For those of you who know Corinne and I you may know that we can be very stubborn. We also, in general, are determined and have a good sense of ethics when it comes to being treated fairly. Combine those two characteristics together and add a touch of righteous anger and you have a couple of very nasty travellors who have been cheated of a considerable amount of money. Now that I have your attention...
The plan in Greece was to rent scooters, explore the island, and avoid taking organized tours if at all possible. That in mind, we set off to find a scooter/car rental outlet in which we could use our Canadian driver's licenses. After scouting out several places and price comparing (that's the Dutch in us...) we found top-notch service for a reasonable rate. Or so we thought. Sigh.
We ended up putting a deposit on a car for one day and a scooter for another day. That way we could avoid the brutal heat by taking the car and head off to the far corners of the island which we would not be able to do by scooter without scorching ourselves.
The next day we waited patiently outside our lodging a couple of km away from the car rental place waiting to be picked up.
And waiting.
Still waiting.
Did I mention we were waiting?
Waiting...
Finally after an hour of watching for the person who was supposed to pick us up we called the rental place and they said someone had been waiting for us for 15 minutes and had finally left. Corinne and I were a little perturbed as we hadn't seen anyone during the entire time we were waiting. Regardless, the rental guy "graciously" offered to send someone to get us.
Half an hour later we arrived to pick up our car. We quickly discovered that it was a standard. So, in laymans terms, it was useless to both of us as neither Corinne or I have learned to drive a standard yet. We asked for an automatic but the salesman said we would have to pay almost double what we had already paid. Needless to say, we were a little bit ticked off.
We managed to get our money back for the car and decided that we would just take the scooter the next day. Seeing that we were both frustrated we ended up walking along the beach and swimming in the Mediterranean for a while. The water was lovely as it was around 40 degrees outside.
Afterwards we went back to the rental place to find out when we would be picked up for the scooter the next day. Actually, let me rephrase. I went in because Corinne was too ticked off to talk to the guy. You see, our last conversation with the salesman was a tad more heated then I described before. It was kind of like a thinly covered shouting match. Corinne was doing a lot of the "controlled" speaking and I was doing a lot of listening. I almost felt like a referee as both the rental salesman and Corinne thought they were right and that the other was completely to blame. I have to say that the temperature in that room was a lot warmer than 40 degrees.
Anyways, after going in to find out when we would get picked up for the scooter the salesman suddenly decides that he "doesn't deem us fit" to drive the scooter. He says that it is unsafe and he isn't comfortable letting us use his scooter. And get this...he won't give us our money back either.
I stalked out of that building royally ticked off. See, if there is one thing that Corinne and I cannot stand it is being walked over because people see us as young and unknowledgeable. They think because we are travellors or because we look harmless that we can easily be pushed over and spun in circles.
That salesman didn't know who he was trying to play.
For an entire week we had someone from our resort calling and asking for a full refund. If anything else, we gave him a major headache and perhaps he will reconsider and think the next time he tries to pull the wool over the eyes of backpackers.
Oh, and no, we didn't get all of our money back but we did get most of it. Next time we'll both be a little more careful about who we deal with and such.
So to leave on a happy note...we have definitely enjoyed our stay in Greece on Crete...we explored the island of Santorini and spent a considerable amount of time in the sun and doing nothing. We even baked banana bread...seven loaves. Yum.
