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jpschlecht
By jpschlecht | Community user | 3 Posts | 8 January 2013 at 11:52pm

Hi there,

I have encountered a very unpleasant incident with ****** Rental Cars. We were renting a Nissan Wingroad for 7 days. When returning it to the station, a guy randomly picked some little scratches at the front left rim and charged us 280 $ for that. Although it was obvious, that they have been there before. You could already see clear traces of corrosion. We didn't mention them in the first place, as they would occur on every car after regular usage. Not to mention, the Wingroad already did 120.000 kilometres. Is there any chance to get the money back? It would be great to get any kind of advice.

Thanks a lot in advance

JP

Anon
By Donavan | AA Expert | 1049 Posts | 9 January 2013 at 10:00am

When you collect a rental car it is important to check the vehicle over before signing the documents and driving off. You should note all the damages to the vehicle on the paperwork, no matter how irrelevant you might think it is, to cover yourself for cases like this. The only chance you have to get your money back is to sit down with the manager of the site and discuss the case with him/her. Hopefully he/she is reasonable and can see your point.

tjhull
By tjhull | AA Member | 85 Posts | 9 January 2013 at 10:14am

How about naming the company as a service to all members?

jpschlecht
By jpschlecht | Community user | 3 Posts | 9 January 2013 at 10:10pm

I named it and even added the adress, but somehow the webmaster erased the information...

Anon
By Donavan | AA Expert | 1049 Posts | 10 January 2013 at 9:08am

It's an unfortunate incident where the vehicle was presumably taken without damage and returned with damage. If the damage was noted when collecting the vehicle you would have a leg to stand on but in this case the rental company is well within their rights. This is a good example how signing documents without reading them can come back and bite you where it hurts most - your pocket. If you are sure the damage was there when you took the vehicle then that would indicate you saw the damage; you should’ve notified the company when you saw this before driving off. There are a lot of us who are guilty of signing car rental documents without reading them due to time constraints, etc., but it's worth taking the extra time to ensure you agree to the terms of the rental. Speak to the manager; hopefully you can come to some sort of reasonable agreement to sort out the problem.

jpschlecht
By jpschlecht | Community user | 3 Posts | 10 January 2013 at 10:29pm

Dear Donavan,

thank you very much for your quick reply! I definitely see your point and don't want to argue about it. Of course, checking the car thouroughly and mention everything in the papers before driving off is the real deal. Nonetheless, I wish I could send you the pictures I made from the rims. Every one of those scratches were well within regular usage. I didn't imagine they would pick on that afterwards. The next time I rent a car, I'll take 50 HD-pictures of the whole vehicle. I think it's the only way to be on the safe side.

Again, thank you very much for your advice.

Best regards

JP