A complete guide on how not to be accused of stealing a rented car
It was the beginning of 2019. My client and I were waiting for the court hearing when my mother called. She told me about receiving a notice from the local court that demanded my appearance as a suspect in a criminal case. The next few hours were probably the longest in my life, and I was hoping it was a mistake. On the same day, I managed to call the court and find out the summons’ grounds. As it turned out, the local court invited me to serve a notice of the Chania Court of First Instance (Crete, Greece). The notice stated that I had been charged with a medium-gravity crime committed in September 2016, namely, the car theft.
Here it is worth taking a brief look at the past. I love to travel, especially in the format of driving around the islands in a rented car. At the end of the summer of 2016, my wife and I rested on Crete. Having previous experience of renting a car on the Greek islands, we did not order a car in advance. The reason is that local rental car offices are quite competitive in terms of price. Also, most of them do not require a deposit, and the insurance comes with zero excess. We took a car in one of the local offices, agreed for a fee that we will leave it in another city on specific public parking. Comparing the dates of events, I assumed that the owner did not find his car and reported to the police about its theft. Looking ahead, I can say that I was right. Moreover, as it turned out, the owner found his car in 2018, where we left it but did not withdraw the application from the court. My first question was, why couldn’t he find the car right away? When my lawyer from Chania sent me the case file, it turned out that the owner’s copy of the rental agreement did not reflect the information about the parking place where we agreed to leave the car.
You are probably wondering how this story ended. The court scheduled the hearing for the end of 2020. My lawyer had a conversation with the car owner. The latter reported that I had left the car in an unapproved place. Because he couldn’t find it and rent it out for several years, he demanded compensation from that period. His attitude changed somewhat when we provided him with our copy of the agreement and explained that it was a mistake of his employee, who did not indicate all important information in his copy. Despite this, the owner of the car refused to withdraw the application from the court. So I decided that my representation in this case by a professional lawyer is mandatory.
I will let you know about the results of the case after the court hearing takes place. And now, I want to share my experience of what is necessary to do so that a similar situation does not overshadow your vacation.
1. Getting a car
1.1. Prudently choose a car rental office. If possible, before signing an agreement, read the reviews of the rental company on the Internet. It is better to avoid companies that have no reviews at all. If you plan to leave the car elsewhere, give preference to companies with an office in the car’s place of return.
1.2. Make sure the rental agreement contains all the necessary information. The key things here are:
- a company representative must fill the agreement personally. You are only required to verify the information contained in the agreement and sign it. Do not hesitate to ask the company employee to indicate in the agreement his name and position. In case of problems, it will be easier to prove who exactly signed the agreement on behalf of the company;
- additional conditions must be indicated in the agreement and be unambiguously interpreted. In our case, we asked the company’s representative to specify personally in the agreement in which parking area we should leave the car;
- the agreement must contain information about the car’s condition, fuel level, mileage, and type of insurance;
- the agreement must specify contact details. It is better when the company has an email and is available through popular messengers;
- ask a company representative to make sure that his copy of the agreement is identical to yours.
2. Using the car
2.1. Inspect the car. Make sure the company representative indicated all mechanical damages in the agreement.
2.2. Capture the condition of the car on video and photo. Taking pictures of the vehicle will not be enough. My legal practice has taught me one thing — if you want to prove something, record it so that no one can question it. I remember cases when a court did not consider photos provided by my clients as evidence. The reason — it was not clear when they made such photos and in what place. So, it is better to do as follows. Record on the video (1) the area where you take the car, (2) the car itself from all sides, it’s interior and dashboard, (3) the screen of another mobile while opening some well-known information portals (to confirm the date of recording). Also, you can take photos, as they show details better than video.
2.3. Enable geolocation on your phone for the duration of your trip. It was hard for me to recall the chronology of events in detail after almost three years since our trip. Here the Google Map with its feature called “Chronology” helped me a lot. It showed me where and when I rented a car, left it, and my entire route with reference photos. I’m sure there are similar programs on the iPhones. Before the planned trip, make sure that everything is working properly.
3. Returning the car
3.1. Record the condition of the vehicle on video and photo (as indicated in para 2.2). Additionally:
3.1.1. if you return the car to a company representative — ask him to indicate in your copy of the agreement of receipt of the car. I know that some rental offices don’t practice this. In such a case, make sure that you recorded on a video that you left the car at the rental office’s parking lot.
3.1.2. if you drop-off the car in another agreed place. In such cases, companies ask to close the car and throw the keys into the vehicle through a slightly open window. You should also record this process on video.
3.2. Inform the car rental company by email where and when you left the car. If the company blocked the deposit on your card at the time of rental, additionally ask to unlock it. Unlocking a deposit can be considered as one of the proofs of the absence of claims against you.
4. Further actions
4.1. Keep the car rental agreement and relevant documents for at least three years. As you can see in my case, I got to know about a criminal case 2.5 years later after my trip. And solely due to my habit of keeping such documents, I still have the original of the agreement.
5. If you are faced with charges of car theft
5.1. Do not leave it unattended. It is necessary to take part in all administrative/criminal proceedings that may affect your rights or interests. And it doesn’t matter that you are not guilty and don’t want to spend money on legal services. The risk of being convicted of a crime can drastically affect the realization of all your plans.
5.2. Immediately seek a lawyer who can represent your interests. Finding a lawyer, discussing details, sending documents can take a long time. In my case, about a month. Where to look? On LinkedIn, Google, sites of the local bar association, etc.
5.3. In parallel, prepare a statement for the lawyer with an evidence base. I did the following: (1) recorded on video the chronology of my trip via Google Maps, (2) prepared a brief statement with accompanying documents (passport, tickets, car rental agreement, photos, videos) describing my issue. By the time I found a lawyer, I had a well-structured package of documents. That helped the lawyer understand the case and develop the proper defense strategy quickly without extra requests.
I hope these tips will help you cut the risk of getting into a similar situation. I am sure that such cases are rare and will not cause you problems if you are ready for them. So do not limit yourself in the pleasure of traveling across other countries in a rented car.
