Advice needed - Car Rental Might Cause My Cash To Crash

tipsychick

sickboyedd, please don't be disheartened!

The link I posted in #7 above shows just how successful you can be if you persevere.

If you don't have a legal/insurance background it can be quite daunting to get loads of legal type documents through and that's exactly why they send them, to put the wind up you and to get you to pay. They're just trying it on and hoping it will work. Thank God they can't take the money straight off your card!

I think it's definitely getting to the stage where you need some decent legal advice. CAB as first port of call or perhaps try one of those free hours that local solicitors sometimes offer.

Please keep us informed!

sickboyedd

Things have developed, but not for the better. They actually did charge my credit card, on the day the letter they sent was received. I somehow didn't get any credit card statements for 2 months, and was a bit shocked to get a phone call from Barclaycard saying I had to pay them several grand immediately!

We've been to the free legal advice clinic in London, and with the help of the lawyer there drafted a rather spiffy letter which has been sent to ebookers, europcar uk and europcar south africa. It basically sets out our grievance with the way the europcar reps acted after recovering our car, as well as their actions in a) inviting negotiation over the costs they were claiming but at the same time taking the amount without my expressed consent b) their not mentioning any costs at the end of the rental, in the airport, a full 4 1/2 weeks later and c) being extremely vague in their description of car damage and their inference that our actions were the causal factor in the engine failure. The letter is quite fun, I'll post it at some point after all this is over!

At the same time, as we work for a university doing research, we went to the dean of students, who has consulted his wife, an insurance lawyer, who wants to look over the contract to see if it is fair. She was surprised about the undercarriage waiver and the wording of the carbookers t&c, so maybe some luck there...

So, I think we're at least coming out swinging, I feel we took as many reasonable precautions in safeguarding the health of the car and so shouldn't be punished for their representatives mistakes. They could have also acted a whole lot more openly about the whole thing!

Wish us luck and thanks again

hammy_the_hammer

as you've got some good legal advice i can only add my own little bit of what i hope is common sense which you may be able to give to the legal person.
the clause about under car damage surely was inserted to stop you driving a car off the normal tarmac roads ....think about greece or spain where you could leave the well made road and take the winding stone / mud / rocky road up to some beauty spot ....you don't because if you then get damage to the underside of the car you know you are liable.
so initially it would be great if you could prove the damage happened on a tarmac road. personally i think they would have to explain why they put this clause in . if i remember right years ago the clause did actually say about damage caused by taking the car off made roads ....but of course changing the wording captures people like you in day to day situations.

jimblob_2

Good luck. The fact is, when you stopped, you did not know the extent of the damage. Nothing was documented. Therefore it cannot be proven that you caused the damage.

The damage could have been caused by the hire company driving the car or at any time later. Because of a big question mark over what has happened to the car since it left your hands, and because the exact condition of the car at the exact point when you handed it back to the hire company is not known or documented, you are clear.

Any valid report providing evidence that you damaged the car would have to have been done without further use of the car AND by an INDEPENDENT and appropriately qualified engineer. This means not one of their engineers, and really, you would have needed to both agree in writing about who would do it before this "joint independent report" was comissioned.

If it were my case I think I would be confident defending myself in court.

sickboyedd

Hi all,

Some great news! After writing a few weeks ago to Ebookers and Europcar with a letter basically spelling out what happened and demanding our money back, I was a little disheartened. However, today I got a letter from Ebookers, who have been dealing with Europcar and have got us a refund of the money and got Europcar to admit liability :beer:

We still have to pay for the initial undercarriage damage, but that will be considerably less than the thousands they initially charged us....

So, yippeeeeee! Thanks for all the advice and encouragement everyone, it was good to know there was somewhere to go to talk about this and get some good knowledge and opinion, kept me going :T:T:T

Here's a summary of what I did, just in case anyone else gets in a similar situation:

1. Wrote letter to Ebookers asking them to investigate - they initially said that is was a matter between me and Europcar.
2. Consulted CAB, got us in touch with a solicitors free clinic in London, charity based "Mary Ward".
3. My lovely GF went to the centre, armed with an itinerary of what happened, copies of all correspondence etc. and drafted a letter to Europcar UK, Europcar SA and Ebookers. I'll put a condensed version of the letter on later for reference...
4. Waited, and it all sorted itself out!

So, anyone else in the same situation, don't give up, feel free to PM me etc.

Thanks again everyone :T

tipsychick

That's brilliant! Well done!

hammy_the_hammer

"We still have to pay for the initial undercarriage damage, but that will be considerably less than the thousands they initially charged us...."
i'm glad you got some kind of result but i would truly question the validity of the damage to the underside of the car.
i would point out again that this damage happened on a motorway not a dirt track in the back of beyond....if you read my post above i am 99% sure that the clause was put in to stop you going off-road in a hire car