Car body shop trying to force me to pay them?!

[cheesyshiba]

Hi there, I live in Oregon.

A while ago someone hit my partner's car as a hit and run in July. The police have been 0 help despite overwhelming evidence that it was that person and our insurance deductible is ridiculously high (even though our car was parked and no one was in it...)

We took the car to a body shop to get an estimate. The people working there insisted we use their rental car and get this figured out at no charge, and keep our damaged car with them as it was not safe to drive. We signed a contract but it said $0 per day to use the rental car.


We had been working night and day to figure this out and are now looking into taking the guy who hit our car to small claims court. I had tried contacting the body shop multiple times to get in contact to update them about what path we are taking, but was unable to make contact.

However, at the beginning of August, my grandmother passed away in Japan and I had to leave to tend to her for a few weeks. I recently got back and we have been contacting lawyers to see if we can get some advice with small claims court to take the driver who hit us to court to get money to pay the body shop to repair our car.

Today we got a message from the body shop stating that 'they had tried to get in contact with us multiple times' (they did not) and now they will be charging us $500 + $35 per day we use the rental car. We want to drop off the car today and collect our car back. Do they have grounds to charge us this undisclosed $500 fee?

Of course we will bring back their car today, but we don't want trouble when we arrive to do so.

Please help! :'( We just want to get our car back from them and figure this out ourselves. They were the ones who insisted on having us use the rental car.

 

[LdiJ]

Hi there, I live in Oregon.

A while ago someone hit my partner's car as a hit and run in July. The police have been 0 help despite overwhelming evidence that it was that person and our insurance deductible is ridiculously high (even though our car was parked and no one was in it...)

We took the car to a body shop to get an estimate. The people working there insisted we use their rental car and get this figured out at no charge, and keep our damaged car with them as it was not safe to drive. We signed a contract but it said $0 per day to use the rental car.


We had been working night and day to figure this out and are now looking into taking the guy who hit our car to small claims court. I had tried contacting the body shop multiple times to get in contact to update them about what path we are taking, but was unable to make contact.

However, at the beginning of August, my grandmother passed away in Japan and I had to leave to tend to her for a few weeks. I recently got back and we have been contacting lawyers to see if we can get some advice with small claims court to take the driver who hit us to court to get money to pay the body shop to repair our car.

Today we got a message from the body shop stating that 'they had tried to get in contact with us multiple times' (they did not) and now they will be charging us $500 + $35 per day we use the rental car. We want to drop off the car today and collect our car back. Do they have grounds to charge us this undisclosed $500 fee?

Of course we will bring back their car today, but we don't want trouble when we arrive to do so.

Please help! :'( We just want to get our car back from them and figure this out ourselves. They were the ones who insisted on having us use the rental car.

You kept the car far longer than it would have been expected for you to make a decision as to whether or not they would do the work. You definitely should have returned the car before you went to Japan. Its likely that they are justified in charging you for the rental. The 500.00 fee however is not the norm for a rental car at all, therefore I don't see how they can justify that. Look at the contract that you signed however.

 

[cbg]

I'm willing to be that there is a limit on your insurance for how long you can keep the rental for free, most likely 30 days. When you kept it longer than that, the insurance would no longer provide the free coverage. $500 is actually quite a reasonable price for over a month.

 

[cheesyshiba]

You kept the car far longer than it would have been expected for you to make a decision as to whether or not they would do the work. You definitely should have returned the car before you went to Japan. Its likely that they are justified in charging you for the rental. The 500.00 fee however is not the norm for a rental car at all, therefore I don't see how they can justify that. Look at the contract that you signed however.

I left the very night I got the news. The contract we have copies of doesn’t say anywhere about the fee and just says ‘complimentary.’ It doesn’t say anything about the fees. I know we kept the car longer than we should’ve but from a legal standpoint can we get our car back and return the car without paying the 500 dollars as long as we didn’t sign a contract stating there’d be that specific fee?

 

[cheesyshiba]

I'm willing to be that there is a limit on your insurance for how long you can keep the rental for free, most likely 30 days. When you kept it longer than that, the insurance would no longer provide the free coverage. $500 is actually quite a reasonable price for over a month.

Unfortunately no rental car coverage on our plan which the body shop knew. I’m looking more from a legal standpoint if we can get our car back without paying as long as we return the rental car today? We were told complimentary and thought they were doing this out of kindness. We have been actively trying to figure out small claims...

 

[adjusterjack]

The 500.00 fee however is not the norm for a rental car at all

The $500 might be for storing the car for two months.

I’m looking more from a legal standpoint if we can get our car back without paying as long as we return the rental car today? We were told complimentary and thought they were doing this out of kindness.

You should have been able to make your decision in a week.

I suggest you take enough cash to pay the bill and when you get there you might be able to negotiate a compromise.

They are well within their rights to charge you for two months now that you want your car back without having them do the work. They certainly aren't going to keep it for free for more months while you are "actively" trying to figure out small claims.

 

[xylene]

HOW much exactly do they allege you owe? In total.

Bluntly, I would considermmaking them a compromise offer.

Be prepared to pay the whole amount to get your car back.

Be prepared to eat your deductible or simply self pay.

If you have to park on the street and the car is worth more than you can afford to lose or replace, a high deductible plan is crazy.

This is your partners car, so they should have been stepping up more on so so many of these issues.

 

[xylene]

Also, while extending much sympathy to you on your loss, you might and possibly should expect this to evoke much sympathy from the body shop. Being called away suddenly to travel someplace you are effectively incommunicado is like the adult version of my dog ate my homework.

You really should have returned the loaner car and made arrangements for the car being stored before departing. Or your partner should have done so.

You can expect to pay, significantly, for things you should have done but did not. That's just. Stick it to a business because you made mistakes? Not legit.

 

[cbg]

Being called away suddenly to travel someplace you are effectively incommunicado is like the adult version of my dog ate my homework.

Well said, xylene. Well said.

 

[LdiJ]

I'm willing to be that there is a limit on your insurance for how long you can keep the rental for free, most likely 30 days. When you kept it longer than that, the insurance would no longer provide the free coverage. $500 is actually quite a reasonable price for over a month.

I think that you misunderstood. It was 500.00 PLUS 35.00 a day rental.

 

[cbg]

I didn't misunderstand anything. It is common for there to be a refundable deposit on a rental car that you're going to keep for any length of time, in addition to a daily fee. From what we now understand the OP did not have rental car insurance, did not leave a credit card (granted, he was not asked for one) and disappeared for several weeks without leaving any contact information and leaving his own car, as far as the shop knew, abandoned. The $500 would represent the deposit, the $35 the daily fee. I would expect the deposit for that length of time to be considerably more than $500.

 

[cheesyshiba]

HOW much exactly do they allege you owe? In total.

Bluntly, I would considermmaking them a compromise offer.

Be prepared to pay the whole amount to get your car back.

Be prepared to eat your deductible or simply self pay.

If you have to park on the street and the car is worth more than you can afford to lose or replace, a high deductible plan is crazy.

This is your partners car, so they should have been stepping up more on so so many of these issues.

I'm definitely aware they should have been stepping up a bit more. I'm more of the spokesperson unfortunately between the two of us and she usually makes me do most of the talking (hence why I'm the one posting haha) So, legally, even though there was no contract, no agreement forus to pay them for the rental car OR to store our car, OR to fix our car with them (we NEVER agreed to fix our car with them) they can legally still refuse to give us our car back unless we pay? That just seems illegal especially we have contract evidence that they wrote 'complimentary' and crossed out all the charges on the rental car agreement my partner signed.

They're saying we owe 35 dollars a day plus $500 to get our car back when they said it would be completely complimentary- no mention of fees or having to fix our car with them.

 

[Just Blue]

I'm definitely aware they should have been stepping up a bit more. I'm more of the spokesperson unfortunately between the two of us and she usually makes me do most of the talking (hence why I'm the one posting haha) So, legally, even though there was no contract, no agreement forus to pay them for the rental car OR to store our car, OR to fix our car with them (we NEVER agreed to fix our car with them) they can legally still refuse to give us our car back unless we pay? That just seems illegal especially we have contract evidence that they wrote 'complimentary' and crossed out all the charges on the rental car agreement my partner signed.

They're saying we owe 35 dollars a day plus $500 to get our car back when they said it would be completely complimentary- no mention of fees or having to fix our car with them.

How long did you have the car before they "imposed" these charges?

 

[cheesyshiba]

I didn't misunderstand anything. It is common for there to be a refundable deposit on a rental car that you're going to keep for any length of time, in addition to a daily fee. From what we now understand the OP did not have rental car insurance, did not leave a credit card (granted, he was not asked for one) and disappeared for several weeks without leaving any contact information and leaving his own car, as far as the shop knew, abandoned. The $500 would represent the deposit, the $35 the daily fee. I would expect the deposit for that length of time to be considerably more than $500.

That is incorrect- apologies, I should have given more details.

We left a credit card number with them for damages to the car only and that is what was written in the contract to authorise to charge the card. We also left all of our contact info and attempted to make contact with the bodyshop several times within the course of the 2 months- I left voicemails as well, but our calls were not returned. In the beginning of the 2 months we had frequently stopped in to make updates with the manager of the shop and every time she would say 'just keep driving the rental- I'm not going to charge you for it.'

The shop is claiming they attempted to contact us multiple times but we NEVER got anything.

 

[cheesyshiba]

How long did you have the car before they "imposed" these charges?

About 1.5 months- for the first 3 weeks we kept in constant contact with them and drove to the body shop often (even though it is quite far from our house) to make updates with them and let them know what we were doing to catch the driver who hit our car.
They constantly told us to just 'update them when we can and to keep driving the rental, we are not being charged for it.' I called them a couple times and left messages, but did not visit in person, for about a week, and then my grandmother passed away in Japan so I flew out for almost 3 weeks to tend to her funeral.

I had gotten back, again left a message for them letting them know we were now looking into lawyers to go to small claims, and did not hear back.

And just today, we got a message from them stating they'd been trying to contact us, and since we 'had not made any communication with them,' they 'assume we are not working to solve this' and 'have to charge us $500 plus 35 a day for the rental' and 'cannot just let us come get our car and drop off the rental without paying anything.'

I have the contracts we signed and there was nothing in there about that.