Rental Car Additional Payment - Do I have a leg to stand on?
Discussion
AlexIT said:
I had a very similar experience not long ago.
Booked the car through one of these companies, with special offer which included full cover.
At counter the Lady asks if I wanted full insurance, said I booked through company, made me sign full cover, took credit card details.
Later on I found on Credit Card details the cost of the booking (including insurance) + 30 € insurance.
The following month I had automatically 30 € credited back from Booking site without any intervention from my side.
This was at Frankfurt airport.
If you want I can PM you site and Rental company details.
Thanks, I spoke to the booking site but they refused to do anything on the phone and asked me to fill in their web form instead. I searched "rental cars" and if you add dot com to that you get the booking site I used. This rental business "hurts".Booked the car through one of these companies, with special offer which included full cover.
At counter the Lady asks if I wanted full insurance, said I booked through company, made me sign full cover, took credit card details.
Later on I found on Credit Card details the cost of the booking (including insurance) + 30 € insurance.
The following month I had automatically 30 € credited back from Booking site without any intervention from my side.
This was at Frankfurt airport.
If you want I can PM you site and Rental company details.
Had a similar thing once with a Hire company, think Captain Kirk's Spaceship!
The 'advisor' correctly informed me of this 'Super Waiver' & iirc tyre insurance was what he was selling me & also proved to me it would have been cheaper to do all insurance when I collected the car & not taken anything from the Comparison site.
No need to tell you what I do now.
Good luck sorting this, it's quite unfair when often time is of the essence @ the collection point.
The 'advisor' correctly informed me of this 'Super Waiver' & iirc tyre insurance was what he was selling me & also proved to me it would have been cheaper to do all insurance when I collected the car & not taken anything from the Comparison site.
No need to tell you what I do now.
Good luck sorting this, it's quite unfair when often time is of the essence @ the collection point.
interstellar said:
I think the credit card chargeback is the best course.
I'd agree - worst case is you won't be able to use that website/that hire company with that card again (some companies block chargebacked cards as fraud automatically)They could fire-off a small-claims court action against you for the money but that seems kinda unlikely given the sums involved (and I'd say you had a high chance of winning that)
To be clear tho, when you say you used a website - was it just a 'GoCompare' which referred you to the hire company's site or did you do all the booking through the third-party website??
Check what you've been billed-for too - if everything went to 'car hire company' then you've definately been ripped-off - if the charges are to different companies (e.g. the third-party company sells separate insurance) you'll see that on the bill??
405dogvan said:
To be clear tho, when you say you used a website - was it just a 'GoCompare' which referred you to the hire company's site or did you do all the booking through the third-party website??
Check what you've been billed-for too - if everything went to 'car hire company' then you've definately been ripped-off - if the charges are to different companies (e.g. the third-party company sells separate insurance) you'll see that on the bill??
Booked through the comparison site and this shows as two charges on my statement (one per rental). I have two separate charges from the rental company themselves.Check what you've been billed-for too - if everything went to 'car hire company' then you've definately been ripped-off - if the charges are to different companies (e.g. the third-party company sells separate insurance) you'll see that on the bill??
When you hire a car you are protected for third party and total loss, that is it.
Anything else is paid for or the excess is used, usually around €900-1200.
So small scratch at £400 you pay the £400, £2500 worth of body work needed you pay the excess.
You can add full protection which means there is no excess at all, so any damage incurred they have to sort.
This is generally very expensive though, normally about 80-100% as much again as the car hire price.
What you took out was insurance to cover the excess charge or any bills like the scratch at £400.
If you got billed at all you would speak to the people you took cover out with and they would refund you.
What happened was you got there and then bought the car hires excess waiver cover too, but you already had this, just purchased through a third party, you didn't need it.
This place is well regarded and has a one of fee of £39 for the year.
http://www.insurance4carhire.com/european-car-hire...
Edit: Every Hire Car Company I know will try and scare you into taking their insurance out, just be firm and say no.
Anything else is paid for or the excess is used, usually around €900-1200.
So small scratch at £400 you pay the £400, £2500 worth of body work needed you pay the excess.
You can add full protection which means there is no excess at all, so any damage incurred they have to sort.
This is generally very expensive though, normally about 80-100% as much again as the car hire price.
What you took out was insurance to cover the excess charge or any bills like the scratch at £400.
If you got billed at all you would speak to the people you took cover out with and they would refund you.
What happened was you got there and then bought the car hires excess waiver cover too, but you already had this, just purchased through a third party, you didn't need it.
This place is well regarded and has a one of fee of £39 for the year.
http://www.insurance4carhire.com/european-car-hire...
Edit: Every Hire Car Company I know will try and scare you into taking their insurance out, just be firm and say no.
gizlaroc said:
What happened was you got there and then bought the car hires excess waiver cover too, but you already had this, just purchased through a third party, you didn't need it.
In hindsight yes, I realise this. My disappointment is that despite telling the agent at the desk "I booked with full insurance" he took that as "please give me full insurance" and pretty much doubled my hire costs.As I say, I feel it was mis-sold to me and I was taken advantage of by being asked to initial the slip having been told it was just "to make the insurance valid" and not "to accept further insurance".
I'd respond just arguing that you explained you had full coverage and the person at the desk was misleading in not explaining what the additional items were, and just instructed you to initial them, implying that it was necessary to do so to be able to collect the vehicle.
The company I work for sells a large number of car hire excess policies and we get numerous reports of rental desk employees saying all sorts of things, eg. "we don't accept that insurance" even when it's no business of theirs that the customer even has that cover (they are electing to pay the full excess, whether they have insured themselves for that is irrelevant). Practically all of the complaints are from Mediterranean holiday destinations.
Credit card companies have full teams of people who work on car hire chargebacks, one mentioned that a quarter of their time was spend dealing with just one company.
edit: This literally just popped up on the BBC News site:
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/drivers-to-bene...
The company I work for sells a large number of car hire excess policies and we get numerous reports of rental desk employees saying all sorts of things, eg. "we don't accept that insurance" even when it's no business of theirs that the customer even has that cover (they are electing to pay the full excess, whether they have insured themselves for that is irrelevant). Practically all of the complaints are from Mediterranean holiday destinations.
Credit card companies have full teams of people who work on car hire chargebacks, one mentioned that a quarter of their time was spend dealing with just one company.
edit: This literally just popped up on the BBC News site:
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/drivers-to-bene...
Edited by Gareth79 on Friday 1st July 18:43
romeogolf said:
12TS said:
2pad said:
I would go to lengths to put this company out of business. Scum.
Give me a hint...can't work it out! Blue maybe? If so I'd not heard of them. Had some very nice Audis, BMWs, Mercs, and even a Mini Countryman once. Never quite figured it all out...
gizlaroc said:
When you hire a car you are protected for third party and total loss, that is it.
Anything else is paid for or the excess is used, usually around €900-1200.
So small scratch at £400 you pay the £400, £2500 worth of body work needed you pay the excess.
You can add full protection which means there is no excess at all, so any damage incurred they have to sort.
This is generally very expensive though, normally about 80-100% as much again as the car hire price.
What you took out was insurance to cover the excess charge or any bills like the scratch at £400.
If you got billed at all you would speak to the people you took cover out with and they would refund you.
What happened was you got there and then bought the car hires excess waiver cover too, but you already had this, just purchased through a third party, you didn't need it.
This place is well regarded and has a one of fee of £39 for the year.
http://www.insurance4carhire.com/european-car-hire...
Edit: Every Hire Car Company I know will try and scare you into taking their insurance out, just be firm and say no.
Yup, I took out a one-hire policy for £11 something and it covered a £600 bill. Definitely do this. Ignore the hire companies altogether (which will, of course, just raise the actual hire costs in the longer terms as the hire companies seek their profit in the traditional location). Anything else is paid for or the excess is used, usually around €900-1200.
So small scratch at £400 you pay the £400, £2500 worth of body work needed you pay the excess.
You can add full protection which means there is no excess at all, so any damage incurred they have to sort.
This is generally very expensive though, normally about 80-100% as much again as the car hire price.
What you took out was insurance to cover the excess charge or any bills like the scratch at £400.
If you got billed at all you would speak to the people you took cover out with and they would refund you.
What happened was you got there and then bought the car hires excess waiver cover too, but you already had this, just purchased through a third party, you didn't need it.
This place is well regarded and has a one of fee of £39 for the year.
http://www.insurance4carhire.com/european-car-hire...
Edit: Every Hire Car Company I know will try and scare you into taking their insurance out, just be firm and say no.
I received a reply from AmEx after disputing the charge. They say that they have received sufficient 'evidence' to support the charge and have reapplied it to my account.
The evidence supplied is the signed slip below which, as explained, I only signed as I thought it was to make insurance I had purchased through the booking site valid.
I'm not sure where else to go from here. Any advice?
The evidence supplied is the signed slip below which, as explained, I only signed as I thought it was to make insurance I had purchased through the booking site valid.
I'm not sure where else to go from here. Any advice?
dxg said:
Yup, I took out a one-hire policy for £11 something and it covered a £600 bill. Definitely do this. Ignore the hire companies altogether (which will, of course, just raise the actual hire costs in the longer terms as the hire companies seek their profit in the traditional location).
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