Complaint Review: Thrifty Rental Cars

 I dutifully returned a Ford Mustang rental car, on 03/17/12 at 19:56, in perfect condition with a full tank of gas, verifiing full levels of oil and critical fluids. I properly returned the cars keys and completed the exiting/post rental walk around with a representative of Thrifty identified on my documents as SFRET. There was NO DAMAGE to the vehicle at the time of turn in. To my astonishment, 17 DAYS days later, I received an Email not from Thrifty but from a third party representative named SIMRI BASSETT, a damage recovery agent from DTG Service, telling me there is $524.46 worth of damage to the left rear 1/4 & bumper that all of a sudden appeared on the Mustang rental vehicle. I can't help in finding these claims to be highly suspicious, deceitful and predatory. This alleged damage not pointed out on upon the post rental walk around with the agent processing my exiting paperwork that day.This alleged damage not reported on my exiting paperwork when I checked out that day. It has taken 17 days for DTG Services to fabricate these damage and documentation papers.I was not surprised to find pages and pages of complaints from people from all over the United States with stories similar to mine. This scandalous practice by Thrifty Rent-a-Car & DTG Services is a shakedown of innocent people that comes very close, in my opinion, to insurance fraud. Im sure Thrifty collects on several of these bogus claims because it is less expensive and certainly less time consuming to simply pay (or turn it over to the insurance company and let them pay) and move on. In the business, its called a "nuisance claim." But its fraudulent practices like this that drive up the cost of insurance for all of us and I think it is our duty as consumers to take a stand and do what we can to stop questionable practices such as this.