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? 😥

Sad that these are your “good” friends ….. spell out the position it would leave you in and also explain this is why you wanted to take out extra insurance

In these situations you don't wait and ask, you tell them it's a split cost.

"Unfortunately I've done my best to sort this out with the car company hire but they aren't budging. We are being charged £775, that's £51 each. My bank details are: "

And then when they pay you say "thanks Tim, Thanks Bob" so everyone knows who hasn't paid.

If anyone complains suggest they try to sort it out with the car company.

You say you don't want to lose friends but if my friends left me to cover an £800 bill that was not my fault that would be our friendship over, you are salvaging your relationship with these people by making it clear you expect the bill to be split.