Scratch to bumper to Hertz car rental in Croatia, 250 euro charge!

[rob30]

I was in Croatia, and rented a Opel Vectra. There were scratches along the right hand side, which were pointed out to me when I rented it.
I do not recall hitting anything, but on my return, the agent pointed out a small scratch on the left bumper.
The insurance excess was 1200 euro. I opted for this, as the total cover was really expensive.
I have photographed the damage, and have all the paperwork from Hertz. The car rental was 400 euro, and the damage fee was 250 euro.

I had to cough up, as I was flying home. I am galled at the estimate for the repair. As the car was rented to me with many scratches on it already, it does not seem that the car would have been out of action for long from the scratch they say I caused.

Has anyone contested this afterward and had any success? I am not contesting the scratch, I accept that since I did not pont it out before taking the car, that it can only be presumed that I caused it.

 

[ClubMan]

I doubt that you can do anything about it now given that you paid up and left the country. At the very least dealing with them at this remove will surely be difficult?

 

[RS2K]

You've no chance of success in this. Move on.

 

[Guest106]

This is no win territory for the customer, I assure you.
Had an incident in New Zealand with them previously and they are absolutely rigid on their own position.
In my case, I had no ding with the car but they found a wheel-arch ding that I was convinced was on it before me but they stonewalled and I got nowhere.
File under 'Experience'.

 

[Bronte]

You've no chance of success in this. Move on.

This is not true, I once rented a car in France and they said we did 500 Euro worth of damage, as we were flying back we had no time to do anything about it, that's when these companies strike, with the pressure of a plane to catch. Anyway we wrote to Hertz (might have been Avis) in Ireland complaining that we didn't do any damage and asking to see the invoice of the repair. They looked into it and we weren't charged anything. After this we've always paid for having no excess and more recently gotton out insurance to cover the excess. Some companies actually don't do each repair individually, they do all repairs in one go and they get x amount of customers to pay for the same repair which increases their profits and in some cases they just sell the car at the end of the season and don't do any repairs at all.

 

[Frank Zappa]

Well you could always go on the Internet and tell everyone not to rent cars from Hertz!!!!!!!!!

 

[bond-007]

The lesson here is to always take the no excess insurance option. It may cost a few euro more but it is sure worth it.

 

[ubiquitous]

The lesson here is to always take the no excess insurance option. It may cost a few euro more but it is sure worth it.

There's no point in insuring against any minor loss that would not impact significantly on your finances if realised. For example, it makes no sense to pay €50 to insure against a €250 loss.

 

[bond-007]

There's no point in insuring against any minor loss that would not impact significantly on your finances if realised. For example, it makes no sense to pay €50 to insure against a €250 loss.

Really? In in case above you are up €200 straight away.

Some car rental firms have excesses in the order of €500 to €1000 if you don't opt for the extra coverage. It should be noted that if anything happens they charge you the full excess however small the damage.

Also paying the small bit extra also gives added peace of mind. Personally I would not be able to put a value on that.