Free Traffic Legal Advice

Hi All,
Hopefully someone will be able to offer some advice of the best course of action to do in my situation.

 Left my car in garage on Saturday. Unfortunately, we really needed a car, so decided to rent one. As Enterprise was closing for the weekend, I have turned to a local car rental company which I have used in the past when rented their vans on few occasions. As I had no issues in the past, I did not expect to have any this time either. How wrong I was…

My missus and I went to their office, gave all the required paperwork, paid money for the rent and additional driver, also left a £250 deposit. They also said there is a £1,000 excess should I get involved in an accident.

At no time was I offered any additional insurance to minimise the excess.

Once the payment was completed, car rental employee went outside with us to do the vehicle inspection. We walked around the car, made notes of scraped alloys and scraped mirror covers but there was no other visible damage to the car. Signed the paperwork and off we went.
As I was doing a day shift on Wednesday, my missus went to drop the car and then to pick up our car from the garage. On arrival to rental place she went to the office and same rental employee came out to check the car. Within a minute alarm bells started ringing as this time he started crawling around the car on his knees checking the damage underneath the car. Started from the back of the car , went round and within a minute or two, as if magic, he shouted out – oh, this wasn’t here before!” Missus was perplexed as there was no damage seen from the standing position and she asked what is he talking about. Turns out there is some sort of damage to the underneath of the front bumper. Not only that! He then claimed that it is clear and obvious that the whole bumper is dislodged from it’s position.

The employee then went back to the office and said to missus that we owe them £1,000 excess. Missus phoned me in tears explaining me what has happened. I phoned the office and recognised by voice the same guy that gave me a car. He would not agree that he has done a different check than the one when we picked up a car. He claimed he was checking underneath the car first time as how otherwise he would have spotted the damage to alloys.

Eventually he passed a phone to his manager who was not budging at all. I told her in no certain terms that we are not going to be scammed and I will seek solicitors help, will tell the story on their social media too and will not pay the £1,000 excess as we do not agree with a damage and finished the phone call.

I then phoned my missus who started telling me that they keep giving her some forms to sign but she does not know what she is countersigning. She put me on loudspeaker and I could her the manager telling her this is the paperwork to acknowledge that car is being returned to the office as without signed paperwork they cannot update the system that car has been returned.

I asked my missus to write ‘’Do not agree with any damage’’ before leaving a signature which she did. My missus later told me that as she did that, manager furiously grabbed papers from her hands, so missus could not finish writing on the second form, ripped the copy for her and shouted that we have your husbands account details, and you will pay for this.

When I got back home I looked at the form which was a vehicle return form. But what they didn’t tell my missus that in the middle of the form they wrote that customer acknowledges and accepts the damage done to the front bumper. (exact wording to be updated when I get back home tonight, writing this at work).

I will also show pictures of the damage that they found.

It really bugs me that I have put my faith in them from my previous times and they are trying to play us like that. Thinking to the past I am 100% sure they have not offered any additional premium insurance to cover excess if anything would happen. Everything is so fishy about this as I know we haven't done any damage to the car, we were so, so careful with it.

I am bit lost at this moment. They have my bank details but there is no £1,000 in there so they can’t take money from there. However I want to deal with this matter that I would have no issues in the longer run. I was thinking to raise an issue with the police and then request a copy of CCTV footage which would clearly show how differently vehicle was checked on both occasions. Is there anything else that I could currently do? Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

https://ibb.co/CsvYwf4q
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extortion?

And what exactly do you expect the police to do?

I suspect they rental company will be reluctant to issue a CCTV footage, however with a police report they would be more inclined to do that?

Did you take any photos of the car (and those areas) before your hire period?

The photos you have shown us seem to contain damage that wouldn't require "crawling around the car" on your knees to spot, so if you took photos beforehand if you're lucky this damage might be visible in some of them...

I took this image of the car when I needed registration number to pay for Dartford Crossing. There is no way you would be able to see the damage unless you had to squat and check form underneath.

https://ibb.co/0jzsfpkp

the photos show only minor damage to the lower bumper, however they also show the bumper is clearly NOT dislodged from anything. it's is also highly unlikely there is damage "underneath"
I would put them to strict proof the bumper was undamaged at the time you hired the vehicle.