After employees had multiple hassles with car rental companies that were complete and utter BS (we required employees to take their own before and after filmed walk arounds with their phone, which is how we resolved all of them — after a fight) I instituted a “no rental” policy unless there was no option.
Uber or Lyft were almost always cheaper, no limit or looking at what trips they made. Car service (suv with driver) for big cities.
I’ve rented my last car. This is thievery by the rental companies.
Everyone thought HAL 9000 was imaginary but now all its children are taking control.
Take pictures of all sides of your rental before driving it off the lot, it could save you hundreds, if not thousands.
I always avoid Sixt. They have always been known to make up new damage. If you have pictures of the scratch at rental time, they will drop the claim. If not……say goodbye to $1k.
EC
Two comments.... Once upon a time many years ago, it used to be that if the drive was longer than five hours, one would take a flight and rent a car. Then as air travel became hated more and more, that drive was extended to 10 hours.... and now, it’s in the process of being extended again due to things like this scanning business. This thing of scanning the car means that not only is the distance being extended because of dislike of air travel, it could quickly become extended even more because of dislike of car renting.
My second comment is a question.... has anyone ever used Turo? https://turo.com/ I have not done that but it seems like a good option for those occasions where it simply is too far to drive.....and totally avoids the entire scanning question. How would Turo work at an airport? Would the owner of the car just meet the person there who is taking over the car and hand the keys over?
As long as they also scan it just before we drive it off the lot that would be fine.
Demand a scan and report before you accept the vehicle.
I always purchase their insurance when renting a car so I don't worry about, nor have to pay for damage.