Car hire damage charge

imperio

xoleeb wrote: »

no they should agree a figure with you....as for your 3rd party insurance they have no responsibility to conform with that at all - thats your choice to use it and you need to check the terms and conditions before you commence rental...likewise if you had bumped me in the street and we agreed a figure to repair it rather than go through the insurance - i would happily take your money but if i didnt want to get the work done then that would be my right...

I appreciate this point of view. I guess my argument then is that I agreed this figure on the understanding that a receipt would be provided (unfortunately only verbally). Without this I would not have accepted that the cost of the repair was likely to be £255, at least not immediately. In your analogy, we "agree" on a figure - in fact a closer analogy is you state a figure which I am expected to accept.

benjus

xoleeb wrote: »

no they should agree a figure with you....as for your 3rd party insurance they have no responsibility to conform with that at all - thats your choice to use it and you need to check the terms and conditions before you commence rental...likewise if you had bumped me in the street and we agreed a figure to repair it rather than go through the insurance - i would happily take your money but if i didnt want to get the work done then that would be my right...

From reading the OP, the agreement made was that Thrifty would provide a receipt to pass on to the insurers. Thrifty have decided not to honour that agreement, so I think it's reasonable to try to reclaim the money until they do honour it.

imperio

Thanks again for the input.

I've just received an printed estimate and photographs from Thrifty, which I hope will satisfy my insurance company. To be fair, I think Thrifty understood my position, and made a decent effort to help out.

Cheers.

shelllanc

we recently booked thrifty from the UK for our US trip to california, I found the search through this site, and it was cheapest, I emailed to request it was full costs minus tax, and they said yes, the quote was for the "wildcard" car basically you get the excess car left, no smaller than economy but marketed as possibly a far better car and cheaper by around 80 dollars on other quotes. As we were just a couple decided to take the risk. When we got to the airport after travelling 13 hours, we were told we shouldnt take the wildcard as it was a 6 litre tank of a car, and not recommended for travelling!!! Talk about hard sell, they then said they would have to requote us as a new walk in client! The quote came in at 900 dollars for a standard economy cheap car, 500 more than originally quoted. When I said wed take the wildcard car they said it wasnt available now, and we couldnt and if we did it would be 700 with insurance. I complained for nearly an hour, but got no where, even going to other hire desks to see if it was cheaper to get one there, it wasnt. Luckily a passing crew member heard our problem and offered to search on Orbitz on line for us, surprise surprise thrifty came up cheaper at 798 dollars for a medium car, so we went back and gave booking reference. They were put out and we ended up with a decent car, albeit at 350 dollars more than quoted originally. They said the basic insurance isnt legal if you are pulled up, yet we were told differently by the police, so this is a hard sell tactic. we took out basic and panicked the whole time. Another tip, our car was scraped the first night when parked, by another driver who drove off. we knew they would take a packet off us when we returned it, so we drove it to a local supplier, who came out gave us paint matches and cloths and told us to do it ourselves which we did. it was as good as new for 16 dollars again! I will never go with Thrifty again however nor recommend them they are misleading and certainly NOT the cheapest!

Andy_L

imperio wrote: »

Hi,

I frequently hire cars as I don't own one, and have annual car hire excess insurance. I recently hired a car from Thrifty, and returned it with a small scratch. They charged me £255 for this damage, which I paid on the understanding that they would provide me with a garage receipt that I could send to my insurers.

What do your insurance company need? When I claimed off mine (insurance4carhire) they only needed the invoice from the hire company, they didn't need the bill from the repairer

red_eye

imperio wrote: »

Hi,

I frequently hire cars as I don't own one, and have annual car hire excess insurance. I recently hired a car from Thrifty, and returned it with a small scratch. They charged me £255 for this damage, which I paid on the understanding that they would provide me with a garage receipt that I could send to my insurers.

This receipt has not materialised, and Thrifty have now told me that in fact the damage has not been repaired, and will not be for some time. They claim that this is standard procedure (they cannot run as a car rental company if they are continually putting cars into a garage). They claim the £255 cost is arrived at by a standard algorithm (they know how much things cost).

My insurers say this is not standard practice however, and are asking for a breakdown of costs in the £255.

Does anyone have any insight into this? Are Thrifty charging me for work they have no intention of getting done? How can I claim off my insurers in this situation?

Thanks in advance for any input.

£225 how long is this scratch? my algorithem says it is roughly from the beginning of A door and back to the same spot, going in a clockwise direction more than once. i think you sohlud of got a quote from bodyshop before you handed over £225, chips away charge some thing like £50 per panel

Teknolone

I rented a Corsa from a major rental firm; collection at Belfast City Airport. When I returned the car (18:30 on a Saturday), no-one was in their kiosk in the drop-off car park, so I re-examined the car for damage (none) and left the keys & paperwork with the lady in their desk in departures.

A week later I got a letter claiming I had damaged the car and I was being charged £401. The money was taken from my bank account a week later. I challenged their claim, requesting evidence of the damage...they couldn't get it immediately as the car had been hired and was out.

When I received their "photo" evidence, it was obvously taken on a poor camera-phone with NO reference as to where the damage was (nor any reference to the extent/size of the damage....I assumed it was a scratch).

Again I disputed their claim. I went to Citizen's advice bureau and they suggested I contact BVRLA (British Vehicle Leasing & Rental Association). I started to complete their claim form, but out of courtesy, I decided to contact the rental firm's claim dept again, just to let them know that I had taken it to BVRLA. The claim's dept suggested that there was one remaining avenue I could try to resolve the issue; I should escalate to their management.

I was asked to forward the damage claim (which the same company had sent me) along with any mitigating information. I remembered that I'd left the car in Bay 66....right on the end of a row in the car park...and that EVERY car from EVERY other rental firm had to pass the Corsa when it exited the car park.

I captured the Google Maps image of the car park, showing where Bay 66 was (it wasn't quite good enough to see "Bay 66" on the tarmac), but I pointed out that any passing car or passenger with a rogue luggage trolley could have caused the damage. Additionally, as their kiosk was closed when I returned the car, my responsibility ended when I parked up the car (they should have checked it at the time of drop-off). They acquiesced and returned my money within 4 hours.

Sorry about the rambling, but 2 lessons here; In future I will take photos of any rental car when I return it and secondly, rental companies do NOT like it when BVRLA get involved (I have anecdotal evidence that they get fined ~£150 for every case raised .....something like an admin charge).
I hope this is of use to someone.....

Tiddlywinks

Gawd - regarding the two long posts from Teknolone and Shelllanc - is there any chance at all that you could break it down into paragraphs?

I couldn't really be bothered to wade though the dense text to figure out what you were saying.

Sorry, but using paragraphs is free and makes it easier to read.

colino

You did the damage to their property, you pay. Not so difficult is it? What do they care about your personal insurance arrangements, that's entirely down to you and the laughable bit of, "it's only a scratch" really holds water doesn't it. Go to you nearest decent bodyshop and ask how much to bring a newish car panel back to as new condition.

maninthestreet

colino wrote: »

You did the damage to their property, you pay. Not so difficult is it? What do they care about your personal insurance arrangements, that's entirely down to you and the laughable bit of, "it's only a scratch" really holds water doesn't it. Go to you nearest decent bodyshop and ask how much to bring a newish car panel back to as new condition.

I wonder how many other people who have subsequently hired the same vehicle as the OP have also been charged for the repair to the same scratch???