Q: Two hours after picking up our hire car from Thrifty Car Hire at Munich airport in July, I drove, with my wife and two children, into the most unbelievable hailstorm on the motorway en route to Austria. When we arrived we saw that the car was covered in shallow dents where the hailstones had impacted. I had paid Thrifty a €1,000 deposit, which it refused to refund and has now debited from my Barclaycard.

The car was hired via economycarrentals.com, which insists that I should have supplied a police report at the time of the damage. This never occurred to me because there had been no criminal damage, no other vehicle was involved and we didn’t realise that any damage had been caused until we reached our destination, 200 miles away in another country. Is there any chance of getting my money back?

Pete Sharpe, via e-mail

A: Insurers want independent verification of damage caused by an accident but after my intervention the company relented and asked for all documents relating to the case so that it could investigate, and has now refunded your deposit in full. That the storm caused millions of pounds worth of damage in the area no doubt helped your claim.

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