Hello , firstly apologies as it may not be the correct page to post , however I have been following this forum for a while and found Colin, Mark and David et al to be very knowledgeable.
My husband hired a van from a multi national car and van hire company over a weekend whilst we moved house.
He made sure to check the van over thoroughly (or so he thought!). Checked interior and exterior, opening doors and checked the dash etc.
There were a few dents so he made sure that the damage was already listed on the pre inspection report and took photos.
He collected the van Saturday late morning (the company close at 12 midday Saturday and then reopen Monday morning).
We started to load the van with our belongings as we were moving house and noticed that one of the rear doors would not open. By the time husband had collected the van they were nearly closing , so by the time we noticed they were closed. In hindsight he should have opened all doors whilst there.
I dropped the van off to another branch on Monday morning at 9am. My husband had already spoken with the branch where he hired it from and they said something along the lines of “don’t worry, it’s been noted”.
Staff member at the branch where I dropped the van off said that this fault was not listed on their system so she would have to raise a damage report .
Husband phoned the original branch again and they again said not to worry.
2 days later full deposit returned to our bank account.
Around 2 weeks later this company had tried to take nearly £2,000 from our bank account and showed up on our bank account as the branch who we had hired the van from. Luckily we transfer our monies to our savings account and only have a few hundred pounds in our current account (we are those people who like to watch our savings go up lol ).
We then received an email saying we are liable for the damage to the rear door (missing catch/lever) and also billed us for missing income as the van was off the road.
Interestingly to note that literally a few days after this my husband received a call from his work (he delivers buses all over the country and uses this company to hire cars to return back to the depot ) alleging that him and his colleague had caused damage to a car. Luckily my husband took photos of the car which had the time and location visible. So he was able to forward this to the company and they ‘dropped the claim’.
I think they are notorious for trying to scam people … because we have not got a photo of the faulty door lock I feel we haven’t got a leg to stand on and they will take us to court .
Any ideas before court proceedings ?
Thanks so much , and apologies for the lengthy read.