Van hire gone bad

[sailor sam]

Good letter! But I would add that you have notified your credit acrd company regards the second payment as dsiputed. Also before the line about your change of address; indeed put; 'Please respond within 14 days of the date of this letter which will avoid me taking further advice in this matter.'

[PatsyTheCat]

Hello again,

 

Update...

 

1) I got no response from the letter I sent.

 

2) As I mentioned below, when I phoned budget originally they said it would take up to 20 working days to get all the information from the franchise and that they needed this before they would consider any kind of refund. I also got an email from them (in response to my phone call) stating the same thing. I thought I'd give them the benefit of the doubt and see if they would contact me. The 20 working days expired on Thursday with no word from them, so I called them today (Monday) to see what progress they'd actually made.

 

Spoke to the same person who said they'd received nothing from the Franchise but said he would request the info again. I said this wasn't acceptable so he said he would try and deal with it while I was on hold. Was on hold for about 10 mins then he came back on and stated that no refund would be given because I was responsible for the damage to both van and car.

 

I said that the damage to the car should be claimed on the car drivers insurance and can't be claimed out of the excess on the van. He went away and conferred with one of his colleagues and then came back and stated that I was responsible for both because the excess on the car was greater than the cost of repair on the car therefore they were claiming that back from me also.

 

Please could someone (preferably more than one person) confirm whether I am actually responsible for the repair cost to the car either through my excess or in any other way. I'm about to action the charge back on the credit card and want to be sure I'm doing the right thing.

 

An excess applies only to the vehicle that you are driving/is insured by you.

 

Is this definitely correct? Don't mean to offend you Mossycat as you've been very helpful but can anyone else confirm this?

 

So if you have a £1000 excess and you damage two cars both of which have a £500 excess, you are only liable for the £500 applicable to the car you were driving.

 

If the other car has an excess then they recover that from the insurers of the driver who was responsible but it DOES NOT come out of any excess that he may have on his policy.

 

The excess you had was an AD (Accidental Damage) one, that means accidental damage to the vehicle you were driving, suppose you had hit a car not owned by Budget and that driver had an excess, they would recover that from the insurers of Budget and NOT from the driver via his excess.

 

Again, are we 100% sure on this? Does this apply to all insurance policies or to this one specifically?

[sailor sam]

In my opinion I think you should seek out a solicitor who specializes in motor insurance matters who will give you a free consultation. No one on here is going to be able to give you the 100% assurance you require on this.

 

At the very least Budget should have responded to your letter.

[Mossycat]

Unless Budget have a very unusual excess (which I doubt) then the excess applies only to the vehicle you were driving, ie the van.

 

You stated in your original post that the cost of repairs to the van was £450, the excess is £1000. The way an excess works is that the policyholder is responsible for anything up to the excess, anything over it is paid for by the insurance. An excess is limited to the damage sustained in an accident and DOES NOT include loss of use, loss of profit, or repairs to any other vehicle, and excess applies solely to the van you were hiring.

 

If the total cost of repairs comes to £450 for the van then that is what you owe them, anything else they try and sneak in (loss of profit, damage to the car etc) is pure cheek, and they are trying to pull a fast one.

 

I would suggest that you seek legal advice because I can see this only been resolved in Court.

 

Mossy

[sailor sam]

Agree with Mossy, which is why I suggested this a month ago (post #21)

[PatsyTheCat]

Thanks for the responses.

 

Agree with Mossy, which is why I suggested this a month ago (post #21)

 

As mentioned above, wanted to give them the benefit of the doubt and try to resolve it without using a solicitor.

 

Also, I've had a look but I'm finding it quite hard to find a solicitor that specialises / deals in these types of cases that also offers a free consultation. Does anyone know of one in the beds/herts area? Or should I go to the CAB?

 

Are you talking about just getting a bit of advice or getting a solicitor to fight the case for me? Presumably if the latter, then the cost of this would be greater than any money they may manage to claw back.

[Mossycat]

I was suggesting (and I think saliorsam also) that you find a solicitor who advertises 'first hour free' and use that consultation to satisfy yourself about what you have been told here.

 

If you hire a solicitor to represent you the cost would probably exceed what you are claiming back from Budget, but once you have satisfied yourself that you are correct about the excess/loss of use etc, then if Budget will not give in you can issue proceedings yourself and represent yourself (basically you fill in a form that says how much Budget owe you and why and then if they defend you go to Court and explain in person to a judge (registrar), who will then decide who is right and who is entitked to what).

 

A good technique to use is to issue 'dummy proceedings', these do not coast you anything because you haven't issued, but it shows the other party that you mean business and your next step will be Court unless they give you your money back. From what you have described about How Budget have acted I think they would find their actions very hard to justify in Court.

 

Mossy