon as I could. I rang my bank as I was so concerned that he could help himself to any amount at this point, and I didn't trust him as the amounts seemed so wildly excessive. £250 is a crazy charge for a scratch on the outer casing of a wing mirror.

It's worth noting my bank were horrified also at what he had said, and they immediately cancelled my card for me.

I saw the van today while I was driving to work. I let it overtake me on a dual carriageway so I could take a look. They hadn't changed the mirror - the same scratches were there and I wonder how many others they have done this to.

Good place you find everything you need

Sells all kinds of household/garden/tools , fuel station and off-licence

Rude staff member who clearly wasn't employed for her social skills . Will not go back to this branch again !!! Which is a shame as they do have a decent selection of goods . Hopefully stermat can start a course for rude staff !!!

Ignore the silly reviews by the last two (they probably had one bad experience and decided they would paint a bad image..just to get even..human nature unfortunately!
Over the past 15 years or so, I've used the hardware store probably over 100 times, the petrol station 100s of times, rented a van once and bought 2 cars there, so Im in a good position to write a review on this very busy , useful 'corner stone' to Gaerwen. The bosses (yes there are three siblings I believe) are 'honest' / straight/ hard working people. The staff (who've been employed there for a fairly long time) all know their stuff (from time to time you find a youngster who doesn't understand much about what's going on...,isn't that common though in nearly every siop?) . If these siops (car sales/van hire) were to close in 2016 (as one rather pathetic reviewer made a joke of. I and I'm sure thousands of people in the surrounding area would be at a loss.
Keep going strong Stermat.