I'm not sure if this is the correct place to post this, apologies if not. I'll try to keep this as short as possible...
I rented a van recently in the UK. I didnt pay for additional insurance, as the cost of it was over double the daily cost of renting the van in the first place.
Unfortunately, i did some damage. The van was a citroen relay luton, i damaged the fiberglass hood on top of the drivers cabin by hitting a low tree branch whilst parking. I made a hole the size of a ping pong ball in the fiberglass.
As i didnt pay the extra insurance, i had to cover full cost (which is fine, happy to do). The company took my entire deposit (£1,250) to cover the cost of repairs, said they'd get an invoice for the work, send it to me, and reimburse me the difference. Sounded fair.
They didnt do this. It took me 2.5 months of constant hassling, chasing, complaining etc. to get them to book the van in for repairs. They did so finally on 20th Jan, i rented the van in first week of Nov.
They've now provided me an invoice for the work, and i have 2 issues.
1) Some of the costs seem very high. They've charged 9.5 hours labour costs specifically just to paint the repaired patch of fiberglass (literally a 50x50cm sqaure at most). In addition, they are looking to charge me for lost income when the van is off the road. Suspiciously, this pretty mych takes the repair costs to bang on my deposit value...
2) In the repairs invoice there is pics of the van, on one of them you can see odometer. I have the mileage at the time i rented written on my contract with them. In between me doing the damage, and them finally repairing the van, the van has travelled 800 miles. So they've clearly taped over the hole, and continued to rent the van, and just intended to keep my deposit. Which i assume is why they were so difficult to pin down to book it in for repairs.
So my issue really is that i'm clearly being fleeced, but i dont feel like there's anything i can do about it as i'm not sure if they've legally done anything wrong. They've been an absolute pain in the ass for months, clearly intended to keep my deposit and not repair the van, and now seem to be charging well over the odds for repair. Is there any angle i can pursue here to stop them having the full £1,250 of my deposit?
Thanks!
Submitted January 28, 2018 at 06:42AM by Flumpf_ http://ift.tt/2rNMgQ6
