We got the bill from Hertz yesterday! It took them a while but they did charge us 506 euro for the dent. We contacted the insurance that we bought from Amex and they said they would take care of everything and that if a charge showed up our cc to call Amex and tell them our insurance claim number and they will remove the charge. So everything looks like it will be ok.

Thanks for filling in the blank-I often wonder how these things end.

Thank you for posting the result. I am nervous about renting a car for our upcoming trip for this reason.

I too find the attitude interesting that just because you are a good driver that things don't happen. The OP started out by saying that it happened in a parking lot. We just returned a car that had marks on it that we had not done. It happened in a parking lot and we are waiting to find out the result. This is the fist time this has happened.

We rented a car from AutoEurope and picked it up at the Nice Airport. It was a gorgeous warm sunny March day (big change from the Cape Cod we left) and we debated for a minute upgrading to a BMW convertible. Maybe if we had we wouldn't have scrapped the passenger's side on a cement planter less than an hour later but if we had it would have cost a lot more to fix I imagine. When we returned I contacted AMEX which we had used to reserve and also used for the 1000 euro deposit we had to put on our card when we picked up the car. Since we had upgraded from a green Amex to a gold between the reservation and the trip Amex argued that we hadn't used the same card so they wouldn't pay for the $700 damage. I set my husband onto them and finally they paid it.

I broke the driver side mirror of a rental car. Since the cheap insurance I bought from them didn't cover the first $500, I had the mirror changed in a shop for $50.

When I returned I realized with horror that the door had a rather bad scratch. The rental car guy noticed it but his colleague, with whom I had had a nice chat when I rented the car, lied and said it was already scratched, then winked at me! I got off easily and learned to 1. always buy full insurance, and 2. be nice to the staff.

Though it costs a lot of money, CDW is a lot cheaper than the excess or total cost of car damage/loss. A few years back I had a car in Southern Portugal which has a lot of narrow streets with cars parked both sides. I drove very carefully and thought it was OK but when I returned the car, the guy pointed out a long scratch to me. It had happened while I was out of the car on my last day. Fortunately, like Eric S I believe in insurance.

LJ: I don't know about the UK, but as far as I know, if you rent a car in Italy, you are forced by law to buy the damage insurance. Our rental was severely damaged by the valet of the Grand Hotel in Florence who cunningly claimed that it was already crushed when checked in. We immediately complained to the hotel but they said they were not liable because the valet was a separate company, not part of the hotel. We were vey upset because we would have noticed such a big crushed rear corner & broken lamp when the luggage was being unloaded at check in, however, time was running out since we had to catch our plane. As we were about to drive away, there was an American couple who was shocked to see their car with multiple sideswipe damage, much worse than ours! Well when we got to the airport, Hertz told us that the insurance is a requirement in Italy so we didn't have to worry. We never paid a cent more for the damage.

More recently the required insurance has different deductible as high as 1500 euro for which the rental company offers additional optional deductible coverage.