Sixt - HELP- Sixt claims I damaged their car

I could use some help.

I rented a car from Sixt a week ago, and today i received a letter indicating there was a "dent in the bumper > 3cm". They have asked me to complete a respose and send to them.

I picked up the car at FRA airport and only drove the car to my son's home and back and know it was not damaged during my rental.

I only had the car for a few hours (i was connecting in FRA from Asia back to my home in the US). When returning the car, it was checked by the attendant who said it was "ok". I then went into the terminal to do the payment since i wanted to pay for the car in cash with some extra Euro from my trip.

I will complete their form as requested, but am wondering if anyone has advice on this situation, or has experienced it. I'm very annoyed about this experience. I'm a SIXT platinum (status match) but have only had a few rentals from them because they are usually more expensive, even with the platinum discount.

Any suggestions? Much appreciated- thanks.

European car rental companies (incl. Sixt) can be very picky, when it comes to even minuscle "damages" on their cars. It pays to take extra time to inspect a car and have every little bit recorded & signed by an agent before leaving the lot.

It appears to me, since there was no damage pointed out as your responsibility when you returned the car, you should be fine. You paid and got your receipt, done deal. Further, in case of any dispute, in minor cdase like yours they might be hard pressed to legally proceed against a person residing overseas.

It seems damage recovery units are profit centers at some of those companies.

It seems damage recovery units are profit centers at some of those companies.

In some cases, perhaps. More likely, they're just subsidizing the damage they're unable to collect on.

In my experience in the U.S., you can figure, on average, about $1,000 of noncollectable damage on each car each year. (That's not counting what isn't collected because of agency-sold LDW coverage.)

Just write something like "it was not me, I did not remember any damage ...", most likely you will never get a reply.

Did you get a check-in report upon returning the car by the attendant?
If so and as long as it says "no damage" you are absolutely safe.
Just send a copy to SIXT and no one will bother you.

But normally, it´s sufficient to send them the damage-report with the statement that damage not has been caused during your rental.

Agree with the others, they do look at the cars VERY carefully when you drop it off. Once you get that piece of paper, you're free to go.

In the old days, they did not have people inspecting cars at drop-off and there were a lot of nightmares associated with that.

Thanks all for the advice- I'll let you know where i get with them.