Van hire damage dispute - please help!

ElefantEd

DullGreyGuy said:

This the first time you've ever hired anything?

The form will have had a diagram of a flattened vehicle where all damage/missing bits should be marked and commented on. One of the signatures will have been to confirm that the diagram is accurate. 

Ultimately you have no evidence of what was discussed however they do have evidence of you signing to say the diagram is correct and so if the damage wasnt on the diagram it'll be said the damage wasnt on the vehicle when you collected it. 

I've always been given one of these when hiring a vehicle (except one excellent car hire place in the Canaries who's policy said they didn't care and didn't inspect the car before or after using it - the most stress free car hire ever!).

Having said that I don't think I'd want to hire a flattened vehicle!

DullGreyGuy

ElefantEd said:
Having said that I don't think I'd want to hire a flattened vehicle!

As long as its marked correctly on the form it'll be ok as long as it meets your needs but its more a practical consideration of how you mark damage on a three dimensional shape on a basically two dimensional piece of paper. They generally ignore the undercarriage and show the other 5 sides as flat which helps when showing damage that starts on the wing and goes up onto the bonnet etc. 

Goudy

DullGreyGuy said:

ElefantEd said:
Having said that I don't think I'd want to hire a flattened vehicle!

As long as its marked correctly on the form it'll be ok as long as it meets your needs but its more a practical consideration of how you mark damage on a three dimensional shape on a basically two dimensional piece of paper. They generally ignore the undercarriage and show the other 5 sides as flat which helps when showing damage that starts on the wing and goes up onto the bonnet etc. 

A lot of companies do this electronically now.
It's all on some sort of Tablet, iPad or terminal inside their office.

I've been to some that you do it all yourself.
You stick your booking reference into one of the terminals and it's brings up all the details of your booking and the car assigned to your hire, with all the relevant data.
Fill it all in and then you can collect your key from the desk.

It seems what has happened is the agent has voomed in on the boxes to electronically sign and cut out the rest of the form to the detriment of the OP.

I know it's not much help, but they signed it as no damage and returned it with damage.
If you aren't used to the process, it is easy to miss the important things and it turns out costly.

I have in the past when dealing with the paper forms, marked damage on the form myself even though the agent has told me that they don't count it or know about it.
A favourite are under bumper scrapes, we don't usually park nose on the kerb in the UK like a lot of place do abroad, so these are money makers for the company.
If they get a bit arsy I ask them in they are saving ink, offer them a pen and grin.

I hire here and abroad quite often so take out a yearly excess policy, it's cheap and well worth it compared to what they want to sell you at the desk.
I've come close to being hood winked with a hire car once or twice, but like I said if you do it often enough you get to spot the signs.

WellKnownSid

Goudy said:

DullGreyGuy said:

ElefantEd said:
Having said that I don't think I'd want to hire a flattened vehicle!

As long as its marked correctly on the form it'll be ok as long as it meets your needs but its more a practical consideration of how you mark damage on a three dimensional shape on a basically two dimensional piece of paper. They generally ignore the undercarriage and show the other 5 sides as flat which helps when showing damage that starts on the wing and goes up onto the bonnet etc. 

I've come close to being hood winked with a hire car once or twice, but like I said if you do it often enough you get to spot the signs.

I went to hire a car last minute at Dublin airport about 20 years ago. I asked how much, the guy literally took hold of a calculator, mashed the keys with the underside of his hand for 15 seconds then swiped every row of keys left to right, and with the calculator displaying E on the screen announced it would cost me £267.40 😂

DullGreyGuy

Goudy said:

DullGreyGuy said:

ElefantEd said:
Having said that I don't think I'd want to hire a flattened vehicle!

As long as its marked correctly on the form it'll be ok as long as it meets your needs but its more a practical consideration of how you mark damage on a three dimensional shape on a basically two dimensional piece of paper. They generally ignore the undercarriage and show the other 5 sides as flat which helps when showing damage that starts on the wing and goes up onto the bonnet etc. 

A lot of companies do this electronically now.

It being electronic doesn't prevent it having the diagram or the damage being marked on it. 

20 years ago when I started in Motor Claims the engineers had the same diagram on their touch screen laptops and would mark the damage on it when inspecting a vehicle. I'm sure if insurers could afford the tech back then that something similar is available to hire car companies these days given the direction that pricing on tech goes. 

Goudy

DullGreyGuy said:

Goudy said:

DullGreyGuy said:

ElefantEd said:
Having said that I don't think I'd want to hire a flattened vehicle!

As long as its marked correctly on the form it'll be ok as long as it meets your needs but its more a practical consideration of how you mark damage on a three dimensional shape on a basically two dimensional piece of paper. They generally ignore the undercarriage and show the other 5 sides as flat which helps when showing damage that starts on the wing and goes up onto the bonnet etc. 

A lot of companies do this electronically now.

It being electronic doesn't prevent it having the diagram or the damage being marked on it. 

20 years ago when I started in Motor Claims the engineers had the same diagram on their touch screen laptops and would mark the damage on it when inspecting a vehicle. I'm sure if insurers could afford the tech back then that something similar is available to hire car companies these days given the direction that pricing on tech goes. 

Yes, I've just looked back as some email correspondence from a company I used a couple of times at Faro airport earlier this year.

The diagram is part of the electronic document, but instead of marks on the diagram for damage, letters are used on the "panels" to identify what sort of damage.
M= Mossa or dent
R= Risco or scratch
F= Falta or missing
Rp = Reparar or restore/repair.

There are before and after diagrams and mine match.

I recently binned a load of paper versions as I always seem to stuff them in flap of my carry on bag after drop off.
They are generally the same form (a carbon copy of) that the agent signs to say damage/fuel etc is the same as at check out.

It's obvious the OP didn't get to see this part of the electronic form when signing as the agent voomed into the parts that needed signing rather than what they were signing for, this has cost them dearly.