Hire car late return

scoey8

Hi all, 

Mother in law arranged a hire car (in my name but using her card details) for me to drive somewhere as a favour for family member. 

Picked car up at 11am on Saturday as agreed and rental was for 2 days. Now this is my error as i didn't check the form where it says return time - 8am. Had 2 missed calls at 8.20 this morning which i returned at 8.30 to them saying 'where is the car it should have been back by 7.30am'. I told them i thought the rental was for 2 days and was going to return by 11am, apologised and took the car back immediately, it was there by 8.40am. 

The guy says mother in law/me will be charged and when asked how much he said 'The computer works it out we'll have to get back to you'. Now there is nothing on the terms he gave me that mentions a late return charge etc. but on their website it says if over 30 mins late you will be charged a full day. 

Also another issue is when i returned the car he said 'ill have to look at it later and let you know if there's any damage'. I insisted he checked the car over inc. fuel etc. which he did look at, however on leaving i asked if all was ok and he replied 'Seems to be but i'll have to give it a wash later and have another look'. I didn't bother taking pictures etc. at this point as i thought no point he could just say it showed up once cleaned. 

Questions;

1. Can he automatically charge the payment card used for a 'late return fee' (MIL says no deposit taken from bank even though it states £100 deposit on paperwork).

2. Can he come back to me stating damage even though he would not fully check the car when i was there? 

Thanks

sweetsand

Hi
1: Yes they can that's why they take your credit/debit card details just like hotels/etc.
2. If you say it was checked, then they can't if they do you can state when you looked it over with their staff everything was good - its called a handover to you and then you to them.
The above is my understanding but we've only rented in the USA for massive compaines and they don't behave like some of the smaller co's -  EG over 30 years ago one of my siblings hired a car for the weekdn, ret on time etc but left a few wrappers of sweets in the centre console they asked if they wanted to remove the couple of sweet papers and they said no and then next thing is they cahred them 10/15 quid to "clean the car"  -  never again did my sib use them again and if the internet was around they would have spread the word

Back to you, you can claim the damge was not there when you ret the car and signed it over.