Car hire damage - now being invoiced for more after paying for damage when returning car

MattHobbes

Recently hired a car from a well known international chain in France, managed to damage a tyre on a pot hole and they charged me 235 EUR for a new tyre, irritating but thought that's life.

Today I got an invoice from them saying the repair cost 285 EUR and they've added a 50 EUR "admin fee", so a nice round extra 100 EUR is being demanded after the235 EUR I'd already paid.

Question, is this normal? I was under the impression that when I left the rental firm having paid the 235 EUR that was the end of the matter.

I did take out extra excess insurance from a separate firm so plan to claim the 235 from them, but not sure if this extra 100 is how it works or should I be querying this?

Goudy

Yes, admin fees are common practise for car hire firms.

Check your excess policy as most will cover admin fees, though some only up to a certain amount.

MattHobbes

Goudy said:

Yes, admin fees are common practise for car hire firms.

Check your excess policy as most will cover admin fees, though some only up to a certain amount.

It was more is it expected to get extra charges after leaving the rental location having paid for the damage

Goudy

There are some companies that actually go out of their way to rip customers off over damage.

One in particular is so bad that these excess insurance policies won't cover them.
Car Hire Excess Insurance - Get UK & Worldwide Insurance Cover (bettersafe.com)
See the paragraph titled "Are there any exclusions?" 

Generally, under normal hire T&C's, things like glass, tyres and underneath aren't covered under the basic insurance package, so any damage will be chargeable.
Also, misfuelling, lost keys etc often come with hefty price.

I hire 6 or 7 cars a year, usually abroad and I will see at least one customer getting flustered over damage every year.
Scrapes on the lower front bumper lip are really common as they often get caught parking nose on to a kerb, which we in the UK don't do a lot of.

Luckily I've never had much trouble. I take a yearly excess policy and treat the cars as if they are my own.

I did rear end someone once on a Greek roundabout that was still operating under their old, priority to traffic entering the roundabout law. (and still is even though the local government have tried to change it several times)
There wasn't too much damage, just a bit of paint work but it was very obvious.

The young chap booking the car back in looked a little too laid back (like perhaps he rolled his own special ciggies) So I cheekily offered him a "drink" to book it back in as OK.
He did and returned my the rental sheet with it signed off, the holding deposit hit my account before my plane landed!

MattHobbes

Just noticed my insurer has the same green motion exclusion, thankfully I didn’t use that firm!

so maybe I just pay the extra 100 EUR and claim it all back… or maybe call my insurer and ask them for advice (although fairly sure they’ll just ask me to query it with the car rental firm)