Car hire while bankrupt?

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Willc
Willc Posts: 19 Forumite
in Bankruptcy & living with it
Is it possible to hire a car short term while being an undischarged bankrupt?

I'm looking to hire a car for a couple of days and was wondering if the hire companies would refuse me because I'm an undischarged bankrupt. Do they do credit checks?

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  • worried_jim
    worried_jim Posts: 11,631 Forumite
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    You will generally need a credit card to hire a car, although some smaller backstreet places may go for cash and definitely don't credit check! You may need to leave a big cash deposit. I would get a pre pay card and try and hire online to see if that works. Enterprise will hire cars for about £12 per day but reserve the big deposit against your card.
  • philnicandevan
    philnicandevan Posts: 667 Forumite
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    this card is accepted but to turn on the car hire feature you need to speak to the customer services lines 1st

    http://www.mycashplus.co.uk/

    i've used it a couple of times to pay a fuel deposit etc when motability car has broken down
    Not quite a newbie as you think ;);) (the member formally known as philnicandamy!)

    FINALLY a qualified CAB debt caseworker 2015..:p
    BSC 58 :D
  • mwarby
    mwarby Posts: 2,048 Forumite
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    The big chains normally want a big (£1k+often) deposit, or a much smaller deposit and their insurance normally £30ish per day (if you use another insurance firm, you have to give hire firm big deposit)
  • elljay
    elljay Posts: 1,010 Forumite
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    edited 22 July 2015 at 8:31AM
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    I hired a car from 3 different companies within the first 6 months of my bankruptcy, the OR allowed me to keep my car whereupon it promptly died! I wasn't aware that any of them credit checked, if they did the BR wasn't an issue.

    1. Enterprise. I hired from them absolutely loads, they have some amazing weekend deals and could collect and drop off. They're busy in the week with corporate work however. I got very friendly with the local branch so they upgraded the car whenever they could, also let me keep it a couple of days extra for no extra charge when they were too busy to collect. I had to pay £200 deposit each time but it was back in my account within a couple of days.

    2. Practical. Deposit the same, when they only had a large car and I wanted the smallest/cheapest, they only charged me for the smallest one. Great when I had to go on a long journey, extra comfort for lowest charge. Also recommended.

    3. Small local firm. No deposit, no credit check, no choice of car - BUT much more expensive than those above (double in my case) and the car wasn't as clean as the others, smelt smoky, sweet wrapper on floor type of thing. No delivery/collect. Nothing major but I'd been spoilt particularly by the Enterprise service.

    Edited to add, I didn't need a credit card at any time, the debit card from my Co-op cashminder card was fine, nobody questioned it.

    Hope that helps.

    EJ
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