??? scary letter after I returned our rental car

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<p>Okay, so I was at orientation with my daughter and we had a rental car. I returned the car safe and sound on Monday, July 14th - the date my reservation had the car reserved through.</p>

<p>Today when I got home from work I opened up a letter dated Friday the 18th saying Date of Loss: 7/13/2008 saying that “The Recovery Department has received a Loss/Damage Report on the vehicle you rented from us.” Of course I tried to call the contact number on the bottom of the form to see what the problem was but they are closed til 9 central time tomorrow.</p>

<p>I am pretty sure I can find the receipt the guy gave me when I turned the car in. He walked around the car, checked the mileage and made sure I had filled the car with gas, gave me my receipt, and said “You’re good to go” or something like that - I didn’t sneak off without finishing the check in. But now this letter. The letter says report any loss to your insurance company! Good grief - could someone have stolen the car after I returned it? (It was a Chevy Impala - not some fancy sports car.) I will try to find the receipt - and I’m sure there’s a record of the guy billing my credit card the morning of the 14th. Could someone have run into the car at the rental car place sometime between the 14th and the 18th and they looked to see who had the car last and it was me? (They pack them in tight when you return them - and then they move them to clean them before they rent them out again.)</p>

<p>Has anything like this ever happened to any of you? Thanks for any advice. I will definitely call at 9:01 a.m. Central time tomorrow.</p>

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<p>Was it Dollar Rent a Car? We had a bad experience with them once.</p>

<p>We rented a car in Salt Lake City. We drove the car from the airport to the house where we were staying. Hardly used the car. When we returned it, the check in guy “found” a little dimple on the back passenger right side door. You had to stand 10 feet away and look at the door at an angle to see it. It was very unlikely that we could have seen it on the original inspection. But I fully believe the dent was there on the original inspection–because the car was not parked next to another car the whole time we had it.</p>

<p>We got a letter, a bill for $40, and an invoice from the body shop. I noticed that four cars had been repaired by the body shop from Dollar Rent a Car–all had $40 charges to repair a dent in the back passenger door. A coincidence? I think not!</p>

<p>I felt like we were being scammed–but we decided just to pay it and NEVER rent another car from them again!!</p>

<p>Looks like I’m not the only person to have a problem with them.</p>

<p>[Dollar</a> Rent A Car](<a href=“http://www.consumeraffairs.com/travel/dollar.htm]Dollar”>Compare 2,018 Dollar Rent A Car Reviews & Experiences (2024))</p>

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<p>I’ve rented cars hundreds of times mostly from Avis, sometimes from Hertz and Enterprise. I’ve never had anything like that happen to me.</p>

<p>When you bring a car back they generally ‘check it in’ and give you the receipt with a timestamp. That should be proof enough. I have returned cars a few times, including a couple times in the UK and France, where I just parked the car and locked the keys in it because they didn’t have the locations staffed at the time I returned the cars. Fortunately those worked out okay.</p>

<p>Did you rent from an airport or from some neighborhood place?</p>

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<p>One caveat for the inexperienced, my DD went to a conference on her own, even rented a car, knew she had insurance and told the guy she did not want theirs. He agreed with her verbally and then had her initial all the places on the form; they added the insurance and any other scam fee they could and added a young driver upcharge that was not on her online reservation (that was why we chose them, no young driver fee of $25/day) She admittedly did not read it carefully, busy flirting back no doubt, but she felt completely scammed and even protesting via her credit card did no good, as she had initialed that charge, erroneously, but she should have read it, though she ought to be able to rely on the sales man to follow instructions and one ought to be able to receive a call back from the manager, which never happened, despite half a dozen calls…not a small podunk place, southern California!</p>

<p>So, read everything and beware Enterprise, shoddy principles of business- the main office said they could not help and the local office refused to call back.</p>

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<p>^Those SoCal places are sharks. We’re meanies. :-p</p>

<p>I would definitely call and refute the charges if nothing else.</p>

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<p>The May/June issue of the AARP magazine had a column on just this issue. Enterprise was the rental company. Allegedly, a rock had punctured the rental car’s a/c condenser, an event not covered by warranty.</p>

<p>[AARP</a> The Magazine](<a href=“http://www.AARPmagazine.org%5DAARP”>http://www.AARPmagazine.org)</p>

<p>The author called the rental center, then the regional claims center, then the executive offices. He asked for a repair bill to no avail. Then he spoke to “Christy Conrad” in corporate communications and the matter was dropped in two hours. Worth a shot.</p>

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<p>When I go to rent a car, I bring a digital camera and go around the vehicle and take pictures and then email them to myself so that I have online access to the pictures that I can email to anyone else if need be. I also indicate to the person doing the contract that I’ve done this.</p>

<p>The rental car companies are under some amount of financial pressure due to the depressed economy and being stuck with lots of fuel-inefficient vehicles that most renters don’t want to rent. So it’s not surprising that a few franchises or operations would pull things like this.</p>

<p>I have rented with Enterprise with no problems. I’ve even returned a vehicle with a door ding that probably took place while I had the vehicle and the local office didn’t care. It’s just normal wear and tear.</p>

<p>If you’re going to rent something (apartment, car, etc.), it’s pretty painless to take a few digital pictures of it in case there’s a dispute with the owner later on.</p>

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<p>Good idea – I think I will start doing the same.</p>

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<p>I had a rental car once and a deer jumped into the side of it, causing significant damage, as in not being able to open the driver’s side door. I filed a police report, and called American Express (the card I used to rent it). They sent me a form, I filled it out and sent it back, and never heard another word about it. Never paid a cent.</p>

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<p>I take pictures too. I also make sure I point out to the person at the counter all the little dings. I’m not getting charged for them. I make them note them on the rental agreement. I usually rent from National and fortunately haven’t had any problems XX (fingers crossed).</p>

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<p>Well, I did look at the car when I picked it up, and it looked great. It also looked great when I returned it. The current Malibu is nice; I would rent one again. Maybe not from Alamo, though. Now that I have talked to them, here is my dispute letter. I am hopeful that this will put an end to this!</p>

<p>=-=-=-
Dear Mr. B,</p>

<p>I rented a Chevy Malibu from Alamo in city, state, for one week from Monday, July 7, 2008, to Monday, July 14, 2008. I returned the car shortly after 5 a.m. Monday morning. </p>

<p>I returned the car on the top floor of a parking ramp, and it was light out. I parked in a block of returned cars, with a column of cars to the left of me and a half-row of cars in front of me. The cars were parked in close to each other. The Alamo return agent approached me from the right, walked around the car, checked the mileage and made sure I had filled the car with gas, gave me my receipt, and said I was good to go.</p>

<p>Ten days later, on Thursday, July 24, 2008, I received a letter from Alamo. The letter said Date of Loss: 7/13/2008 and stated "The Recovery Department has received a Loss/Damage Report on the vehicle you rented from us.”</p>

<p>Today, Friday, July 25, 2008, I reached the Damage Recovery Unit by phone. The agent I spoke with told me that at 1:30 p.m. on July 14, an Alamo employee saw a scratch on the right door of the car, and that since I was the last one who had rented the car, I was being held responsible for this scratch.</p>

<p>The car was in perfect condition when I returned it. If there had been a scratch on the right door of the car when I returned it, the Alamo return agent and I would have seen it. If there is now a scratch on the car, the car was scratched at the car return ramp sometime in the eight and a half hours between 5 a.m. and 1:30 p.m. on July 14, after it was out of my possession.</p>

<p>I dispute Claim 9999999. I am not responsible for any damage to that Chevy Malibu. Please close this claim. Thank you.</p>

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<p>Sounds good to me. But I doubt they’ll give up that easily… how much are they trying to charge you?</p>

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<p>Stick to your guns. Insist that the scratch wasn’t there, and that the agent let you go. Don’t add to the letter, just repeat it as necessary. Make them prove to you that they didn’t cause the scratch. They can’t. I think it’s an excellent letter.</p>

<p>The only other thing I might do is cc the letter to anyone else you can think of. Credit card, lawyer friend, upper management. And perhaps mention in conversation that you are surprised at the tactics Alamo uses, and so are all the people you’ve shared it with (like thousands of friends on CC.)</p>

<p>We also take photos, both before and after, and insist that every tiny scratch be added to the initial report. If the car is dirty upon return, we ask the agent to be very careful about inspecting it, because once we leave, we’re done!</p>

<p>My H had a rental car (either a Mercedes or a BMW) in Germany that was caught in a hail storm. Car had major cosmetic damage. Company wasn’t happy, but H had bought insurance. Never heard another word. Later that year, we saw lots of pock-marked cars at used car lots! We knew exactly what had happened!</p>

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<p>OP - Alamo, ugh. Great company, presuming you don’t have any issue with them. In Orlando, I got run into from behind by a bus. Police report says the bus is responsible. Alamo kept saying “Yes, that’s nice, now please contact your insurance carrier about the damage to our car.” I started out nice (“Well the police report says it’s not my fault, why don’t you call the party that is?”) and over time gravitated to NYC surly (and I won’t give an example because there may be children reading this). In brief, Binx is right. Stick to your guns. You didn’t cause any damage, the guy who inspected the car upon return didn’t see any damage, and you’re not paying for damage that occurred subsequent to returning the car.</p>

<p>The other thing I can suggest is to call repeatedly. Some of Alamo’s customer service reps are reasonable, even though many aren’t. When DW escaped Hurricane Katrina in a rental car, Alamo tried to extract $150 for not returning the car to the location where rented. Logic failed: “We DID return it to that location but there was no-one there to check the car in BECAUSE THE RENTAL LOT WAS UNDER TWELVE FEET OF WATER!” After repeated calls we got a customer service rep who said simply “Thank you for taking care of our car, and I’m waiving the fee because Alamo isn’t in business to take advantage of its customers misfortune.”</p>

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<p>PS - If you got one letter from Alamo you’ll probably receive several more, all saying essentially the same thing.</p>

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<p>You all are great. Thanks for your advice and support. It doesn’t seem possible that they can “make” me pay. I think the worse case scenario is that they turn me in to a collection agency and try to damage my credit if I don’t pay, but as long as I keep all of my correspondence, I think I should be all right. I searched the web and found other examples of this happening to people, from a variety of rental car companies.</p>

<p>Their letter says that don’t have an estimate yet of how much they are going to charge me. (They had asked me to send them my car insurance # so they could bill the damage and the cost of the car not being able to be rented while it was being repaired directly to my insurance company - oh, sure I will…) </p>

<p>I faxed my letter to two fax numbers I had for that part of Alamo. I’m putting a copy in the mail, too.</p>

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<p>You might want to contact your insurance company. They may be able to help you know what steps to take. They aren’t interested in paying this, either!</p>

<p>By the way, absolutely mail a hard copy. You may even wish to pay extra for some sort of tracking or delivery confirmation.</p>

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<p>I agree that this seems to be happening to people all over the US (the internet gives us the chance to find these people’s stories). </p>

<p>H does a lot of business travel and his company uses Hertz. He’s never had a problem–in fact, he says that if you bring back the car with at least 3 wheels on it, you’re good to go. </p>

<p>I don’t like paying the high prices of Hertz, but I like even less the absolute DISHONESTY that I’ve experienced and the psychological turmoil that comes with having to deal with these kinds of budget operations. No more budget car rental places for me.</p>

<p>I would think that the budget car companies would work to stamp out these kinds of practices…because it tars the whole industry and drives people away from all of the companies.</p>

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<p>

As usual, I am not giving legal advice. This is just friends chatting about “theoreticals”. Remember that your insurance policy most likely has a provision contractually requiring you to present all claims to them. In this instance it is a “scratch”. In some instances it could be much worse. It is highly unlikely that there is a provision allowing you the discretion to report only claims you feel are legitimate.</p>

<p>Companies use the “non-report” to deny coverage in some instances (especially effective when they were not given an opportunity to investigate).</p>

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<p>Yes, you should report it to your insurer (and I’m also not giving legal advice!). Don’t give Alamo the information; contact them yourself. They know what to do with “claims” of this sort - can you say potential insurance fraud?</p>