Car hire issue

bumbleberry68

We hired a car in canada, through auto-europe and the car was with thrifty. We ended the rental and took the car back with no problems, car was checked over by a lady, got a receipt to say nothing to pay. Some time later a letter arrived dated 10 day after the rental ended. They want us to pay $316.26 CAD for a broken windscreen.

Auto-europe are supposedly dealing with it. However we have received more letters requesting the money. Each time I call auto-europe and they say they are dealing with it. As we haven't paid we now have a letter from an attorney saying thrifty have retained their services to recover the debt.

We didn't damage the car. It was signed off by thrifty and we have a receipt saying nothing to pay. What are the problems here? Is an unpaid debt in Canada going to affect credit rating in UK? How is the best way to deal with this as we are being asked to pay for something that wasn't caused by us?

Thank you for any advice

richardw

Call thrifty this afternoon and talk it through with them.

bumbleberry68

I did that a few weeks ago, they said that was the first check they do then there are several others after we dropped it off. Which is ridiculous as anything could happen to the car once we had left it. Te woman just kept repeating so are you refusing to pay. So the call didnt get me very far.

Auto-europe have now said that in order to raise a dispute we have to first pay the bill which is ridiculous because if they aren't successful we will have paid for something we didn't do

jackieblack

I would send the attorney a copy of the receipt with a statement saying that there was no damage when you dropped the car off and that you dispute Thrifty's claim that there was.

A broken windscreen would/should have been noticed by the lady who inspected the car when you dropped it off.

StuieUK34

I love the stealth tactic of pushing Indigo! just another broker, who operate the same as the others, tut tut.....

bumble:
no, credit rating wont be affected at all.
The little print out to say car ok and $0 to pay is your proof your in the clear. Upto u to see how long you get chased for (which nothing will come of it).....

Look at it this way, you work for a company, realised u made a mistake, u got costs to recover, so you back track, falsify, and hope u can pull 1 off to get monies back, using fear tactics, just like a normal british company does with debt collector letters.... most pay through fear!

Your receipt is your agreement completion without issue, I have kept all my receipts from Alamo, dollar, thrifty and budget, just in case.... never needed them though..