Car rental deposit woes

Will Gill

Will Gill

Will Gill

Don
Joined
18 Oct 2002
Posts
56,604
Location
Cornwall
Morning,

Whilst enjoying my hols with the 'fam in France we rented a car (Qashqai), a very uneventful and boring rental/car experience and I returned the car as I found it, I even topped up the tank coz I'm nice.

They took a seemingly hefty deposit of €2500 but unlike other car rentals there was nowhere to pay a bit extra to reduce this excess, anyway, I paid it didn't think much about it, until now, nearly two weeks later I'm still 2.5k out of pocket and the vendor/rental company claim the refund takes 30 days to be processed. That sounded a little retarded (time wise) so I spoke to my bank, who have further worried me by saying this could take up to 12 weeks to resolve, irksome.

I've done my google and chatgpt sleuthing and not returned a vast amount of info, I just wondered if you fine marques might have any experience with such matters? or am I being petty and should I simply let time resolve my qualms?

Here are pictures for your amusement and reference:
1725529210338.png
1725529117086.jpeg
Screenshot_20240905_101758_Monzo.jpg Screenshot_20240905_101811_Monzo.jpg

P.S. Their head office is in france which is rather a long distance to go and poo in the their letter box
 
Looks like the bank have raised a dispute/chargeback which could well take longer.
If the rental company has stated it could take 30 days then I'm not sure why you didn't just wait the 30 days? Its not great but if it their policy then that's the policy.
 
yeah fair point, my annoyance with this company clouded my judgement and my bank (monzo) gave me no other obvious option to query the transaction

I've never ever experienced this kind of delay fpr preauthed payments. Be it hotels, car rental etc..and was hoping for other experiences confirming or denying
 
No way I would have given an overseas company a £2500 deposit from my debit card, that's poor judgement.

Should have waited 30 days first (second mistake) before taking it up with your bank as now you'll aggravated them.

Sorry, but harsh post I know, hopefully lesson learned?
 
If that's the case. So be it, I'll just wait however long it takes. Will be an unexpected Brucey bonus when it arrives.

Just amazed 30 days is acceptable. Is the refund provided via a post dated cheque? :cry:
 
you've called them - vous avez appelez eux meme ?
won't making a claim massively complicate issue too, if their people just out of the office on summer vacation - interest on everyones 2.5ke adds up too.
 
Yeah they were nice enough but still insisted it was 30 days, which I found rather elongated and I resented them sitting on 2.5k gaining their own interest. So here we are. I guess they can sit on it for 12 weeks now instead, lesson learnt :cry:

I was more interested if this was the norm?
 
Lesson learned - do the deposit on your CC with highest available balance, and then take Car Excess Insurance for like £20 from carhireexcess.com

Way cheaper than paying those companies.
 
Maccy said:
Surprised you didn't use your black amex, peasant.
Click to expand...
I tried mate, it turns out they were the peasants.....
1725541392508.png

dlockers said:
Lesson learned - do the deposit on your CC with highest available balance, and then take Car Excess Insurance for like £20 from carhireexcess.com

Way cheaper than paying those companies.
Click to expand...

That would have been my amex mate :-P which they didn't accept, to be quite honest I just grabbed another card and really didn't think about it as with every other deposit experience it's been credited back within 24 hours.
 
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pre-auth doesn't take the money, but holds it to be pulled down later. They don't 'have' it as such but have access to it. The issue here is probably that they've set the auth period too long (maybe 30 days) so it won't release until that time has passed.
In theory the merchant (hire company) can cancel that auth, but most don't know they can, or how to. I'm suprised Monzo have opened a chargeback if it is an auth, but afraid you'll have to wait on it.

(Just be thankful thats all your only problem, my Dad had a hire car in Italy a good while ago, Herz told the Carabinieri he was responsible for a speeding ticket two weeks after he got back, in an entirely different region. Hertz wouldn't admit their mistake and then were completely unhelpful trying to get it resolved with the authorities. In the end, on the advise of some Italian friends he just paid the fine then spent the best part of a year getting the money back from Hertz)
 
Siliconslave said:
pre-auth doesn't take the money, but holds it to be pulled down later. They don't 'have' it as such but have access to it. The issue here is probably that they've set the auth period too long (maybe 30 days) so it won't release until that time has passed.
In theory the merchant (hire company) can cancel that auth, but most don't know they can, or how to. I'm suprised Monzo have opened a chargeback if it is an auth, but afraid you'll have to wait on it.

(Just be thankful thats all your only problem, my Dad had a hire car in Italy a good while ago, Herz told the Carabinieri he was responsible for a speeding ticket two weeks after he got back, in an entirely different region. Hertz wouldn't admit their mistake and then were completely unhelpful trying to get it resolved with the authorities. In the end, on the advise of some Italian friends he just paid the fine then spent the best part of a year getting the money back from Hertz)
Click to expand...

This is my point, they have taken the money and it's 100% missing from my bank account, you can see it here along with the actual rental amount:
1725541971470.png
 
Will Gill said:
I tried mate, it turns out they were the peasants.....
1725541392508.png



That would have been my amex mate :-P which they didn't accept, to be quite honest I just grabbed another card and really didn't think about it as with every other deposit experience it's been credited back within 24 hours.
Click to expand...
You need a BarclayCard Rewards card then - CC with decent balance and fee free overseas transactions and ATM withdrawals :D
 
Yeah its a PITA with Monzo cards. I got caught in Oman with a massive deposit fee for the whole crews hotel rooms not leaving enough available balance to actually pay the hotel bill.

It wasn't like I'd just played the "it'll be fine boys, we've got loads of time to get to the airport" card and left it a little tight with our return flight... oh wait. I did.

Still, not like we finally got the other side of the airport to the final security check then realised the hire car key was still in my pocket... oh no, that's right... I did that as well :o
 
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