Always Document Hire Car Damage to Avoid Scams - A Warning from Our Recent Experience

@ilovegodorsomething Green Motion are literally the WORST. Check out the online reviews about them - horrendous (Globally!) and many independent excess insurance providers will not cover car hire from this company. Also a Guardian article written about their lawless activities!
 
Happened to us in Cryprus, they took our passports to make sure we'd bring it back, a hr in to driving it, it broke down, they said we had to give them 1,000 to fix it, as ' we had caused it ' or they'd burn our passports, we paid, my little girl was only 3 at the time, just felt really uneasy with it all. I would never ever hire anything abroad again x
 
They must make a packet on this cos they never use the repair money they collect on actual repairs either!! It's not like the hire costs aren't crazy to start with either- we've got over 2 weeks hire in Florida this year for similar to what we paid for 5 days in sicily last year!!
 
Oh well. I had a wheel coming off on a motorway from a car rented from Europcar, me and the kids had an accident. They demanded £11000 in damages for the vehicle, but never proceeded to the court as knew they'd only 50% to win it. They've destroyed the car before I could arrange independent expertise without notifying me first.
 
I currently have a hire car whilst my car is being repaired, they wanted me to sign the paperwork which didn’t show half the dents/scrapes/marks it had. I made sure the guy went round the car with me to note down everything! He also said ‘just fill it to 1/4 full on return’ when I had been told it needed to be returned 3/4 full…probably so they could charge me a silly amount for fuelling it!
 
Just to add a positive to spin to this to say not all hire car companies are bad...we hired a car in Italy a few years ago, unfortunately my son fell really ill while we were there and I had to do a midnight dash to the hospital with him. In my rush to get him to the doctor I mistakenly parked in a private space when we got there. The next morning when we came out someone had taken a stone and scratched all over the car obviously in anger that I was in their space.
I immediately reported it to both the police and the hire car company, we would have been covered on our insurance but with a €2000 excess to pay until I could sort the paperwork (I had taken excess insurance out seperately)
Since it was kind of my fault I was more than happy to pay. After sending them some pics they offered to swap it then or just deal with it on my return at the end of the holiday, I was happy to keep it but dreaded taking it back.
I needn't have worried as when we returned it and explained again what had happened and got my credit card out to pay the excess, they man shook his head, gave me my card back and said I was clearly not a vandle so not my problem, ripped the contract up in front of me then wished us a safe flight 🙂
 
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