Europcar, the Europe-based car rental company, has announced a list of the weirdest things that have been left inside its rental vehicles, on completion of a rental.
So what are the most common things left in a rental car by its passengers? Well, they can be anything from sunglasses and CDs, to loose change. But as for Europcar’s most weird lost and found article list, here are its favourites in 2012:
* A live mouse in a cage
* Two 6×10 ft oil paintings
* 30 plants
* A hedge trimmer
The most memorable of them was perhaps an urn of ashes left in the car when the car was returned at the company’s Belfast City Airport branch. The ashes belonged to a customer’s mother, and the customer was grateful to have them back, to scatter them at her mother’s birthplace and fulfil a promise.
Second only to the urn of ashes was a life-size dummy doll in old clothes, which was mistaken for a dead body at the Blackpool Station location outlet of the company.
Ken McCall, the managing director of Europcar UK Group, said, ‘Judging from our lost property, our vehicles have a tale to tell. But our staff always go out of their way to reunite our customers with their forgotten items, no matter how bizarre.’
Earlier, the company hosted a Europcar Caraoke Competition, which ran from July to August 2012 simultaneously on the YouTube and Facebook social media channels of the company to increase its fan base. Weekly prizes were offered, as well as a grand prize of a Fiat 500 car.
Ken McCall, commenting on the competition, said, ‘We are absolutely delighted for our winner, David, and want to thank everyone who took part in this very successful competition. It was another example of Europcar’s focus on engaging with consumers, using social media to create a buzz around our brand by reaching out to a new audience. We had a 33% increase in Facebook ‘likes’ equating to a quarter of a million additional reach since the start of the competition so we’re very pleased with the results achieved.’
