Car hire

[NotAllThere]

Rented a car last Thursday from SIXT at Gatwick. Handed it back the same day and went home. An employee inspected it on return and found no damage.

Now they're trying to stiff me for about £1800 worth of damage.

The thing is their photos show the contents of the boot. Since I was travelling with just a rucksack, it's kind of weird that I would have left two jackets in the boot.

I love that their communication is so aggressive. "You have seven days to dispute"... But the thing that really pisses me off is that they don't provide an address or email to which you can send your dispute.

[ladymuck]

If the employee accepted it, then surely they can't make a claim? Maybe they subsequently rented it out and the records were mixed up?

[NotAllThere]

I'm assuming incompetence.

Eventually got the email address, but had to go to customer service to get it, which is crap.

[willendure]

Phone your credit card provider and report the card you used to book it as stolen so that it is invalidated. Car hire companies are sneaky and always try and get you to book with a credit card, because that somehow allows them to make additional charges on the card without the need for you to explicitly approve them.

That is what I would do anyway.

[woody1]

Now they're trying to stiff me for about £1800 worth of damage.

What was the damage? Something you would have noticed when you picked up/returned the car?

[WTFH]

Phone your credit card provider and report the card you used to book it as stolen so that it is invalidated. …
That is what I would do anyway.

That would be immoral, and probably illegal.

[WTFH]

Rented a car last Thursday from SIXT at Gatwick. Handed it back the same day and went home. An employee inspected it on return and found no damage.

Now they're trying to stiff me for about £1800 worth of damage.

The thing is their photos show the contents of the boot. Since I was travelling with just a rucksack, it's kind of weird that I would have left two jackets in the boot.

I love that their communication is so aggressive. "You have seven days to dispute"... But the thing that really pisses me off is that they don't provide an address or email to which you can send your dispute.

Don’t you have annual car hire insurance?
I think mine was about £45 this year (used to be UK/EU only for £35, but had to upgrade to worldwide for our recent jaunt to RSA)

[NotAllThere]

What was the damage? Something you would have noticed when you picked up/returned the car?

The vehicle has suffered light to moderate damage to the right hand side roof, to the left hand rear bumper, and to
the left hand rear rail.

So, some scratches, some quite deep. And a dent in the roof! Yes, we carefully inspected the car before we even got into it. We'd have noticed!

Don’t you have annual car hire insurance?
I think mine was about £45 this year (used to be UK/EU only for £35, but had to upgrade to worldwide for our recent jaunt to RSA)

My credit card provides cover. But given that's not my stuff in the boot, it's clear that someone had access to the car after I handed it back.

I've raised a formal objection and I'll take it to the BVRLA if I have to. The onus is on them to prove that I caused the damage. Which they can't do.

[vwdan]

I've had poor experiences with Sixt. Thrifty I found to be quite difficult too.

I stick to Enterprise, Europcar and AVIS. They're all much of a muchness, really and I'm sure people have bad experiences with all of them but I've rented quite a few cars over the years and never had any issues with the latter 3