To suggest splitting the rental damage fee?

[Wynter123]

Feel like I'm mad so please - share your opinions!

Group of 15 of us recently went away for a week in Spain - big friendship group, nice trip.

We rented a few cars while there and I was the named driver/card holder on one of them. The cost of the hire cars were split out between the entire group (3 cars total).

One day, we came back to the car park to see someone had clearly driven (very slowly!) into the back of 'my' hire car and scratched/dented it. It wasn't a huge crushing dent, but it was definitely noticeable (enough for us to notice it as we walked back...).

After returning the car to the hire company at the end of the trip, and a tonne of arguing back and forth/phonecalls/contacting the bank/researching every avenue... I've had £775 taken from my credit card by the hire company and received a bill for 'damages'.

Now - whether that is outrageous from the hire company is another matter. I have tried every avenue to argue it (trust me!) with no luck. Tried contacting the bank etc etc but no, the money is gone.

My question is: only three people in the friendship group has offered to chip in to cover the cost. When I said what had happened, a couple of people went "oh no that's awful!" but most of them said (and have still said) nothing at all.

AIBU to feel pretty distraught (and angry?) that the majority of my friends are happy for me to lose almost £800 for something that wasn't my fault and could have happened to anyone? What would you do in this situation? I don't want to create an argument by calling it out but also feel like I shouldn't really have to - is it not the normal response for people to go "of course we will all contribute?". To be honest I wouldn't even mind if people contributed £10, £20... - anything would be appreciated, but not offering anything at all feels really rude. What do you think? 😥

Put a message in the group chat and say “you’ve argued it out with the company as much as you can and they’re not budging.
if it’s split by all of you then it would be £50 each and that you know it’s not ideal but you can’t afford to cover the full amount yourself for something not your fault.
Would everyone mind transferring you the money to pay the credit card?”

hopefully some of the nicer ones will reply quickly and the others will see that £50 to them is a lot better £750 for you.

Dear Friends, you all know the situation regarding the car hire and the £800 I have had to pay out, despite arguing the issue with the company, as we didn’t take out the additional insurance, we are liable for this. I am hoping that all of you can afford to pay £50 each towards this, to help me out, let me know if you agree.
thanks

It may just take one or two friends forwarding the money and messaging to make to others do so

Haven’t read the full thread but I’d just request 1/15th of the cost from each person breezily in a WhatsApp group?!

and if anyone challenges it act ignorant like why would they? Group shared cost of hiring cars and choosing not to take excess insurance!

Just tell them how much to give you.

Ask them for the money. All holuday costs should be shared.

Is there someone else in the group who will do this for you? I think if the message came from one of them if would shame the rest (well except for any CFs) into doing the right thing. I would not consider anyone who didnt chip in a freind under the circumstance.

Also FYI I always put a hold on my credit card after using it for a hire car in another country. Ive had too many scams tried on me by hire car places now, I dont give them the opportunity to make unagreed charges. Really you should have only had to pay them the excess which I doubt was £800.

Doesn't help with this trip, but for future refernce I bought standalone excess insurance as recommended by Martin Lewis/Money Supermarket. Cost £10.17 for 5 days car hire in Europe - much less than the less than the daily rate the car hire company wpuld have charged for the same cover.
However, totally agree cost of damage should be split between the group and not just be left to you.

They may not have let them leave until it was paid then the police could have been involved

YANBU, especially as you had the discussion about the extra insurance.

Don't let this put you off hiring a car again though - just make sure you get an insurance policy from a 3rd party (not the hire car company - it's a massive rip off) to cover this sort of thing.

www.which.co.uk/reviews/car-hire/article/car-hire-advice/car-hire-insurance-aqd1p9P5n1Rs

Sounds like you didn’t bother upgrading the insurance which is up to the driver to sort, annoying but you could have avoided it.

There is an insurance called insurance4carhire which is about 50 or 60 gbp a year which would have covered your excess. I don't understand why people don't go down this route. It may have been suggested already. I don't have the time to read the full thread. In any case, of course the cost should be split evenly amongst everyone who went on the holiday.

I think rather than expecting people to offer, you need to straight up just message the group and say can everyone please transfer me £x to cover your share of the cost, thanks.

Keep it factual with no emotions. The cost is x which is X each. Would be grateful if you could transfer asap.

given it’s a group of 15 of you that’s £50 each I’d just message everyone asking for £50 I can’t believe so few of them think they shouldn’t have to pay especially when they didn’t want excess insurance

One way of doing it could be to contact one of them privately who has said they are willing to contribute and get them to post it on the group chat - ‘hi everyone, as it was not op’s fault I think we should split the cost between us as it’s not fair on her to have to pay it all - so £50 each.’

@Wynter123 you need to tell them it’s a shared cost, that the decision to not take the excess insurance was a group decision therefore a group liability

otherwise this will sour your relationship with them forever

put bank details and thank each and everyone of them on the group by name until all pay you:

It is shocking they are allowing you take the hit ! How mean of them . There is no way my friendship group would do this .

I think you should suggest the split. You can also add that if the driver is left to bear all the risks noone would want to drive again so that’s the end of any more driving holiday.

“You guys didn’t want to pay for the extra insurance that would have covered this. It’s £50 each here are my bank details for each of you to send your share. Cheers”

I think you need to outright ask them to pay a fair share, ie the total cost divided by the number of people on the holiday. This is absolutely a joint responsibility of all holiday goers. Do you really want to be friends with people who will see you £800 out of pocket rather than pay their fair share of £50?! Would you ever go on holiday with them again? They are massively out of order for not having offered already, but if they don’t pay up when outright asked then they are fundamentally not good people and you’d do better without them. What the hell is wrong with people?!

Anyone else as suspicious as me? My paranoia about hire car companies leaves me wondering whether this is a clever scam....

If a customer doesn't take the (overpriced) insurance, just dispatch an employee later to gently bump into and crunch a hire car once it's parked up (easy enough to have a tracker on every car in the fleet, I expect). Then charge an inordinate price (£800?!) when they return the damaged vehicle.

They're all out to get us!

Edit to add: YES - absolutely message the group saying everyone needs to chip in their £50, as it's not reasonable to expect you to pay it all just because you were the driver!

Big friendship group? If I was you, I'd only be counting the 3 that offered to pay as my friendship group!

I didn’t think about this as a scam but yes it could be a case of car hire companies getting more money. I would definitely look at extra car insurance when travelling abroad as advised by Martin Lewis