Car hire nightmare

meer53

eco_warrior wrote: »

Car hire companies still need to get explicit consent for additional charges when they present them to the customer. So they can't have it in the small print and just take it when they want. The customer must be presented with the additional costs, then sign for it, in order to make the charge valid.

If they then take any additional charge then it can easily be disputed via chargeback. Then they woukld need to go down the route they have with the OP and chase them via other means.

Consent is given when they take the credit card details when collecting the car. The customer doesn't have to sign for them. A dispute in this case would probably fail as the hirer caused the damage. The hirer must be advised of the costs but it doesn't mean that they don't have to pay them.

born_again

eco_warrior wrote: »

Car hire companies still need to get explicit consent for additional charges when they present them to the customer. So they can't have it in the small print and just take it when they want. The customer must be presented with the additional costs, then sign for it, in order to make the charge valid.

If they then take any additional charge then it can easily be disputed via chargeback. Then they woukld need to go down the route they have with the OP and chase them via other means.

Sort of correct. But there is no Chargeback right. You might be able to look at a pre compliance claim, if the hire co do not do as below.. But if the hire co do not respond to your card holder, that is the end of the matter.
Hire companies have to give you 10 days notice before debit your account the amount they are going to take. This is to allow you to arrange your own quote/repair. They do not need you to sign for any additional charges. As you signed their T/C in the agreement. Which is consenting to these charges.

Many people do not even pick up that the hire co will charge for passing on the drivers details to the police for fines etc.

eco_warrior

born_again wrote: »

Sort of correct. But there is no Chargeback right. You might be able to look at a pre compliance claim, if the hire co do not do as below.. But if the hire co do not respond to your card holder, that is the end of the matter.
Hire companies have to give you 10 days notice before debit your account the amount they are going to take. This is to allow you to arrange your own quote/repair. They do not need you to sign for any additional charges. As you signed their T/C in the agreement. Which is consenting to these charges.

Many people do not even pick up that the hire co will charge for passing on the drivers details to the police for fines etc.

I think your knowledge could be out of date?

I’ve never heard of a ten day rule?

You are right in that it’s a pre-compliance under Visa, it’s a chargeback under MasterCard.

The pre-agreement does not give them consent. If you think this is the case can you show me where this is outlines in the Visa Rules?

eco_warrior

meer53 wrote: »

Consent is given when they take the credit card details when collecting the car. The customer doesn't have to sign for them. A dispute in this case would probably fail as the hirer caused the damage. The hirer must be advised of the costs but it doesn't mean that they don't have to pay them.

Completely wrong.

Customers can cause the damage and even admit to it, it doesn’t mean they can’t dispute it if they haven’t agreed to pay the additional costs when presented with them.

Where are you getting this information from?

eco_warrior

NewToTheUkAgain wrote: »

Eco Warrior that is somewhat true. They must inform you of the charges. They do not need your express consent as you have given that when signing up for the liability.

I’m not having a good day am I

Chargeback rules state otherwise to what you have said.

born_again

eco_warrior wrote: »

I think your knowledge could be out of date?

I’ve never heard of a ten day rule?

You are right in that it’s a pre-compliance under Visa, it’s a chargeback under MasterCard.

The pre-agreement does not give them consent. If you think this is the case can you show me where this is outlines in the Visa Rules?

Visa removed "Unrecognised" chargeback last year. Which was how these were dealt with. Nothing else under visa covers these payments. Most of these were rejected on the grounds that it was agreed in the T/C that customer had signed stating they would be charged for any damage. The ones that did not get rejected, the customer often got a bill from a debt collection agency about the payment.

Given this is my current role. I'm up to date with procedures for Visa.

Visa rules do not supersede a retailer t/c. Especially when a customer has signed them.

eco_warrior

born_again wrote: »

Visa removed "Unrecognised" chargeback last year. Which was how these were dealt with. Nothing else under visa covers these payments. Most of these were rejected on the grounds that it was agreed in the T/C that customer had signed stating they would be charged for any damage. The ones that did not get rejected, the customer often got a bill from a debt collection agency about the payment.

Given this is my current role. I'm up to date with procedures for Visa.

Visa rules do not supersede a retailer t/c. Especially when a customer has signed them.

Apologies if I came across rude in my earlier post.

I can’t think of a single pre-compliance I’ve been involved with that’s failed due to pre-agreed T&Cs. Not to say it hasn’t happened. I’ll recheck my understanding.

I’ll do some digging.

Terry_Towelling

born_again wrote: »

Visa removed "Unrecognised" chargeback last year. Which was how these were dealt with. Nothing else under visa covers these payments. Most of these were rejected on the grounds that it was agreed in the T/C that customer had signed stating they would be charged for any damage. The ones that did not get rejected, the customer often got a bill from a debt collection agency about the payment.

Given this is my current role. I'm up to date with procedures for Visa.

Visa rules do not supersede a retailer t/c. Especially when a customer has signed them.

One of the things that you should always tell a customer when/if you reassign a debt such as rental car damage to the retailer's Acquirer is that you are not relieving the cardholder of their contractual responsibilities to the retailer; you are merely exploiting the fact that the retailer has not correctly followed the payment scheme rules for processing such a charge to the card and that they may quite rightly pursue the cardholder for payment by alternate means.

I don't know the current rules for processing rental car damage transactions to a Visa card, nor the current means by which the charge should be investigated if challenged by the cardholder, but I would imagine they still require the rental company to prove the cardholder agreed to pay for damage and also that they agreed for the charge to be placed against their card. This used to require the rental company to provide a signed Rental Agreement showing the T&Cs, a card 'imprint' and a description/estimate of the repair costs provided by an appropriately qualified repair shop.

Is that still the case?

15 and more years ago, this type of dispute was a pain to deal with but there were potential remedies through both Chargebacks and Compliance depending on what you got from the Acquirer when you requested what used to be called 'T&E Documents'.

The 'Transaction Not Recognised' Chargeback was branded as mostly useless by many of us in the industry when it came in but it was never originally used to resolve issues like this because the transaction was usually recognised - it was just disputed.

rajeshk4u

I have done this in the past, but on my car if left the keys in the boot, it still opens, as it needs to remote to lock the car. So how on earth did it get locked in?. Curious about the make/model of the car.

If Advantage answered the phone call, your maximum liability would have been for them to send someone over to you with a spare key to unlock the car.

If you have screenshots of the number of times you called them, can you counter-sue? As you did your best to resolve the issue. I guess this is US territory. Is there a no-win no-fee lawyer?

NCC-1701

Breaking a window to gain access rather than going down the road of causing bodywork damage would have been the way to go to minimise repair cost.