FIGHTING RENTAL-CAR COMPANY ON DAMAGE CHARGE
Q: I’m perplexing to finalise an emanate with Alamo and have not been able to promulgate directly with any a single at the claims department. Now they‘re melancholy collections and legal action. I’m in the routine of buying a house and can’t means a ding on my credit rating.
Here‘s what happened. I rented a automobile from Alamo in San Francisco for three days recently. It was parked many of that time and the automobile was unequivocally not shop-worn during my rental.
When I arrived in San Francisco, I checked in at the rental Alamo rental desk. I was destined to name any of the cars in a certain row in the dimly lighted, multilevel parking lot. There was no in attendance to support me. The keys were in the car. I comparison the only Toyota.
I walked around the automobile for a visible inspection, beheld that it was somewhat unwashed in front, though I saw no dents or dings. I deliberate carrying them run it through the carwash again, though I had an appointment to get to.
I gathering the automobile 81 miles during the week end rental period. I parked carefully, pulling in facing a wall or building. No a single could have impacted the automobile from the front during the time it was parked. When I gathering it, I didn’t run over or strike anything.
When I returned it to the airport, the representative walked toward the automobile from the front and said to me as he approached, “What did you strike with the car?” I suspicion he was joking. He forked out what appeared to be a moment in the reduce apportionment of the front grill. I didn’t see it right divided — I had to get down low to view it. It would have been simply longed for in the parking garage where I picked it up.
I doubtful the damage on the spot, revelation him I didn’t strike a thing and that this damage had to have been pre-existing. But I received a minute from Alamo’s damage liberation section for $481. Can you help?
— Mary Dampier, Coronado, Calif
.
A: Alamo should have since you the keys to a purify automobile and offering to check it prior to you left the airport. But you could have also prevented this with a couple of easy steps.
Always take a design of your rental automobile with a cellphone or digital camera. If possible, ask an worker to travel around the vehicle, observant even teenager damage. If no a single is available, afterwards make footnote of the repairs and ask an worker to admit the car’s condition prior to you leave.
I reviewed the association with Alamo and the photos of the automobile you were purported to have damaged. I posted the pictures, along with the letters, on my website and asked readers for their feedback. They remarkable multiform problems with your rental, together with the volume of the repairs claim (which was suspiciously tighten to your $500 insurance deductible) and justification that the repairs it showed you in the photographs weren’t from your vehicle.
Although Alamo’s primogenitor company, Enterprise, insists that repairs claims such as yours are not a moneymaking scheme, stories like yours do make business wonder. If Alamo was unequivocally endangered about the state of the cars, it would vigilantly sketch the vehicles prior to each rental and control a consummate investigation — not wait for until the end to indicate out each small ding, dent and scratch.
I contacted Alamo on your behalf. It forsaken the claim.
Christopher Elliott is the ombudsman for National Geographic Traveler repository and the co-founder of the Consumer Travel Alliance. His mainstay runs weekly at seattletimes.com/travel. Contact him at chris@elliott.org.
car – Yahoo! News Search Results
Q: I’m perplexing to finalise an emanate with Alamo and have not been able to promulgate directly with any a single at the claims department. Now they‘re melancholy collections and legal action. I’m in the routine of buying a house and can’t means a ding on my credit rating.
Here‘s what happened. I rented a automobile from Alamo in San Francisco for three days recently. It was parked many of that time and the automobile was unequivocally not shop-worn during my rental.
When I arrived in San Francisco, I checked in at the rental Alamo rental desk. I was destined to name any of the cars in a certain row in the dimly lighted, multilevel parking lot. There was no in attendance to support me. The keys were in the car. I comparison the only Toyota.
I walked around the automobile for a visible inspection, beheld that it was somewhat unwashed in front, though I saw no dents or dings. I deliberate carrying them run it through the carwash again, though I had an appointment to get to.
I gathering the automobile 81 miles during the week end rental period. I parked carefully, pulling in facing a wall or building. No a single could have impacted the automobile from the front during the time it was parked. When I gathering it, I didn’t run over or strike anything.
When I returned it to the airport, the representative walked toward the automobile from the front and said to me as he approached, “What did you strike with the car?” I suspicion he was joking. He forked out what appeared to be a moment in the reduce apportionment of the front grill. I didn’t see it right divided — I had to get down low to view it. It would have been simply longed for in the parking garage where I picked it up.
I doubtful the damage on the spot, revelation him I didn’t strike a thing and that this damage had to have been pre-existing. But I received a minute from Alamo’s damage liberation section for $481. Can you help?
— Mary Dampier, Coronado, Calif
.
A: Alamo should have since you the keys to a purify automobile and offering to check it prior to you left the airport. But you could have also prevented this with a couple of easy steps.
Always take a design of your rental automobile with a cellphone or digital camera. If possible, ask an worker to travel around the vehicle, observant even teenager damage. If no a single is available, afterwards make footnote of the repairs and ask an worker to admit the car’s condition prior to you leave.
I reviewed the association with Alamo and the photos of the automobile you were purported to have damaged. I posted the pictures, along with the letters, on my website and asked readers for their feedback. They remarkable multiform problems with your rental, together with the volume of the repairs claim (which was suspiciously tighten to your $500 insurance deductible) and justification that the repairs it showed you in the photographs weren’t from your vehicle.
Although Alamo’s primogenitor company, Enterprise, insists that repairs claims such as yours are not a moneymaking scheme, stories like yours do make business wonder. If Alamo was unequivocally endangered about the state of the cars, it would vigilantly sketch the vehicles prior to each rental and control a consummate investigation — not wait for until the end to indicate out each small ding, dent and scratch.
I contacted Alamo on your behalf. It forsaken the claim.
Christopher Elliott is the ombudsman for National Geographic Traveler repository and the co-founder of the Consumer Travel Alliance. His mainstay runs weekly at seattletimes.com/travel. Contact him at chris@elliott.org.
car – Yahoo! News Search Results