September 17, 2006
Travel woes 2: Car hire in Sweden
I just checked my credit card statement and noticed two payments relating to my recent trip to Stockholm.
04 Sep THE HERTZ CORPORATION GENERAL HEADQ on 01 Sep 190.93
06 Sep Hertz Ostermalm STOCKHOLM on 02 Sep 2,617.70 SWEDISH KRONA at 13.42 194.92
The first relates to the amount I paid to hire a car during my stay. No problems with that.
The second payment relates to the amount I was charged for a slight dent on the right-hand rear bumper.
Now, I only travelled approx. 60 kilometres (the decision to hire a car was really for convenience rather than distance) and know for certain that I didn’t bump into anything. Given that I parked at my friends Chris and Kicki’s house
, which is well off the road. I’m pretty sure that nothing bumped into the car while I wasn’t driving, too.
The nice man at Hertz on Östermalmstorg told me that if it weren’t possible to remove the dent, he might have to replace the section of the bumper.
It seems he didn’t waste much time before deciding to replace it – he’d processed the maximum payment (SEK 2500 limit) he could before I’d left the country.
Oh well, I had a wonderful time, even if it turned out to be a relatively expensive trip. I'll certainly pay more attention when hiring cars in the future - especially if it's from Hertz (I'm not planning to use them again unless I have to).