vigneron

Hi !

We recently rented a Budget car in Canada.
We returned the vehicle and a budget employee took possession, read the kilometers, etc and then gave us our receipt and said we were OK to go.
Our contract clearly says "Renter is fully responsible for vehicle until vehicle is checked in and inspected by Budget staff".
We paid for the car rental with an AMEX card that has insurance on it.

Now in the mail we are receiving notice that our credit card is being charged an additional couple of hundred dollars for apparent damage to the car. I am certain we did not cause the damage. Here are some other interesting things I notice on the paperwork:

- The car rental agency has lodged a damage report 3 days after we finished renting the car.
- On the comments section of this report it says that it was checked in and damaged was noticed after checkin by another employee (and get this) "after he took it for a drive".

I have not had something like this happen before. Any advice on where I stand? I could pursue it with AMEX insurance, however I did not cause the damage. I inspected the car before we drove it to the checkin. I am hoping I should not be responsible, because they accepted the car at checkin.

Any advice on how I should handle this?

Thanks

randomman

Better than the insurance...take it up with AmEx as a disputed charge. They will fight your case for you.

Randomman

detouring

So what was the final outcome on this?

TRVLRZ

Ditto...

vigneron

Update:

Immediately contacted the Budget office, who referred me on to a "warranty claims" guy. He has continued to suggest that the check-in employee who walked around the vehicle, then sat in the driver's seat to read the odometer and then said "You are OK to go" does not constitute an inspection. I challenge this and have twice (16 Spet and 1 Oct) asked him to confirm he will refund the money and have not heard back from him.

My last contact from him was 16 Sept. He has stopped returning my emails.

I have now taken it AMEX as a disputed charge, and need to wait 30 days for the outcome.

I am also preparing to take it to someone more senior at Budget next week. Not sure who.

Will advise outcome. Not looking good.

srodr

Anything new on this? I'm hoping you fight it out.

TRVLRZ

First I heard of that! Do they have a trained specialist to do inspections? I would ask to see that in their (Budgets) starndard operating procedures. It sounds like they are making up the rules as they go along.
Good luck, I hope you beat this!

vigneron

Update!

Got the name of the immediate superior of the car rental employee I had been dealing with. Left three or four messages for both, asking them to please call me to confirm status. Did not recve another call back or email response.

At the same time I phone AMEX and lodged a dispute on the amount. A week later they sent me a request for supporting information. I mailed them all the emails I had from the car rental rep, and the paperwork that the car rental company had sent me (a receipt showing the additional amount charged, the incident report filled out four days after we returned the car with the comments about another employee driving before damage was noticed, etc).

I then went overseas for several weeks. I checked the online AMEX account and it was reimbrused and then re-deducted a few times. So I have been waiting to return home to see what official paperwork I have been mailed.

I am home. There is a much-appreciated letter from AMEX confirming that it was investigated and that the amount has been reversed. I won't be responsible for the amount.

Oh, and still have heard nothing back from the car guys.

But what a waste of my time!!

Jeeves

Job well done by AMEX!

Why is it that the car rental business is plagued by all these scam-artist tactics?

All of the hard sell insurance pitches, the crazy discount codes, the refueling options, etc. You would think that someone could come up with a simplified rental program that is easy to use and treats the customer with some dignity.

vigneron

I am becoming disgusted.

Today I recvd a letter from the accounts dept of the car rental agency (dated 15Dec) stating that the AMEX payment has been reversed and that I am to pay (by Dec 20) the amount in full otherwise I will be charged 2percent per month, they will make disparaging comments on my credit report and they will hand it over to a debt collection agency.

Who can I take this to to make it stop? My phone calls to the agency in the past have not been returned and the letter clearly states "this will be your last contact from budget". Should I phone up the name on this letter (in the accounts department) or do they have no authority? A BBB in Vancouver - or is that a waste of time?

Any help would be appreciated. I am furious!

Italian_Kayaker

They can threaten all they like, and they obviously will, to try and intimidate you into paying. But there is really nothing they can do:

1. The interest they charge you is irrelevant, since you will never pay them anyway.

2. The "comments on the credit report" are an empty threat, given that (a) they are not a financial institution, and so cannot report data to any credit bureau (b) Canadian financial institutions have no links with US credit reporting companies, (c) they most likely do not have your Social Security number

3. The debt collection agency is again irrelevant, since you will never pay anything to either Budget or any of their collectors.

Personally, I keep all such letters and paste them all over my garage. Then, when I look at them, I get a big grin, thinking that here is another scam artist who tried to con me and failed!

vigneron

Letter from Budget says it will refer the matter onto an international debt collection agency. They can damage my FICO score.

Do they have my SSC? Don't know. Its on my drivers licence. Perhaps I showed them that at check-in, can't remember. Maybe it is on Budget's file?

I'm not excited about waiting six months for this to become a bigger pain in the rear. Would like to resolve it now. Any ideas how to get this to stop?

Beckles

I never remember reading this post before, or I would have told you much earlier (when it could have made a difference) what I'm about to tell you now ...

If you have AMEX insurance that would have covered the car, it was not very smart of you not to make a claim against that insurance and only dispute the charge with AMEX. You should do this ANY TIME a rental car is damaged, even if you fully expect another party to be responsible for the damages, it costs you nothing but some time and assures you of a back up in case things don't happen as you expect. I've had rental cars damage three times, in two cases I knew I was not responsible financially for the damages, but I still made sure to file my AMEX/Diners Club insurance paperwork JUST IN CASE.

The problem now is that I believe it's too late to file an insurance claim with AMEX, I'm pretty sure at best their time limit is 90 days.

Also, it's pretty common that a rental car company can claim damage after you drop off the car, I'm sure that's in the rental contract language somewhere. Your argument that the car was accepted really has little value in this case.

Italian_Kayaker

Debt collection agencies, whether "international" or not, cannot damage (nor improve) any FICO score.

Anyway, if you really want to get them to stop, you can always just pay them whatever they demand. As an alternative, you could also write to them, deny that you owe them anything, and threaten to sue for libel; but if they have half a brain, they would just laugh at that.

Good luck!

vigneron

Thanks for both postings.

It looks like I could have handled this much better than I have. My moral compass didn't think it was right to lodge an insurance claim. And, becuase I've rented cars several times each year and never had this problem, I assumed this was an anomoly and I had a justifiable position.

Thanks for the food for thought.