Europcar debt letter from Recocash

wezdav

Hi,

In the summer I hired a car for work in South of France.  When I returned the car the assistant pointed out a small mark, which was not done by me...(I'm am honest guy and can honestly say the mark was not made by me,  If I done it I would pay).  When I questioned this she said in broken english that it was 'too small', indicating it was not a problem.  I signed the form and left, which I'm pretty sure had nothing marked on about damage and I believe the form may have been tampered with after I left. 

Naively I didnt get a copy of the form as I was in a rush for my flight and she did not indicate any charges as the mark was too small.

When I returned home I received a bill for £350 which they took from my credit card account.  I contacted my cc company, they acknowledged Europcar had done something which didn't comply to their rules and they refunded my money.

Europcar continued to send another bill which I ignored and now I've received a debt collection letter for Recocash requiring the payment.

Just wondered if anyone has had a similar experience or if anyone has any advice at all?

Thank you!

eskbanker

wezdav said:

When I returned home I received a bill for £350 which they took from my credit card account.  I contacted my cc company, they acknowledged Europcar had done something which didn't comply to their rules and they refunded my money.

This sounds like a chargeback, where your card company recovers money from the merchant and gives them the opportunity to challenge it.  However, failure of the merchant to dispute a chargeback doesn't signify the end of the story, so as far as they're concerned you still owe them the money, and the bank's view about events is ultimately irrelevant, so you're still in dispute with Europcar and will need to either pay up or convince them that the charge wasn't correct....

mgdavid

Recocash appear to be a French company. Since we left the EU what jurisdiction might they have in the UK? I wouldn't be surprised if it was none. In any event the cost to them of employing a UK legal representative on their behalf will be a lot more than this small claim. Even if they did eventually go through the small claims court process against you, I think they haven't got a leg to stand on, and suspect an SMC adjudicator would agree. I'd just ignore them and let them sweat on it.

Daze_Confuse

@wezdav could you let us know the outcome to this? In a similar situation now myself!