Car rental - deposit pre authorisation

CASEsensitive

I recently rented a car through CarTrawler and paid for there extra daily excess insurance.

The car was to be picked up from Budget and previously when I have rented the car I have pre authorised the deposit to be deducted if there is any damage when the car is returned. However, on this occasion the deposit of €986 was processed and deducted from my credit card.

This is been refunded as I returned the car without any damage etc, but it will of course take several days for the money to go back into my account. I was just wondering whether this is normal practice with all the rental companies, as previously the deposit amount was not processed unless there was any damage. I am a bit annoyed as depending on the time of the month I could be stung for some nasty interest as I have to claim the costs back through work and this takes 2 weeks.

Nody

Reserving the amount yes, actually taking it in advance, no. 986 EUR with excess insurance also sounds very high, I'd expect it to be around 300 to 500 mark at most.

jor el

Read the terms of your original rental agreement, it should say whether or not the amount will be deducted.

Surely if you had paid for full insurance, there should be no deposit to pay, as you're insured?

Nody

jor el wrote: »

Surely if you had paid for full insurance, there should be no deposit to pay, as you're insured?

Well it is usually reduced from say 1500 or 5000 EUR down to 200 or so; this is why I find 986 EUR to be excessive short of hiring a Ferrari or similar joy ride car.

CASEsensitive

Well it definitely wasn't a Ferrari, just a normal compact (Focus). I rang Budget car rental and they said it wasn't necessarily the case the money be taken but that it could be.

Because I booked through CarTrawler, I bought the excess through them and then when you pick up the car Budget give you their own form and if you don’t buy the excess off Budget they charge you a deposit. This is normally fine as its pre-authorised, but I thought it was very cheeky to take practically a €1000 from my card.

There customer service was also pretty crap, the girl couldn’t give me a definite answer, didn’t know what their affiliation was with CarTrawler, and didn’t apologise for taking the money from my account, she just said that I’d get it back in a few days.

lynchie

jor el wrote: »

Read the terms of your original rental agreement, it should say whether or not the amount will be deducted.

Surely if you had paid for full insurance, there should be no deposit to pay, as you're insured?

I have never had a scenario where the rental company had taken payment off my credit card in advance. Generally they will take an authorisation for the amount in advance which is a guarantee from the CC provider that the amount can be taken within X days. They usually do this to protect themselves from currency fluctuations in the event they have to return the funds.

y2k1981

Hi CASEsensitive - was this at Shannon airport by any chance ? I went back to Ireland for Easter (living in UK) and hired out a car with Budget through Argus car hire. Like you, I didn't buy insurace from Budget and had over €1,000 charged to my card for excess, fuel deposit etc. I'm sure this can't be allowed - what if somebody were to have a credit limit of less than €1,000 or had a €500 outstanding balance ?

Anybody have any ideas what the legal stance on this is ?

wmpdd3

Could be opperator error very easy to do a sale rather than a pre-auth if you didn't know what your doing, it happened to me once in a hotel.

Also you will be charged interest if you have the charge on your card for more than 56 days even if it is refunded. Some newer card have a shorter interest free period so you paying interest on this is very possible.

Nody

y2k1981 wrote: »

d - what if somebody were to have a credit limit of less than €1,000 or had a €500 outstanding balance ?

They would then have to buy the Budget car insurance to lower the limit they will charge.

To OP; Budget will not recognise someone else damage waiver form and hence you would be charged for the full amount because of this. Also read the fine print carefully on them because the third party insurance I had required me to pony up all the cash up front in case of the accident for the deposit and then claim it back through them.

CASEsensitive

I got on the Budget car rental again, and they informed me that as of the 1st of April they have changed their T&Cs and that from now on all deposits and fuel deposits will not be preauthorised but deducted from your credit card and then refunded.

As I didn't purchase the initial rental agreement through Budget I believe that theirs T&Cs would be not be applicable as I never received them, but their customer service agent was unsure so I have contacted CarTrawler and am awaiting to hear back from them.

Thoie

y2k1981 wrote: »

what if somebody were to have a credit limit of less than €1,000 or had a €500 outstanding balance ?

I agree that nearly a €1000 is excessive, but in answer to the point above, if you didn't have the €1k available on your card, it would fail the pre-auth as well.

All CC pre-auths "save" the money for the company that has run it. If you have a €500 limit, and I pre-auth your card for €400, even though I haven't received any money from it, you would only have €100 left to spend.

As someone else said, it can be simple enough on most machines to mistakenly enter a sale instead of a pre-auth.

Some places have some flexibility for adjusting the amount of a pre-auth - I know a guy in hotel I used visit regularly on business once decided to do €5000 preauth on my card for a 2 night pre-paid stay. I declined to authorise that