Nationwide Hire problems

Britannia12345

After being let down by a removal company and not being able to book anyone else at short notice I tried to hire a van for our house move just before Christmas. Again I was let down by a rental company and days before we were due to move I came across Nationwide Hire. 
I phoned them and when they said they had a van I was ready to bite their hand off. I booked the van for three days, payed £188 for the rental and then things went wrong from all sides. 
The access to our driveway is extremely tight on the best of days, but the gas company decided to cone off the road to dig it up and sort out the pipework right across the road from our drive the day we moved in, severely limiting the turning space to access the driveway. 
We had no notice of this. We took three days to move house and trying to navigate the tight turning in the dark I managed to scrape the van on both sides. 
The rental company then took over a month to pick up the van, during which time it was standing on our driveway blocking access to vehicles other than our own. All over the Christmas period and throughout January we couldn't have any deliveries unless the drivers parked on the next street and carried the goods round to our house. We couldn't have any visitors over the holiday as there was nowhere for them to park. We were desperate to have a skip delivered to remove our packing rubbish but that was out of the question. 
When the van was picked up at the end of January I was informed that it would be assessed for damage for the final bill, and that my insurance excess would be £1200. I was told if I'd purchased an insurance waiver that would have been reduced to £600. I was not offered this option when I phoned to book the van or I would have paid for this. 
Now the final bill has come in - £2400. I'm gobsmacked. I literally don't have that kind of money and they say they want payment in seven days. 
I really don't know if there's anything I can do. I can't magic up that kind of money. I can't help but feel like it's a scam of sorts as they could have picked up the van straight away after the three day rental period and had it out on the road earning more rental but they didn't bother and were actually quite shirty when I kept phoning them to ask when it would be collected. 
Is this a case of a lesson learnt and I just have to beg or borrow the money from somewhere or is there anything I can do? 

LeafGreen

Are they treating the damage to each side as separate incidents, and therefore asking you for 2 lots of the excess (£1200 x 2 = £2400)?
Or is £2400 the total bill for the damage, and they are just expecting one payment of £1200 to cover the excess?

Britannia12345

It looks like they're charging for each incident. 

Goudy

I hate to say it but regarding the damage, this is the industry standard.

With nearly every vehicle hire agreement you agreed to hire it on the understanding you are responsible for the excess of any damage claim.

The excess will be set out in the contract. Some companies may block this amount on a credit card at the time of hire.

They are particularly careful when setting out these excess amounts and will usually use industry standard values.
These are proportional to the vehicles cost and rental value as chasing excess excesses in court is troublesome.
Smaller, cheaper vehicles usually have less than larger more expensive vehicles and they can vary slightlu between companies.

Most hire companies sign up to the BVRLA and you can open a case with them if you think you are being unfairly treated, but unfortunately I don't see much of a case, you admit you scraped both sides.

With hindsight you could have taken their collision damage waiver (CDW), it surprises me they didn't try to upsell this to you at the time or you may have dismissed it without much thought.
It's a product but not really insurance so I presume it's something they don't have to offer.
It's often expensive and as you know it would only have reduced your liability, not covered it all. It's just an agreement with them they will waiver some of these costs for a price.

You could have also have taken out a stand alone excess policy. You usually pay by the day, week, month or even yearly.
This is a dedicated insurance policy. There are lots of companies offering different versions with various levels of coverage. Everything from damage, misfuelling, keys, breakdown, theft and so on.
It's usually more comprehensive than CDW, which might only reduce your liability and as it is insurance, the terms and conditions are pretty well regulated.

With one of these policies you would still pay the excess for the damage but you would then claim that back on the policy (remembering to keep and send on all damage invoices).
This is what I would recommend.

I don't really hire vans anymore but I have recently updated my yearly UK and european hire car excess policy to a worldwide one and it costs around £45 a year with a policy limit of around £10,000 per claim/hire.
There are a few no no countries, but it covers almost everywhere.

A simple stand alone policy for a van in the UK can be had for around £6 or £7 a day.