What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? California
I was in an accident in a rental car some time back, and I'm concerned with how the rental car company figured their "loss of use" fee.
Instead of charging me for the actual days the car was in the shop, they took the number of labor hours the mechanic billed them, divided that by four, and called that "days". Thus, a 58 hour repair job was turned into "14.7 days" even though the repairs could quite possibly have been done in two or three days if more than one mechanic was working on it. This means they're charging me LOU for over two weeks, when for all I know they actually had the car back on the rental lot in three days.
This seems like an entirely unreasonable way to compute a loss of use fee - the actual time the car spent in the shop would be any rational person's assumption of the fair number. Moreover, the contract I signed with the rental car company does not spell out in advance that they will use this completely counterintuitive calculation.
Am I within my rights to protest this, and if so what avenue should I use? Or are they allowed to use any calculation they like even if they don't spell it out in the contract?
Thanks for any advice!
(I'm in California, but the rental, accident, and repair all occurred Nebraska.)
I was in an accident in a rental car some time back, and I'm concerned with how the rental car company figured their "loss of use" fee.
Instead of charging me for the actual days the car was in the shop, they took the number of labor hours the mechanic billed them, divided that by four, and called that "days". Thus, a 58 hour repair job was turned into "14.7 days" even though the repairs could quite possibly have been done in two or three days if more than one mechanic was working on it. This means they're charging me LOU for over two weeks, when for all I know they actually had the car back on the rental lot in three days.
This seems like an entirely unreasonable way to compute a loss of use fee - the actual time the car spent in the shop would be any rational person's assumption of the fair number. Moreover, the contract I signed with the rental car company does not spell out in advance that they will use this completely counterintuitive calculation.
Am I within my rights to protest this, and if so what avenue should I use? Or are they allowed to use any calculation they like even if they don't spell it out in the contract?
Thanks for any advice!
(I'm in California, but the rental, accident, and repair all occurred Nebraska.)
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