PL
Paul Ligeti
Apr 30, 2026
Some of their staff needs to familiarize themselves better with their contracts and not lie to customers.
My travel group rented a car from them last summer (a different member of the group was the one who was the main signatory, not me). We stayed on the road the whole time and driving safely. Nevertheless, the car ended up getting a moderate scratch, but not due to any erratic driving - instead, we suspect it was simply due to gravel on the road being kicked up or similar.
When we returned the car, they told us the charge would be over $1,000 (USD) for the scratch alone. That itself wasn't a problem, since even scratches need repairs. However, to make sure that this charge was applicable, I asked what the threshold for a "major" scratch was (for instance, if it had to be larger than a specific dimension, like number of centimeters), since smaller scratches from normal wear-and-tear (which we thought this was) wouldn't have incurred such a charge. The employee we initially talked with kept saying for us to refer to the contract, but we showed him that the contract didn't specify such a threshold, which is what we were requesting to see.
After 5 minutes of going in circles, his supervisor (a woman, perhaps in her 20s or 30s) came over. I explained the situation. She told us that they had never had a car returned scratched, which was an outright lie. I told her that was hard to believe, unless they had opened only a few weeks ago, which they didn't. Still, she continued lying about this subject and similarly didn't seem to understand that we were looking for a specific dimension. She seemed to be under the impression that we were trying to get out of paying, or were being argumentative, but throughout the whole conversation we were unambiguously polite. There is nothing wrong with confirming that a charge is applicable.
Finally, her supervisor (the manager, I assume) came over. After I explained the situation to him, he gave us a small card that showed the specific dimensions used to determine "major" damage. I thanked him and said that this was exactly what we were looking for - it was as simple as that.
This would not be an issue if not for (1) the fact that the first two employees didn't ever seem to understand the need for a clear threshold for what constitutes a "major" scratch, and (2) especially the fact that the second person we talked to outright lied to us.
Added a star because the car itself was clean and ran fine.