I hired a car at the beginning of June, when I returned it there was a claim of new damage, which I disputed at the time. ‘Damage’ pictured below

I received a letter yesterday that the total costs relating to this claim are £344! And they would be collecting this from my credit card in 14 days.

I’m going back to them to ask for photographic evidence of the damage, photographic evidence of the repair and details of the repair carried out.

Anything else I should be doing?

Can we have a picture of more than 6 pixels please?

(tinypic.com and paste the contents of the “Forum Code” box in)

Didn’t you sign the damage report on the hire agreement? There’s a little plan of the car on which you should have noted any damage or blemishes before taking the car away – if you didn’t or if there’s damage that wasn’t noted on the little picture, I don’t think you have much hope.

Lesson: always walk round the car with the hirer and make a note of any mark or damage no matter how small.

Same story when accepting packages by courier – don’t allow the delivery agent to harrass you; take your time to check and if in any doubt at all, sign for it as “damaged”.

Or, ‘unchecked’

Always check a hire car before you take it out. If you don’t pick up on all the damage before you take it out the hire depot you will get stung. I learnt this the hard way. You’re getting the same lesson now.
Just pay it and chalk it down to experience.

When checking out the car I started pointing out minor blemishes and was told that anything smaller than a golf ball could be ignored.

But still note them down.

I asked for them to be noted and they weren’t.

Name and shame. Or more to the point, help others avoid getting ripped off.

If I really hadn’t done it (which I assume is the case) I’d write a letter to my credit card company asking them to block the transaction as it is fraudulent. I’d also drop in to the local police station to report fraud.

Even if I had done it/not picked it up etc. can you see damage that would cost £344 to repair on the above photo?

£344 for a scratch like that! 10 minute job. Chips Away or the like, probably £50.

Anyway, is that photo yours from when you got the car? If so, use the date on that as proof. Though yes you should get them to note it before hand, but still if it went to court a judge would rule in your favour with that evidence. Clearly you’d seen it in advance.

Sadly T&Cs you signed will say they are entitled to charge the card for damage so you can’t get the card company to charge back as a fraudulent charge, which I’d argue it is given not your fault. It’s a scam. They probably already knew about it. That leaves trying to claim it back. Could risk a small claims on them with your evidence. Though there’s a risk someone might argue the date on a photo file can be altered. Though companies like this may not bother defending it and drop the whole thing as it’s a waste of their time.

Or just suck it up. I would for a small cost, but £344 would piss me right off for something not my fault.

Anyway, stupid thing is even if it occurred during your hire it would likely be from some numpty in a car park. Again not your fault.

Whole thing is a scam.

That is the photo of the ‘damage’, there is no scratch. The white line towards the bottom is the reflection of the chrome trim of the adjacent car.

You may be able to ask for independent assessment for repairs.

Last two cars we’ve hired through work have been Enterprise – they didn’t check for damage, just took the keys and dropped us off at the station.

This was also Enterprise. I’ve used them at home and abroad with no problems before, not used this particular franchise before and it was a shambles.

My car hire started at 10:30 in a car that someone was returning by 10:30. There were about 5 people in there all waiting for cars that hadn’t shown up yet.

Even if I had done it/not picked it up etc. can you see damage that would cost £344 to repair on the above photo?

It is not just the cost of the repair, it is also the loss of being able to hire the car out whilst it is being repaired, although it seems steep going by that picture.

Those who have seen the photo, exactly what bit of damage do you think is being repaired?

Bearing in mind 4 days rental cost me £56 how long did the ‘repair’ take?

It hasn’t been repaired and won’t be repaired.

Except it isn’t – as edu says, it won’t be repaired, will just be left and possibly any minor damage repaired in one go before they sell it on. That way they can scam everybody else who hires the car.

I don’t know what damage we’re referring to here – a photo which doesn’t appear to show non-existent minor damage would be more helpful, but in the absence of that you’re going to have to give us a clue.

There was a 5cm long slight indentation, probably from being car doored, only visible if you stood at exactly the right point in exactly the right light. No paint damage. The damage would be in the middle of this photo, but it’s so marginal as to be impossible to photograph.

So you agree there is damage?
Are you disputing that it was there already or the cost of its repair?

I go round and get every single minor mark written down, and Enterprise are the worst for just saying “it doesn’t matter”!

I too got caught once…

Yes there was v. minor damage.

I believe it was there prior to me picking the car up, along with at least 2 other similar marks on the same side, none of which were noted on the form at the time of picking up the car. The two other marks, which I would describe as dings, were actually more noticeable, the mark I am being charged for is more of a crease and crucially was marginally longer than the golf ball check that Enterprise say they use to determine if a mark is chargeable.

Enterprise say that this one mark was additional, the two others were existing and thus want to charge me for the repair.

Since all of them are too minor to actually photograph, my photographs cannot prove that these marks did/did not exist prior to me picking up the car.

In the absence of being able to prove the damage one way or another, I am now disputing that the repair costs are excessive (if indeed they have been done at all)

Hired a car in Newcastle from Europcar or some such outfit, to catch a flight in London, picked the car up at 1pm set off to London, was at the airport just after 5pm dropping car off.

On dropping car off, the guy immediately went to damage at the front of the car saying I had hit a kerb. I argued my point, he checked the rest of the car out, and went to chat to his boss.

Boss came out to see me, told me I must have hit a kerb, showed him the pick up time of car, and explained that really to have hit a kerb, it would probably have been at excessive speed and would have caused more damage than that, I would rather pay the fine for speeding if they had one.

He thought that was a fair excuse, and let me go on my way, with no repair bill to foot, and no speeding tickets in the post either.

Except it isn’t – as edu says, it won’t be repaired, will just be left and possibly any minor damage repaired in one go before they sell it on. That way they can scam everybody else who hires the car.

I agree, that’s just what they told me when they tried to get me to pay for some old damage when I took a hire car back once. I do wonder if they make back a large proportion of the car value by doing stuff like this.

I make sure that I write “numerous scratches” on each panel that is marked if they refuse to note them down. That said, I find more decent hire car companies that bad ones these days – in terms of the damage issues discussed here. They however, universally staffed by bored, hard of learning clock watchers.

Sixt tried to rip us off – raised a dispute with Nationwide (paid on NW cc) and they argued the toss for us and the charge on the cc was released.

There is also an organisation that might look at the issue if you have been through the dispute procedure with the hire company. European Car Hire Organisation or something – I can find it for you if you like.

cancel your CC

Also demand FOIA info on all previous claims on the vehicle. you will find many people before you have already paid for the damage on this.

the branch should also have copies of all of the previous rental agreements and within each file should be the defect report which is filled in by them prior to each rental.

Ask to see each of them from new, upto, and after your rental. Either the damage will have been noted by the branch employee, or potentially each previous customer prior to each rental (and the same sheet should be used at the end of each rental and retained as well). If the damage isn’t on the rental after yours, then ask to see the manager, and inform them that they’re trying to fraudulently take money from your CC, and that you’ll be asking the cc company to take action against them.

If the damage is noted on the VDF ( and they’re carbon copies so it should be easy to tell if it’s been added subsequently) then they’ve got you by the bits, but for a £350.00 bill it’s worth a couple of hours of your time to look into it properly.

The damage, if there, will be fixed, but Enterprise have a fixed cost for defleet work when they return the car to the manufacturer. For the premium British manufacturers, that cost is (coincidentally) very close to your bill!!

Also demand FOIA info on all previous claims on the vehicle. you will find many people before you have already paid for the damage on this.

Talk me through how car hire companies fall under the FOIA?

the branch should also have copies of all of the previous rental agreements and within each file should be the defect report which is filled in by them prior to each rental.

Ask to see each of them from new..

I reckon that will go about as well as trying to use the FOIA against them. If they do show you the previous rental agreements (which they won’t) they’ll be breaching the DPA quite spectacularly, given the amount of private customer info contained therein.

There really is some shockingly crap advice in this thread.

From experience TLS, now merged with someone else thankfully, took vehicle back manger checked depthof tyres, and makes, and also engine parts for id marks, as they had hired vehicles out and had bits swopped over with other cars.

Enterprise, got a replacement van off them, due to mine being in an accident, 1.5 hours late picking me up to take to depot, they needed to prove where i lived,long check around new van and big details abvout how i was responsible for keeping it clean and damage free etc, opened side door and a laod of dead christmas fell out, lady with clipboard not at all happy.

Local car hire co, video made of me hireing car, google streetview search of address, and long detail about damage etc then only 200 miles per day.

Theyll always make sure they get their moneys worth out of you.

For the premium British manufacturers, that cost is (coincidentally) very close to your bill!![/QUOTE]

It was a Chevy Spark!