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(STW Driving God Progress-Making update)
I disputed 3x 30EUR charges made by a hire company on my cc recently. The bank say it's because I racked up 3 speeding fines on the day I hired a car in Gran Canaria, and these are the hire company's admin charges for passing my details on to the police or whatever.
Fair enough. Looks like I can expect the actual fines from the Spanish police at some point.
Except that, looking at the tickets, they all seem to have occurred several hours after i handed back the car, and all on a road that i didn't drive. Has anyone experienced similar? What can i do? This might leave me about £300 out of pocket which would be a pretty expensive day out....
If the tickets are after the hire should be easy u less the time is when it was filed rather than spotted? Does the hire company have UK offices?
I think I'd be tempted to get onto the credit card company in the first instance about the incorrect charges.
Problem will be if a fine comrs through from the police, that'll be trickier.
ah
Context 1: I did dispute the 3 charges when they appeared on my bill, and the CC company promptly removed them. Today's letter was them saying "Turns out the charges were kosher, here are 3 photocopies of some random Spanish traffic fines, we're going to reinstate the charges"
Context 2: It was not an internationally recognised car hire company. Their only office is this one. It had good reviews and was handily close to my apartment, while all the usual companies didn't have anything within 20 miles.
I acknowledge now that I may have been overly optimistic.
I've had this twice now. Pretty similar, an alleged traffic offence and an admin fee from the hire co. Both times I don't think there was any offence and certainly no other fines or charges came through, just the hire co admin fee. First time I complained bitterly to the hire co, got no joy so just slagged them off on Facebook. Second time I took it up with the credit card company. They seemed pretty keen to pay it and only cancelled the charge after repeated hassling and the hire co being very uncommunicative. Awkward situation and getting worse.
oh. balls.
Look on buscamultas.com to verify if there is an actual penalty. You need the reg no and nie, pm me if u have no nie as i can look for you. If the penalties happened is your return confirmation timed, or do u have proof ofairport check in.
Thanks for the tip poolman.
I had a look on that site, and was a bit confused - it didn't seem to ask for a NIE (I don't know what that is, or where I'd find it). It asked for a DNI and/or Matricula, but would only take one or the other, not both.
Whichever I searched for, there was only one result: a fine from last June. So either these 3 don't really exist, or haven't been processed yet (tho it's now been over 3 months), or i'm not searching properly!
bumchunks.
Doris - nie and dni are the same, its a spanish residents id number. Matricula is the car reg, i dont know how soon the fines are posted but after 3 months, if it were me, i d think i d be in the clear.
Keep looking though as fines rack up over time.
Ok i have just looked at the buscamultas site and i think if you download the app you can create an alert for your reg. This will save you keep searching. Even if the hire co is sitting on the penalty it should show up as its the reg you re searching on.
Good luck, pm me if u need any help.
so, the fines just turned up, some 5 months after the fact. The scam seems to be this:
1. I handed back the car, no paperwork because there just happened to be a carnival procession blocking access to the office (!) so he came out to meet me. No proof, no airport evidence because we flew 2 days later
2. Matey smiles and shakes hands
3. Later that evening he rags it up and down the main road
4. The police come knocking, he gives them my details and charges me 90 euros for it
5. The police send the fines to the handy mug (me)
6. He pockets 90 euros while i cough up another 150
😡
Do you have location history turned on on an Android phone, or the apple equivalent? Might prove when you handed the car back.
I'd say last option is to contact the local cops and try and report fraud to them, then speak to the manager or most senior person you can in the airport or the company that owns them about the fraud that is going on. Not chance the tickets were after the end of the booked hire period?
Surely they have to prove who the driver was, rather than just say it was you ?
If you contest the ticket with whoever issued it and say “it wasn’t me driving” can anyone prove it was ?
Without knowing the circs, I'd be alleging the equivalents of a) fraud and b) perverting the course of justice to both the CC company and police
What evidence is there for the speeding? Camera? (seems likely if it's being pursued via the hire company) Hand-written ticket? (doubt the driver would have your name, etc to give)
Were they going to refuel post-hire? How was that paid for?
Any CC payments made by you post-hire, GPS trackers, phone, etc will all tend to disprove their case
Surely they have to prove who the driver was, rather than just say it was you ?
If you contest the ticket with whoever issued it and say “it wasn’t me driving” can anyone prove it was ?
I think you'd want local legal advice before jumping down that route. The laws of evidence may be rather different, and if the hire company have a signed contract from the hirer and then have recorded the vehicle as returned at X time, some countries would default to the hirer being responsible for the conduct of the vehicle and the obligation being on the hirer to then show who was driving if not themselves.
Whilst I'm not saying the OP should just roll over - the lesson here is he needs to get proof of the handover in future.
Hypothetically speaking, what’s the worst that can happen if you just send a letter saying that it wasn’t you? They aren’t going to request extradition about a speeding fine, are they? Because if they can ‘prove’ something that categorically isn’t true, then that says a lot about that country’s justice system.
Hypothetically speaking, what’s the worst that can happen if you just send a letter saying that it wasn’t you?
Ticket presented to the hire car company, they collect the fine (have collected from OP's credit card) they add on a handling fee (which dodgy operator now just put in his pocket) and the OP can't appeal the fine/ticket.
Cancel the credit card they have on file ASAP (if you haven’t already.
(and make sure when cancelling you tell the cc company that it is due to a dodgy hire car company that you don’t trust having the details and wanting to avoid bogus charges.)
So, as above, cancel and forget about it then. Job dun.
read the OP, this is 2 months down the line....
read the OP, this is 2 months down the line….
fines arrived yesterday.