omarcrysis

I have a story/question: recently I rented a car with my Discover It card and proceeded to run over a large stone 5 days into the rental. When I returned the car to the rental agency, they insisted on charging me 4000 dollars for damage that at most should have costed 1000USD. The problem came when I realized I didn't have enough credit available on the card to cover the charge and had to pay with other cards as well. My question is: will discover reimburse me for the 4000? I charged the full rental amount to the card (101USD) but not the damages (only 1300 to the card).

A few things to note: Original return report only notes damage to car and nothing detailed.

Some random mechanic at the agency decided 4000 was the number and only after 4 days are they able to "justify" the 4000k with a expense summary written in COMIC SANS font. Somehow the mechanic magically guessed exactly how much each piece was going to cost, including some damage i know for a fact neither he nor I knew about at the time of me being charged.

why did I pay up you may ask? Agency reps told me they'd call the police and I wouldn't be able to leave the country if I didn't pay that day. I was scared and disoriented.

Car: Kia Rio. 50k miles on odometer. 14k USD NEW.

Thanks in advance!!

garykung

As soon as the entire amount is charged to the card, you are covered.

It is entirely up to you how you want to deal with the insurance payout with the adjuster if approved. Most insurance claims will usually be paid by checks. Why? Easiest to deal with.

I feel for you. But FWIW - it is a civil dispute. The worst is the police can only make a record of the incident. There is nothing criminal in this case (unless you intentionally damaged the car).

omarcrysis

garykung -

Thank you for the reply and assurance! I'll update this thread as I get notifications from Discover and the rental agency so anyone wondering can find out the steps and results.

AllieKat

How can you say that when he didn't say what country this happened in? Some countries, it can be a lot worse...

garykung

I choose not to comment further.

When you use the "some countries" argument, there will be always outliners.

It will be simply an endless argument.

rbAA

I have found that there are few countries outside the US that accept Discover.

AllieKat

There are a lot, including China, where your legal rights may be very different.

reclusive46

Diners Club is accepted by pretty much any major rental company on most places in the world. It could have literally been anywhere.

omarcrysis

TL;DR:
if you pay a rental agency for damages to a vehicle with multiple cards, discover (and presumably other card companies) will pay out the whole amount regardless of the majority of the bill being on other cards. I also paid the agency approximately 1,300 dollars in cash, which was also returned.

moral of the story: read very well the terms and conditions of your card's car insurance and MAKE A POLICE REPORT. also get everything translated, it'll make it a lot quicker.

-------------------------

To anyone who might have been following this thread or stumbles upon it by accident:

The final decision from the insurance agency that discover uses (i think mine was some company under chubb group... can't remember who) was that my claim was ACCEPTED!!!

I was surprised by this as I told them by phone that I collided with a rock. I did not mention to them that such a collision was not covered by the included insurance on my card, and was specifically told by a Discover rep that they don't cover it; they only cover collisions with other vehicles.

In any case, they covered it.

for who is wondering, I submitted all requested documents minus the police report/incident report (unless you consider that sheet of paper that details the condition the car was returned in as a "incident report") and my lack of primary US insurance (which i don't have anyway).

It did take them 6 months to approve my claim, though I'd venture to say its more my fault for not translating the documents which were mostly in spanish (it was in a south american country that the crash occurred). They normally require you to translate them before submitting, which they don't mention in the claim process.

Why did they approve me? i have no idea really... I thought they would deny me. The lady from the insurance agency that I spoke to was very nice and she told me they had to ask friend to help them translate the documents.. so I might have just run into a bit of luck with her. although I was very nice and polite to her and remembered her name, so maybe that helped.

of the 4,100 they sent me a check for about 3,850. the discrepancy was due to exchange rate fluctuations and I was definitely not complaining!

in the end it was Payless that profited the most from all of this as they got to buy 500 worth of new parts for their car and made a 3500 profit to boot! Damn them.

have a nice day everyone.