[Closed] Hire car blues

I like to say profiteroles, but not sure that helps.

I'd probably say "bollocks, and then **** off you stupid ****ing robbing ****s" before ringing the insurance company I use for annual car-rental excess cover.

I say you probably haven't got much choice. Its their car. As long as they provide a receipt for work done. Its unfortunately part of the crazy business model of rental these days. Insurance4carhire all the way.

The company the girlfriend works for use hire cars on a daily basis. The company also employ somebody whose sole job is to deal with these kind of claims/disputes as they are so frequent.

I think I'll push it a bit further.

Ta

Back in the day, when I used to rent cars in Greece, I always took the wheel trims off as soon as I got the car and put them back on again just before returning it.
To save all this sort of bollocks, obviously.

As mentioned, insurance4carhire. Cost me less than £40 for a year, so less than 2 days cost Hertz wanted for a car I ended up with for 3 weeks.

No use to you now mind

Whats the excess on your insurance4hire car? I'd suspect the 100 is close to the normal excess on those policies.

I rarely rent cars, and Mike's comment needs answered!

Going to nag them about it more.

Whats the excess on your insurance4hire car? I'd suspect the 100 is close to the normal excess on those policies.

no excess. It is excess insurance so pays the excess charged by the hire company (which is often £500-£1000 but could be more!). If there were an excess you'd need excess excess insurance

Indeed - this is in contrast to the excess waiver cover offered by the hire cos themselves which often reduce the excess rather than remove it - so in this instance if Al had taken the hire co's own cover he's probably still be putting his hand in his pocket for £100 or so, if he'd taken stand alone cover then he'd pay nothing.

I rarely rent cars,

If you think you might do it for more than two days a year its worth while getting your own policy.

Think you can also get short term/single trip excess insurance too.
Too late now for you but worth considering next time.
Added benefit is that you only need ever take out the most basic insurance that the hire car company offer, as your excess policy covers everything else you'd ever need to claim.

In a similar situation (although disputing the damage was caused whilst in my care) I asked for photos of the damage, invoice for the repair and photos to show the damage had been repaired. Never heard from them again.

I had excess insurance, but that's not the point!

in a former job I had to hire and return lots of vehicles, often getting the same ones back days and weeks later.

I would regularly be a witness to arguments about 'damage'. The best I saw was one over a chip to a windscreen that they claim needed to be replaced and paid for. There was damage but as we know this happens to many people before they actually replace the screen. The bloke without getting irate, cancelled his credit card with the bank and then put the jack from the vehicle through the windscreen and settled the cost of it in cash. Part of me thinks it was pre planned but the look on the hire companies jobsworths face was priceless.

Last time I hired a car in the UK was for an airport run, Newcastle to London due to some **** in admin cocking up our connecting flight.

Raced down, door to door, rather a short period of time.

Dropped the car off at Heathrow, at night, guy automatically gets down and looks at the front to tell me the bumper is cracked. Got his boss out to tell me the same.

I hadn't noticed it when I picked it up. They were rabbitting on about paying for it from the insurance. I pointed out that I had just driven down the motorway less than five hours after picking the car up and the chances of me having the opportunity to damage it were slim. Speeding tickets yes, damage to the front bumper no.

They seemed pleased with this reasoning and told me not to worry about it.