To avoid getting ripped off on car hire, inspect a vehicle thoroughly, and watch those odd extras, writes CONOR POPE

While renting a car can make life a whole lot easier when holidaying abroad, it can also add a whole lot more to the cost of your trip than you might think, particularly if you’re not paying attention to the small print.

Readers frequently get in touch with tales of woe about car hire. Credit cards are debited without explanation weeks after cars are returned in perfect condition. Rental-firm staff have also been known to crawl under cars the moment they are returned and find mysterious dents that cost hundreds of euro to put right, with customers’ protestations of innocence falling on deaf ears.

Of course, there’s hardly any point in arguing because, if you’ve signed the form agreeing to cover any damage – and you can’t get a car unless you sign the form – there is not much you can do to stop the money being debited from your credit-card account.

Then there are the extra charges: ridiculously high rates for diesel if a car is not returned full; charging for a full tank of fuel even if only quarter of a tank is used, because the company insists on you returning the car with an empty tank; or charging a full day’s extra rental if a car is returned three minutes late.

And, of course, there are airport pick-up surcharges. A reader contacted us recently to complain about Budget’s surcharging policy. He points out that when you book a car with Budget, you are quoted an initial price, which jumps by €28 as you near the end of the booking process.

The website explains that “a standard airport surcharge of €28 will be added to the cost when you pick up your car from Dublin Airport”.

However, if you arrange to pick up the car in Dublin city centre, the price also jumps by €28, except this time it is because “a standard city-centre location surcharge of €28 will be added to the cost when you pick up your car from Dublin City Centre”.

In fact, Killarney, as the only non-airport, non-city centre location where Budget does business, is the only place in the country you can avoid the charge.

Other issues people have raised about car hire, at home and abroad, include the high cost and low quality of child seats offered by many car- hire companies, and confusion about insurance, excesses and waivers.

It is little wonder that the European Consumer Centre (ECC) is kept busy dealing with complaints about the business year-round. In a typical year, the small advocacy group will deal with more than 120 complaints from disgruntled consumers.

“Credit cards are charged for damages that the consumer did not cause. In many cases, consumers are not even notified that their credit card is debited and they are not given any chance to clarify the position,” it said in a report published last summer.

It says people are unaware of the need to inspect rental cars carefully when picking up and returning them, and warns that contract terms are stacked against the consumer.

Of course, it’s not like many of us would know this, as few people give the car-hire contracts so much as a passing glance when we arrive, hot, sticky, tired and cranky in a strange airport at the start of our holidays.

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