Fraud in the car hire industry (overcharging for repairs).

[FN2TypeR]

Otispunkmeyer said:

My experience of US hire places is that they don't seem to care much!

Most of the cars I have hired over there tend to have something scuffed, dented or bent. No one seems to worry about it.

I visit Houston for work on a semi regular basis and use Hertz - they don't seem to care at all in my experience, providing that the fuel tank is full they print the receipt chitty out and send me on my way no questions asked

I have used Thrifty here in the UK on a few occasions, they had a depot that was a 300 yard walk from my old flat, their pricing was good on each occasion and whilst their excess costs were pretty high they were also reasonable about wear and tear, I hired a car and drove it from Aberdeen to London, via Huddersfield (home town) and it acquired a few stone chips along the way, one of them was a fairly hefty one too - they didn't have a problem with that at all and I went waaaaaaaaay over the daily mileage allowance, I expected a bill a bill upon my return but the staff member never said a word, I'm not sure if he didn't notice or didn't care but I certainly wasn't complaining!

[Uggers]

Best hire car I've ever had was in Tenerife, where the lady of the hire company circled the entire car. It was clean, tidy and drove fine. Yet there wasn't a single panel that wasn't scraped dented or cracked. Carefree hire!

I had the full cover in Italy as I know the driving is somewhat more enthusiastic than ours. Approaching a hairpin corner, a truck coming down left me no where to go on my side of the road. Was the wall or the truck, so picked the wall. Gave the car back to Avis with the wing mirror hanging off and both arches scraped to hell. Was relieved I had the full cover then.

I was pinged for a scratch in the clearcoat on a black Focus rental. This was on the sill where the rental guy had to get on his knees to point it out to me. When I picked it up it was raining and the cars were jammed in like they always do, no chance of me seeing it then. My company covered this, but it has made me aware to check very carefully, as the hire companies look at any means to extract more money out of the hire.

[JuniorD]

Uggers said:

Best hire car I've ever had was in Tenerife, where the lady of the hire company circled the entire car. It was clean, tidy and drove fine. Yet there wasn't a single panel that wasn't scraped dented or cracked. Carefree hire!
.

Let me guess, Autoreisen?

Following an recommendation on PH years ago, I have used this outfit in Tenerife quite a few times now. They are great; the cost to hire is practically for nothing and they don't appear to care about damage what so ever. As you say, carefree hire.

[xjay1337]

Otispunkmeyer said:

gtidriver said:

I remember a chap on here saying how he was billed for a scuffed bumper only to hire the car a time later and it was the same car with the same scuff. Cant remember the out come, sure someone will find it

Well they aren't going to repair it while they still have it are they? They'll do that at the end and do it all at once.


Then again


I bought an ex-rental car and it did have a huge scrape on bumper. It was touched in, cack-handedly, with a paint match pot and flogged at auction. I bet Hertz charged the person who did it a small fortune, then handed it to the body shop intern to prep for sale.

Still, £220 had a mobile paint repair guy sort it all out good as new and the car is otherwise in excellent shape, just above average miles for only being a year old (plenty of life on the brakes, alignment spot on, clutch fine, not been smoked in...though there was a biro mark in the head lining for some reason. Not bothered though, it was cheap).

If they are repairing cars at the end of the term then that's fine.
But I personally think they should be repairing the vehicles "as they go"... surely a well maintained vehicle is less likely to be abused, and likewise if I paid £250 to a hire company and found out they hadn't repaired it (they obviously spent it on some other ste) then I would be very very annoyed.

[Sheepshanks]

Otispunkmeyer said:

anonymous said:

[redacted]

My experience of US hire places is that they don't seem to care much!

Most of the cars I have hired over there tend to have something scuffed, dented or bent. No one seems to worry about it.

At least for Brits on all-inclusive insurance, there's no excess so minor damage doesn't matter.

I'm sure I read that car insurance excesses are illegal anyway in most States, although there was some suggestion of them being brought in.

[B'stard Child]

Otispunkmeyer said:

anonymous said:

[redacted]

My experience of US hire places is that they don't seem to care much!

Most of the cars I have hired over there tend to have something scuffed, dented or bent. No one seems to worry about it.

Wait till you get one that is a bit fussy - you might regret having not taken before and after pics - they came in very handy one year for me and following that fun and games I started taking pictures at the point of drop off so they knew it.

[ian in lancs]

I alway take before and after pictures.

[Spanglepants]

Friend of mine has just received a car from Europcar, told her of this thread and we've taken video, photos and notes of every mark on the car. Two guys dropping it off didn't seem too impressed with having to wait while we did so.

[BlackLabel]

Two thirds of hire car customers billed for repairs are being overcharged, a Which? investigation has found. Repair bills are typically three times larger than the actual cost of the repair, the consumer watchdog established in the study which looked at cases relating to multiple car firms across European countries. In extreme cases charges were as high as 30 times the true cost of the repair, it found. It comes after a Daily Telegraph investigation revealed that Europcar UK was grossly inflating the cost of repair work for customers by up to 300pc through secret deals with repair firms, which lawyers described as "fraudulent".

[Moonhawk]

ian in lancs said:

I alway take before and after pictures.

Yep this.

I have even been saved by doing this buying a used car from a main dealer too.

Found damage on the car, and when I told the main dealer about it - they denied all knowledge. Luckily I had taken a photo of the car on the forecourt the week before we picked it up - and it showed the damage.

They reluctantly agreed to put it right.