Scratch after car hire return

[knowles157]

Hello everyone.. I returned my car to national car rental;
no-one was there to examine the car.
I went into the airport and gave the keys to the representative at the desk. a few days later I received a bill for car hire plus £650.
When I called them they told me there was a scratch on the bumper that had been colored in with a touch up pen.
I categorically swear that this was not done by me and will swear on oath if I have too. I am stuck now, they keep telling me they are getting in touch with the insurance company to get information, and I keep telling them that I did not scratch the car, and i don't care what information they are gathering. This is about the 25th time I have hired with them in the last 4 years, and never had a problem in the past.

[Pew Pew Pew Lasers!]

They didn't inspect the car upon return, so its their tough !!!!. Tell them to whistle.

[knowles157]

wish i could, but they have my money!! :(

[maninthestreet]

£650 to repair a small scratch on a plastic bumper? They're having a laugh! A SMART repair for that should cost £100, tops.

[Sirbendy]

I had a hire car for a week..they inspected it pre-delivery, did it again in my presence, and gave me the option of signing a waiver to the tune of £2.50 a day up to a max of £40 to cover any damage like this, or a 1 off payment of £250.

I did the £2.50 a day. When I returned it spotless, the guy laughed at the seat covers etc and said "you could have keyed the thing or done anything to it, you've signed the waiver! It's not your issue. You could have left the car at the side of the road to collect if you'd like it.."

I'd tell them to get bent, not putting too fine a point on it - it's their onus to do the post return inspection in your presence. I would give them a kicking by any means necessary.

[knowles157]

they have just told me they are refunding me £585 out of the £650 as the scrath is only going to cost £65 to fix.. I have been told that the head office can't over ride the local office.. what a joke .. they are asking me to call the local office and spk to the manager there -

[Quentin]

Write and tell them they have 14 days to refund the money they have wrongly taken otherwise you will take legal action to recover your money.

Then if they ignore this, issue a summons via moneyclaimonline. Don't waste any more time on niceties with them.

And hopefully your bad publicity for them is going to cost them lots more than the £650 they tried to scam off you in lost business from readers who will now look elsewhere for their car hire!

[cpdc1030]

Yikes. I'll remember to avoid the in the future. With Enterprise they've always been very good to me - they have a fixed price schedule for minor damage. When I did put a dent and scratch on a door it was £75 which was quite reasonable.

However I had to agree to the charge first - they couldn't just take it.

I even had a chip in the windscreen once which I declared but they were willing to ignore as I was a repeat customer.

[knowles157]

the moral of this is: It pays to complain..
RAC did the same thing, gave me a £185 renewal quote - i called them up to cancel and they gave it to me for £85 - saved a £100 for a phone call -

[Quentin]

Don't see that as the "moral" at all!

No-one should pay a penny to a "reputable" company (never mind your £100) which is trying to scam them over something they are not responsible for.

[knowles157]

you have a good point

[asbokid]

Hopefully your bad publicity for [National Car Rental] is going to cost them lots more than the £650 they tried to scam off you in lost business from readers who will now look elsewhere for their car hire!

I often wonder what is going down at the corporate level of companies that pull these scams on their customers..

According to the OFT..

National Car Rental is a trading subsidiary of
Vanguard Car Rental EMEA Holdings Ltd, a holding company for the activities of Vanguard Car Rental Group Inc (Vanguard Inc) in Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

Vanguard Inc is a US-based car rental services company, and a subsidiary of the privately owned Enterprise Rent-A-Car Company with sales in 2007 of US$9.5bn..

Since it is privately-owned, the accounts of the parent company, Rent-A-Car, are not publicly available.. but when a company obtains its revenues in ways like this, you can only wonder that things are dire..

[smcaul]

Oldest trick in the car rental book. I would ask to see copies of all the previous check in/out sheets for the car, penny to a pound the scratch will appear on one of them earlier, you will probably be the xx person to have been charged for this "scratch"!

[knowles157]

good point - i will ask them - i told them i want refunded for the £65 (they already promised to refund the rest) they told me to call the local office and spk to the manager - going to call them shortly -

[DealDrivers company representative]

To show good things do happen, we used Europcar last month, having had a bad Avis experience the year before. Europcar were brilliant in sorting us out when we needed to get 6 adults and masses of luggage into one vehicle..but the MPV we'd booked with them hadn't been returned by its previous hirer on time (how considerate!).

Not only did they find us a vehicle at no notice and get it valeted swiftly, but they also travelled over an hour in the dark from their base at Inverness Airport at 9pm that night - to find our hotel in the wilds of Scotland - to swap us into an even better vehicle than we'd originally booked - to ensure we had enough space. They really went out of their way to give us a great service.

Europcar were absolutely brilliant....and cheaper than the other main hirers at that airport....so a thumbs-up post...which makes a nice change!

[Quentin]

Seems you were lucky from the Europcar reviews here not all their customers feel the same:

http://www.reviewcentre.com/reviews-all-76705.html

Though this thread is discussing a problem with National (not Europcar)

[DealDrivers company representative]

I appreciate you putting us in our place once again Quentin, when we've tried to bring a positive to the murk.

The OP should take up with the firm any lack of opportunity he can show he had to inspect the car at the start and end of the hire, and that the returns compound was unmanned seems to be key here. It may help if the OP could name the airport and ask other forum members if they can back him up that this firm's compound is unmanned on a regular basis..that would help the case enormously....even more so with some helpful photo's from other users travelling through the same airport hire car area.

I was merely noting some positives about a hire firm - everyone is quick to publicise problems but rarely go public with the good things businesses do, especially in the car hire industry which often does itself no favours!

Guidance on motoring issues is requested here, and they were exceptional in terms of customer service ..and cheap.. so it is relevant to recommend them in a thread where another firm has caused some financial distress to a forum member..if only to help others in the future.

We have no affiliation and have only used them once...but that experience was 100% good and was less than 6wks ago. They went above & beyond our expectations...and of course there will be people who've not had a good experience posting on other websites - they will outweigh 'good' comments ten-fold as people tend to go online to complain more than to offer unprompted praise, unfortunately.

As advice to anyone hiring, if a rental desk hands you keys at the start of a rental without inviting you to inspect it with them, insist you go out to the car so you get a chance to note issues on the car with them before you accept the keys. Taking the keys, without checking its condition first with their staff member alongside, puts you in a very vulnerable position on the day your return it.

On the day your return it, however much of a rush you are in, insist they come out to it with you to sign it off...just good advice. The less reputable hirers rely very much on drivers always being in a rush to collect and return the cars as they are in a 'transit' situation....so it gives them carte blanche to 'find' a problem after you've rushed away.

[Quentin]

There is a positive to all this - thanks to the experience of the OP, we know National cannot be trusted at all (their bill for £650 quickly became £65, and if he pursues it, his remaining £65 will be refunded), and your post praising Europcar is now seen in context when others have posted opposite reports about them!

[tali]

On my hire car the collection driver informed me about scratch on roof. I'm dreading a charge for this.I just hope the glass of lemonade i gave him whilst i cleared up confusion over collection notice means he hopefully ignores it!

[elephant-astic]

Oldest trick in the car rental (http://www.easycar.com/) book. I would ask to see copies of all the previous check in/out sheets for the car, penny to a pound the scratch will appear on one of them earlier, you will probably be the xx person to have been charged for this "scratch"!

Absolutely agree, there are some very shady people in the business! I've said it before, but before & after photos when collecting/dropping off a hire car are an absolute must! It makes this kind of scam a lot harder for them pull off! ;)

[Sirbendy]

yep. The guy who dropped it off with me did a full walk round, writing down everything. I got a copy. Then nipped into my office for the big Cybershot and took a load of pics as well. Well worth it.

[anewman]

This is why I'd never hire a car. My neighbours like to kick, scratch, smack, dump rubbish etc on my car and it's a crap old 1994 Skoda. Pull up in a nice new car and I'd hate to think what they would do to it and how much it would cost me.

[tali]

This is why I'd never hire a car. My neighbours like to kick, scratch, smack, dump rubbish etc on my car and it's a crap old 1994 Skoda. Pull up in a nice new car and I'd hate to think what they would do to it and how much it would cost me.

Agree i hate to hire aswell . neighbours not a problem - but lots of time spent in supermarket car parks -trolleys , proximity parking , clumsy door openers - not worth the aggro
Yet i still manged to get scratch on roof in only 100miles of driving