Hertz won’t waver on waiver
I.W. writes: I paid in full online to hire a car for 116 days from Hertz in Malaga, Spain. When I arrived, Hertz told me Spanish law meant I had to return the car after 96 days and exchange it for a different one, with nothing more to pay. But when I returned the car with a full tank of petrol, they charged me again for petrol for the new car, then added a fresh charge for insurance, even though I had already paid for this too.
WHEN you collected the first car, Hertz took your credit card details for an insurance deposit, but used this to charge you for petrol and to renew the insurance. It turns out that under Spanish law, car rental rules apply for three months only, after which it counts as leasing, for which different laws apply. So Hertz swaps cars after three months.
Hertz says you returned the first car with three quarters of a tank of petrol, so it is sticking to its charge for fuel and the ‘service fee’ it added on top for this. But it did accept that it wrongly charged you £17 as an ‘early return’ fee, though you were picking up the new car at Hertz’s insistence. This fee has now been refunded.
That leaves the biggest extra charge of all, £270 for insurance supposedly included in your first payment.
Hertz said: ‘Mr W agreed to take the optional Super Cover Damage Waiver to waive liability for paying any excess in case of damage or theft.’ You have denied this completely, explaining that you rejected SCDW and chose the option allowing you to give Hertz your credit card details instead.
Sure enough, your car hire voucher confirms that you left a refundable deposit of about £900 instead of paying for extra insurance. But you have told me that Hertz staff refused to let you have the car unless you signed a form they had completed in Spanish. When I pointed this out, Hertz first blamed its UK booking agent, denying that it had taken the £900-plus safety deposit, then insisted that, though the docket was in Spanish, ‘someone’ explained it all in English and you opted to pay hundreds of pounds for SCDW rather than provide a refundable deposit of £900 or so.
Anyone who has ever collected a rental car at a busy airport will know that the chances of getting staff to explain and translate a contract are remote. But Hertz is sticking to its version of events.
As I warned a few weeks ago, top-up insurance charges are growing – even for people who think they have already paid for insurance. Buyer beware. If you believe you are the victim of financial wrongdoing, write to
Tony Hetherington at Financial Mail, 2 Derry Street, London W8 5TS or email tony.hetherington@mailonsunday.co.uk. Because of the high volume of enquiries, personal replies cannot be given. Please send only copies of original documents, which we regret cannot be returned.