Take photos / video of damage before you start your journey.
I rented a car last weekend from Budget. At the office, the agent asked me to sign an agreement on his tablet with my finger, which I did. He told me the car was downstairs and to bring it back there later (I only needed the car for a few hours). When I got downstairs, I didn't even know which car park I was in so I had no idea where to come back to but I assumed there would be signage - oh no there wasn't. Anyway, first thing I did was video the whole car and then got on my way, drove to Wexford, parked in a private space at my mothers with no other cars and then drove back to the airport. When I approached the airport there were no "car rental return" signs. I left the car in T1 in a budget space having seemingly picked it up from T2. I looked everywhere for a budget rep to check the car, there was no one. I went back to the office with the keys, handed them in and asked if someone wanted to check the car, the agent said no, it, he would get someone to pick up the car. I said I had no idea where to return the car, he said I should have received a slip but I didn't. I returned to the UK and 4 days later I received an email from budget saying I had damaged their car. They attached a form basically asking me to admit the damage. I had to ask for photos which they sent me later. Firstly, the photos were taken nearly 2 hours after I left back the car, secondly, my video showed the damage was on the car when I picked it up. I have explained all this to them but they have not replied and they have taken my £2000 deposit, thirdly, it was only when i got home and looked at the contract they emailed me, that I looked through, scrolled down many pages to find a damage report which the agent never told me was there when I picked up the car. If I had known it was there, I would have checked it meticulously. By the way, the car was covered in bumps, scratches etc. It had very high mileage, the air con didn't work and the fuel tank wasn't full but they charged me for it. Since writing this report they have refunded my deposit and the lady (Alice) I have been dealing with has been very pleasant throughout. Seemingly they are piloting a new system and there was an error that told them I had damaged the car.
