Car Hire company is charging me extra – what can I do?
Irish News of the World
May, 2009
Diarmuid MacShane
Question:
I have just arrived back home after being away on holidays for a week where we hired a car. My wife just noticed a charge for an extra €600 on our credit card from the car hire company.
We rang them and they eventually told us that the charge was for damage to the car when we left it back at the airport.
I called my credit card company but they weren’t much help to me. Is there anything that I can do to get my money back?
Answer:
The key question that I would have to ask is whether you received any signed confirmation back from the car hire company when you left it back to them?
While many of us don’t think to do this, we should always get the car hire company staff to check the car before you leave and confirm on the document with the picture of the car on it that there is no damage.
It is important for us as customers to make sure that we get this signed evidence to prove that there was no damage done to the car when we left it back, so we should always make sure to leave enough time to get this check done on the car. This can be the only way to make sure that the car hire company doesn’t try any funny business once we’ve left the country.
2 Comments
I take the approach of automatic suspicion when dealing with car hire companies. I insist on inspecting the car with the rep at the beginning and again at the end. Then I request a signed form on the condition of the car. Some companies say they don’t do that and the general form covers it but just by being the difficult b*****ks you ensure that when they sit down to decide who to scam for extra money you’re last on the list.
WOW my over charge was only 300 and I was livid. One bit of advice that I have realized is that using a broker is the best possible solution.
I used okreserved They are a UK PLC company. When i had the problem i contacted them to see if they could help, and did they help, YES. The CEO of the company rang the car hire company for me and had it all solved within 24hrs and on my next statement I had a refund.
I think he told the company that they would not get any more reservations unless is was solved
Thanks OKreserved