Wrongly charged £280 excess on car hire. Please help!!

bargainbarmy · 2 February 2008 at 1:20AM

Returned a hire car to Budget rental Car at geneva airport earlier this month. It was out of hours and there was nobody at the car return spot so we left the car and took the keys back to the main Budget desk in the main airport building. The car was left without a scratch on it so didn't think anything about it. I gave the keys to the girlat the desk and went off. Some 3 weeks late I have recived a bill charging us £280 excess with no explanation. The amount has already been charged to my credit card. Tried to ring Budget in Geneva but their offices are closed until Monday. Has this ever happened to anyone before and how do you think I should go about it? Unfortunately i didn't take any photographs of the car when we dropped it off.

hartcjhart · 2 February 2008 at 2:54AM

when you picked the car up did you fill in a diagram with faults

bargainbarmy · 2 February 2008 at 10:41AM

Yes I signed form but there were no faults/scratches on car.

trets77 · 2 February 2008 at 11:26AM

i never leave a hire car without taking time and date stamped photos of everything in case this is tried on..

read this as a start , and read all the links and stories releated to it within the links.

http://travel.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/travel/your_say/article713476.ece

http://travel.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/travel/your_say/article707160.ece

http://travel.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/travel/your_say/article702834.ece

http://travel.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/travel/your_say/article2869815.ece

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/money/consumer_affairs/article1844460.ece

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sitesearch.do?sortBy=relevancy&offset=0&query=car%20hire%20&hitsperpage=10&nextOffset=0&leftStartIndex=1&leftEndIndex=10&sectionId=1108

fight back .......hard . and do not accept it.

Lady_E · 2 February 2008 at 6:53PM

Can you put the amount in dispute with your credit card company? Hopefully they should be able to investigate and establish what has happened.

Lorian · 2 February 2008 at 7:03PM

Were you late returning it?

bargainbarmy · 4 February 2008 at 1:36AM

No we were actually early...we were due to return it at 8 am in the morning but returned it at 9pm the night before as we were staying at an airport hotel and didn't want the extra hassle in the morning.

Thanks everybody for your advice! Going to ring later today.

deano72_2 · 25 February 2008 at 7:19PM

just had the same thing (simialar) returned car to budget in austria,,the guy gave it a chaeck & said all appeared ok but couldnt sign it off till it was cleaned..thought nothing of it,as in know there was no knocks/ scratches (espaecially £625 worht)2 weeks later £625 taken from my account from them no expslanation wat so ever...

MarkyMarkD · 25 February 2008 at 7:42PM

I'm sure the hire companies deliberately avoid signing the documents to accept that there is no damage. I had a car collected from work off hire, and they didn't give me any documentation at all to evidence either the full tank of fuel or the perfect condition of the car.

The muppets also had marked a scratch on the defect form when delivering the car, and it wasn't a scratch - it was merely that they'd done such a bad job of washing the car before delivery that it was covered in water marks. D'oh!

Wrongly charged £280 excess on car hire. Please help!!

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