I want to rent a car for four days, picking it up and returning it at the same airport. Sounds reasonable? That's what I thought. I read the following conditions about the documentation I'm required to have:
A valid photo ID (Passport or National ID). FINE!
For this rental you will also need two forms of proof of address that is the same as on your driver's license: Mmm. NOT QUITE SO FINE. I left that address 37 years ago. Should I have kept the UK livence authorities updated about every one of my 30 or 40 address changes during those years, around the world, and my "no fixed abode" periods, and received back from them a suitably updated document? DO people inform Swansea of an address change?
a) One must be a credit card or bank statement for the credit card presented at the desk.
MY STATEMENTS are electronic but I could, no doubt, get a paper version.
b) The other must be a utility bill (gas, electric, water use bill etc.) Mobile phone bills or council tax bills will not be accepted.
Can the utility bill be in German, Czech, Farsi or Thai, for example, I ask myself. Aren't utility bills normally printed in the language of the country they apply to? And that's without mentioning people whose bill is in someone else's name or who, like me, pay an all-inclusive rent.
Both documents must be dated within 8 weeks of date of hire. Electronic copies are not acceptable. You will have to pass a security validation check by car rental agent.
THEN SOME OF THE INFORMATION GIVEN SO FAR IS REPEATED.
*For this rental you will also* need two forms of proof of address that is the same as on your driver's license:
**
a) One must be a credit card or bank statement for the credit card presented at the desk.
b) The other should ("must", above, has been replaced here by "should". Please make up your minds.) be a utility bill (gas, electric, water use bill etc.) Mobile phone bills or council tax bills will not be accepted.
Both documents must be dated within 8 weeks of date of hire. You will have to pass a security validation check by car rental agent.
I'm wondering: Is this company trying to weed out 95% of the people who might want to rent from them? Those 95% would be the people who don't live at the same address as shown on their driving licence, who don't receive utility bills showing that same address, and who-for one reason and another-don't have paper credit card or bank statements.
Are these difficult-to-fulfil requirements now "normal" or am I the one who is out of step? Have the "good old days"passed by, the days when to rent a car, one needed, say, a passport, a credit card and a driving licence?
Are these requirements "reasonable"?
Is this company serious about these conditions, I wonder.
