This is a long story so I'm just going to hit the important points. Two months ago, I rented a car in Houston. A woman hit me. She was at fault and her insurnace company (Allstate) paid to repair the rental. I thought that was the end of the story.
But a month ago, I got a bill from the rental car company (DTG). They wanted $37.13 for "loss of use" and $50 for "administration". I assumed they had simply mailed the bill to the wrong place. So I faxed it over to Allstate. After nearly a month of trying to get the adjuster to return my calls, I finally spoke with his supervisor who was able to get him to call me. He told me it simply is not their policy to pay these charges, even when their driver incurred them.
So I called over to DTG and explained the situation to them. I asked them to send the bill to Allstate and/or the other driver. They refused. I asked them to waive the fees. They refused. I asked them to produce the fleet utilization log so I could see that they had actually suffered a loss, rather than just making it up. They refused (claiming the logs are company confidental, like they contain trade secrets or something). Finally, I asked what would happen if I simply didn't pay the bill. They said they would send it to collections and it would show up in my credit report.
Now I feel a very strange dichotomy about this. One the one hand, I've reached a point in my life where $87.13 is just no big deal. However, I feel like I'm being charged with a "just because" fee and I'm absolutely outraged by it. I REALLY don't want to pay this bill. I would rather pay a lawyer $500 per hour to fight this than send DTG the $87.13. In fact, I'm prepared to ignore this bill, even it means my otherwise spotless credit will be damaged.
So here's the FP question. What kind of damage am I looking at here? As I said, my credit is spotless (800+). Are we talking about a 10 point drop? A 100 point drop? And how long will it take to go away? I just took out my last mortgage for the forseeable future. I pay for my cars with cash. I sometimes apply for new credit cards to get signup bonuses or better rewards. But I'm relative satisfied with my current two cards so I have no NEED to do that.
In summary, my credit is excellent and I don't think I'm going to need new credit any time soon. So if the hit to my credit score is going to be small or the damage will go away relatively quickly, I'm going to seriously consider taking the hit. But if it's going to be catastropic, I'll swallow my pride and send them the check.
I appreciate any advice you can offer, either on the FP front or fighting DTG.
Thanks in advance, Bill
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