Car Hire Excess Help

millerc

Hi,

I'm just wondering if someone can give me some advice on how to deal with a car hire company who says we have damaged a hire car we recently hired.

The car hire company drop off the car and leave it at a hotel for us to collect. We arrived at the hotel and we were not met by any representative of the company. We went to the hotel reception to collect the car and the hotel said it's nothing to do with them, they just let the cars park in their car park and they hand over any documentation to us and gave us the keys and an inspection report that the car hire company had completed before we got there.

We checked over the car and all was ok with the car and the inspection report reflected that. We used the car and returned the car 4 hours earlier then we needed to. The car had absolutely no damage to it whatsoever. I took the keys and the paperwork back to the hotel reception desk and they just took the keys and said that it is not their job to check the car and we should just leave the car and keys with them.

So we left thinking that all would be ok.

We have today received a letter from the hire company saying that the windscreen is cracked and has a stone chip in it. We returned the car in immaculate condition so I am at a loss as to how the car was damaged in this way. They've said that we have an excess that we will need to pay and we need to file an incident report. We have refused to complete an incident report because there was no incident so they have said that it will be passed to their accident department to investigate.

Their website states that their excess is £800 no matter what the damage is or the cost of it. We have asked them to confim the amount of excess that they think we will be expected to pay but they have said that they cannot tell us at this stage.

I do not want them to take £800 from my bank account because we simply do not have that kind of money available in the account and the car was immaculate when we returned it so we are not at fault.

I think what happened was that they collected the vehicle, returned the vehicle back to it's depot, which they have to travel on a very busy motorway to get to, and they then performed the inspection when they arrived and hence they incurred the damage on transit back to depot from the hotel that we dropped it off at.

Does anyone have any advice on how we deal with this matter as we did not damage this vehicle in any way ?

Will they attempt to take the excess immediately or will they hold off whilst it's in dispute ?

Should I ask them for evidence or do you think it's worth speaking to the hotel to see if they have CCTV for instance so I can prove they didn't check it when the collected the vehicle ?

Thanks for your advice. We are really worried about this as it's such a large amount of money for something that we did not do.

Regards,

Chris

Mat_Lock

Did you note the mileage when you got in the car the first time and when you parked it up before you gave the car keys to the hotel. In hindsight that would have showed up any person not authorised as using the vehicle. The hotel staff could have used it for all sorts of shennanigans.

On a side note, the excess should only be envoked up to the price of the repair so if the repair was only £300 you should only pay £300 of the £800 excess.

millerc

Hi Mat_Lock,

Thanks so much for that. That is a very good point about the mileage. We have the mileage from the inspection and we know we did 106 miles in the car as we had to fill the car back up with fuel and we can prove those miles with some simple maths on the cost of the fuel and the hotel is less than 1 mile from the petrol station. We therefore have the mileage at the point we returned it to the hotel.

If the hotel used the car then the mileage will be different from when we returned it.

We can also get the return inspection report from the hire company and if there is a gap in the mileage from the drop off to the inspection report then either the hotel has used the car or the hire company could have then drove the car back to the depot which is about 30 miles away and then performed the inspection.

Thanks so much for the advice. I'll go down that route first.

Regards,

Chris

Mat_Lock

We all learn by our mistakes or others mistakes. I have been in a similar situation before. Anything that can prove you weren't in the car at time of damage will help.

I'd also for next time ensure photos are taken of the vehicle before and after too at the most obvious points on a car. Bumpers, windows, windscreen etc.

rs65

Mat_Lock wrote: »

I'd also for next time ensure photos are taken of the vehicle before and after too at the most obvious points on a car. Bumpers, windows, windscreen etc.

I got a bill for petrol once because I didn't return the car with a full tank. Fortunately I had a receipt from the filling station so could prove I had filled it. The bill was cancelled.

I now take a photo of the dash on return showing the fuel gauge and mileage.

londonTiger

Always get full damage waiver on hire cars. Always.

rs65

londonTiger wrote: »

Always get full damage waiver on hire cars. Always.

Hire car excess insurance can be cheaper if you hire often.

londonTiger

rs65 wrote: »

Hire car excess insurance can be cheaper if you hire often.

i heard about them. Not sure if they're any good though, or whether they're in inconvenience. Like the hire car company takes excess from you and then you have to claim that back from the third party excess insurance. Or if third party excess insurance pays direct to the hire car company.

It may be worth trying out a third party, but most people just hire for 1-2 times a year so you're best off just sticking with the hire cars full waiver.

Tilt

How do they check your driving licence if they aren't there to hand the car over to you?

millerc

Hi all,

I thought I'd give you all an update. We have finally received a letter from the hire car company stating that after a full investigation that they have found that the damage was actually caused by the people who hired the car after us. They did the damage and not us. I don't think the car was inspected between our use and the next hirer. They stated that the car was hired straight back out to the other hirer immediately after us.

I wrote to the hire company after all your excellent advice on here and complained and insisted that the issue be looked into. I eventually raised it to the CEO of the company as the normal complaints staff where adimant that the damage had been caused by us. Only when I raised the complaint to the top they then began to investigate my complaint seriously. They have taken ages to look into it but at least it's now over.

However, during the whole of the complaint and investigations they continued to attempt to take the excess from our bank account every so often. They have only now said that they will no longer be seeking to obtain the excess and the transaction attempts have now ceased.

If I hire a car next time (not from this company of course) I will take as many photos as I can. I do usually do that but on this one occasion I forgot but I have now learned for next time.

Once again thanks for all your advice and help with this. It was all very much appreciated.

Cheers,

Chris

Nick_C

Which company was it?