Scratched rental car on holiday?

TheRevJimJones

jayneaustin321 wrote: »

I recently returned from a lovely 3 day getaway with my husband in Spain and what a beautiful place it was. The weather was actually spot on luckily and overall a brilliant holiday!

However on the last day of our trip on the way back to the airport my husband scratched the side of our rental car..complete nightmare!

I was wondering if this has ever happened to anyone else and if so how much did you have to pay out in excess charges? Also can anyone recommend a cheap reliable car hire excess insurance company? There are lots to choose from but not sure which one is best: compareexcess.com

We plan to travel to Germany next month and I really don't want a reoccurrence of our last holiday, it definitely took the shine off the holiday and stress set in as soon as we got home. Any help on this would be greatly appreciated, thanks!

I may have misunderstood but from your post I inferred that you have already returned your Spanish hire car and are waiting to see if you will get penalised for the scratch. If that is the case then you'll be in the clear - any damage that they are going to charge you for has to be spotted when then inspect the car on your return so that you can inspect it too and "confirm" that it was done by you.

Once you are out of the car hire place with your signed form I don't think they can retrospectively hit you with a charge - more likely the car will be on the road again with another punter within a matter of hours.

agrinnall

TheRevJimJones wrote: »

I may have misunderstood but from your post I inferred that you have already returned your Spanish hire car and are waiting to see if you will get penalised for the scratch. If that is the case then you'll be in the clear - any damage that they are going to charge you for has to be spotted when then inspect the car on your return so that you can inspect it too and "confirm" that it was done by you.

Once you are out of the car hire place with your signed form I don't think they can retrospectively hit you with a charge - more likely the car will be on the road again with another punter within a matter of hours.

It's a nice theory, and may even be correct, but in practice a few months spent on this board will show that hire companies levying charges after the hire is completed is very common indeed.

TheRevJimJones

agrinnall wrote: »

It's a nice theory, and may even be correct, but in practice a few months spent on this board will show that hire companies levying charges after the hire is completed is very common indeed.

Surely in these circumstances you can just contest the charge with your card issuer? If you are not made aware of the "damage" and don't have a chance to inspect it then how can the card issuer expect you to cough up for it?

I was stung once for a small scuff on a rental car (lesson learned, always get excess insurance now). I was shown the damage (tiny though it was) and had to sign a form acknowledging it. Likewise when you return a car undamaged in my experience it has always been inspected on return and a form has been signed by the person inspecting to say that the car has been returned in a satisfactory condition (same goes for checking fuel, etc).

PeacefulWaters

in my experience it has always been inspected on return

Not always an option if the office is closed for the night.

NoodleDoodleMan

You can always take photos or video with your smartphone when collecting and returning the car.

budgetflyer

I think this may be a nicely written spam.