A guest recently left two of my cars filthy and covered in cat hair. As if that weren’t enough, she also damaged both cars. I seriously hope her account gets banned so she can’t do this to any other hosts.
The silver lining here is that I took some decent pre and post trip photos and was able to get paid back pretty quickly through Turo’s claims process.
I initially chose to try to work it out directly with the guest because she was being cooperative and acknowledged that she did (most) of the damage. But after a couple weeks of inaction, I escalated it to Turo. This meant paying the $250 deductible because I’m on the 75 protection plan.
So, how did she come to damage two of my cars, you might be wondering. It all comes back to the stupid recall for Nissan Rogues for a faulty key fob (not even the actual car!). This woman had my Rogue for three months, and had been extending her trip by a few days at a time. But once the recall was announced she was no longer able to extend. Without knowing the condition of my Rogue, I offered her a swap to my Sentra.
That swap was quickly ended after I saw the condition of the Rogue and I notified her I wouldn’t be accepting any more extensions, and she needed to return my car within two days. And of course she returned it late and in the wrong location!
The Sentra was missing a hubcap and there was a large crack in the rear bumper (that she denied was there). The Rogue had a cracked windshield, badly scratched rear bumper, one missing and one damaged hubcap, and the rear break light was broken. The estimated repair costs came in at over $4000 for the cars!
My post trip photos for the Rogue were clear and under the bright lights of a gas station. This claim was easy to get approved and Turo sent the payment right away.
The pictures for the Sentra weren’t in such ideal conditions. They were taken at night in a dimly lit parking lot (remember it was returned to the wrong lot).
I didn’t even notice the cracked bumper until I took it in for the estimate. But luckily it was visible even in the dark pictures.
The Turo claims rep said he wasn’t able to see the crack at first and I got nervous that my claim was about to get denied. So I used Google Photos’ brightness enhancing feature to edit the picture and sent both the edited and original to the claims rep. Payment for the damage was sent the next day.
I’ve heard some nightmare stories about having to wait months to get paid out, but my experience was pretty seamless. As long as the damage is clear and you report it in time, you shouldn’t have any problems getting reimbursed by Turo.
Use the flash if you’re in the dark and edit the pictures later to make them brighter. Then take additional pictures in the daytime. You only have 24 hours to report any damage, so don’t delay.
If you’re going to rent cars on Turo, just know that it’s WHEN not IF your car will get damaged. Be sure to take lots of pre and post trip photos. You never know when one might be worth $1000s of dollars.
