Please sign in to post.
Holiday Sale! Save 20% Storewide!

Help - Car rental dispute in Italy

Posted by on

Hi All,
My husband and I rented a car from sicily car rentals for 2 days in Tuscany in June. On the second day, the car broke down so we called the company who collected the car. On return from our trip they emailed us with a bill for 2200 euros for a burnt out clutch.
They provided photos of the clutch and a bill.

We were confident we did not cause this damage as we are both experienced manual car drivers and had no issues driving. So we disputed with the company and asked for more evidence that the clutch damage wasn't already present when we rented the car the day before. They ignored our emails and proceeded to charge our credit card the fee. We then disputed this with our credit card company who investigated and sided with us saying the company had accepted the dispute. We thought no more of it until we got a letter in the post from an Italian lawyer demanding payment in 7 days or they will pursue legal action. Now we don't know what we should do?!

Should we reply to the lawyer? ignore the letter? I thought the case was closed but now I don't know what to do.

Posted by
5550 posts

I would seek professional legal advice rather than take the advice from well meaning but not legally qualified forum members.

Posted by
1450 posts

You would know if you had burnt the clutch out. The smell is horrendous. It’s not something that could happen without you being aware of it.

Posted by
16129 posts

I don't see how you could have burned the clutch in 2 days.
Which company is this and did you have insurance? Rental companies in Italy are franchises and frankly their business practices are neither transparent nor honest.
The Italian lawyer can do very little other than write a letter.

Posted by
7050 posts

Ignoring the letter is probably the worst thing you can do. And I'm not sure it was a good idea to dispute the charge.

What you need to do is to read the contract carefully and get some better advice than some persons on a forum.

Posted by
7168 posts

I would probably first check with the credit card company that told you the car rental company accepted their decision about the dispute and see what they have to say, if anything. It's possible that they will have you forward a copy of the letter to them and follow up with the Italian lawyer. Worth a try anyway.

Posted by
16129 posts

Deal first with your credit card and make sure they accepted your dispute and reversed the charges.
Italians like to use lawyers to write letters to threaten people to pay, but they rarely actually sue you and in this case having a foreign court judgement enforced in US courts would be even more complicated if not impossible, and no foreign car rental agency will spend thousands of dollars in legal fees for something like this.

Add Reply

Please do not reply to violations of our Community Guidelines.