| Any advice for Rental Car Accident
This happened in South Carolina, however I live in Pennsylvania. Unfortunately I've made several mistakes already in this process and will probably get stuck with this bill. If anyone can offer any advice, I would appreciate it dearly.
While in SC on a job interview, I had rented a car. My auto insurance, as well as credit card offer coverage for rentals so I did not accept the rental insurance (Mistake 1). On my way out of town to catch my plane home, I went to exit the hotel's parking garage when a man entered the exit lanes. I informed him he was in the exit and the entrance was the next lane over. I went to wait to turn out of the garage when he backed his truck into the side of my rental car. There was no room to get out of the car on either side, so I waved him to follow me and parked my car about 10 feet away from the garage on the street (Mistake 2).
I got out of my car to go talk to the man when he backed out of the garage and drove in the other direction. I had a camera with me and took a picture of him driving away, and also wrote down his license plate number. There was a police officer across the street having illegally parked cars towed. I walked up to her and explained what had happened and she had me move my car to behind her patrol car. During this time she ran the truck's license plates, looked at my photo, and wrote down the registered owner of the truck (the driver's wife) and the owner's address.
About 5 minutes after we had started speaking, the truck that had hit me came back around the corner and into the parking garage. A few more minutes and the man driving walked out of the garage and the officer called him over. He stated that since I had moved my car that I had acknowledged there was no damage to my car. He provided me with his name, phone number, and workplace and admitted to hitting my car, and that he would take care of the damage.
The officer informed me that she was unable to write a police report, and if I wanted one, it would take about 45 minutes for an officer who could write one to arrive. At this point my plane was leaving in about 30 minutes, so I had a decision to make. I decided that since there wasn't any later plane that I could take, if I waited for a police report, I'd end up having to get a hotel room, arrange for transportation, and buy new plane tickets. Weighing this, I decided to leave without a report (Fatal mistake 3).
On returning the car, I gave the driver's information to the clerk and went back home. The other day I received a letter from the rental company stating that the driver denied hitting my car at all, and that I would be responsible for the $1000 in damage.
My credit card company requires claims be filed 30 days from the date of the accident, which has long sine passed (Mistake 4). I haven't contacted my auto insurance company yet, but without an accident report, and a $500 deductible on my plan, I don't know if it would even be worth it to try to save $500. I have called the officer I spoke with and am currently waiting on her to return my message, to see if she can write some sort of statement as to what happened.
I'm pretty sure that to file a lawsuit, I'd have to do it in South Carolina, which would cost almost as much as just paying the damage. Does anyone have any advice that they can give me?
Thank you | 
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