Many travellers take the chance to explore foreign countries with a rental car. ECC Austria shows how to avoid problems.

Checklist for car hire:

• Bring all documents of your online reservation. This way you can avoid being charged with a different price on site as agreed in advance.
• Read the lease contract (record of transfer) carefully and let the contractor explain any ambiguities.
• Are the deposit and other agreements indicated in the lease?
• Is the insurance coverage the one you wanted to book? Be careful in case you are asked to pay some extra fee on site. Sometimes unwanted additional insurance packages are sold. 
• When taking over the car, make sure to check on existing scratches or body damage and keep these in writing in the contract.
• Do the same when returning the car. Inspect the car together with an employee of the car rental company and have him noted on the contract that there are no new damages, respectively which additional damages occurred.
• Hence, it is highly advisable to return the car within the opening hours of the car rental company.
• If this is not possible take at least some photos of the car, especially of the parts where there are scratches and other damages.
• Make sure to check the fuel regulations! If the car is to be returned with an empty tank, fees and often an expensive petrol price will be charged! When you return the car with a full tank, always keep the bill of the gas station. Several cases have been reported, where the hire company denied that the tank was full.
• If the car rental requires a carte blanche on your credit card (as a deposit), make sure any arbitrary payment has been transferred back to your account after you returned the car.