One of the most common and in-demand form of car rental is the – Self-drive Car Rentals. Most operators mistaken the meaning as “they are the ones who will do the driving service for their car.”

SELF-DRIVE simply means the renter “self” will rent the car and drive it on his own. To simplify – Only the unit is being rented.

If you are an Operator or a Renter, continue reading to know more and save yourself time in deciding the type of rental you should engage in.

To be honest, Self-drive rentals are the most sought after when it comes to company car rentals but not all are LEGIT as we know from the previous news of “Rentangay scam” or “Rent Sangla”. Most of these type of rentals are penetrated by these “rental scam syndicates”. It is very hard to distinguish legit self-drive rentals so vigilance and your very own intuition are necessary.

Terms of Contract

▶️ A car may be rented out for a monthly basis as short as 1 month to a maximum of 1year, depending on the company’s or renters need of the car.

▶️ For individual renters, most of them are foreigners or ofw’s who wished to save from hiring a driver or having to commute from day to day. The shortest term may be 2 weeks to up to 2 months.

▶️ Unit must be “returned as is” or renter must shoulder participation fees for damages. Again, it will depend on your agreement.

▶️ Change oil, wheel maintenance are usually shouldered by the Operator. Conditions varies depending again on your agreement.

RATES varies with the ff. factors

• Type of vehicle
• Duration of rental
• Location where it will be used
• Type of usage

plus

• Security deposit
• Background & investigation checking fees
• Delivery and pick-up fees

Documents/Information Needed

▶️ Usual list of documents requested to verify a LEGIT renter are the following

Sample only (list varies depending on the car rental company)

• 2 Valid Government IDs
• Passport (original will be surrendered during course of rental)
• NBI/Police/Brgy. Clearance
• Proof of billing
• Background check clearance (you may issue this once you are done with background investigation)
• Facebook Profile
• Referrors name
• Renters Application form

Some useful questions:

• Purpose of rental
• Location where it will be used
• Duration of rental
• Who will be the ultimate renter (you may use witty questions to raise this to your renter)

For company rentals, background check is still necessary. We already encountered “fake renter/potential scammer” who mentioned she is connected to a certain hotel but eventually after the CI the hotel mentioned didn’t have a need for such self-drive or any type of car rental.

If you are dealing with a company/person you’ve just met, or the company have no previous history of deploying self-drive, look out for the ff. “RED ALERT SIGNS”

• Very high rate offering without deductions
• Rush need usually only 2-hours allowance time for delivery
• Contract terms are enticing (2 to 5 years)
• No office signage or company have 2 or more different addresses in a period of one year

for your driver, it is good to orient them with the following:

• Be aware when someone suddenly calls and ask the car to be delivered somewhere or to pick-up a passenger, and told you they are company dispatchers;
• Never ask if the call were coming from (the name of your affiliate car rental), scammers will say YES;
• You must have the name and contact number of the contact person to whom you will deliver your unit at the company or address mentioned. Deliver units only on the mentioned company or residence address unless you agreed for pick-up.

Below are the photos of the suspects of the large-scale rental scam

and this one tried to victim one of our members by pretending to be a dispatcher of ROAD RENT A CAR.

Scammers usually work during Holidays, when everyone else are busy to do background checking (Christmas, New Year, etc). Do not engage in self-drive rentals when you do not have time to do background checking.

It is safe that you purchase a GPS tracking device for your car which usually ranges from P2,500 and up. GPS will be available soon at ROADRACTSC.

Upon delivery of the unit, secure the ff. important documents:

• Car checklist (must be done accurately)
• Contract or Rental agreement
• Check original Valid Ids, and other documents presented online

*Sometimes the draft contract is already written in the car checklist.

However guided are we, it is still best to practice caution and deal only with TRUSTED RENTERS, Agents and Companies.

ROAD RENT A CAR is one of the leading Self-drive car rental provider in Luzon, tried and confronted four times with rental scammers, been mimicked and used our name by other agents to gain operators trust to deploy units.

Self-drive deployment by ROAD RENT A CAR TSC.

Are you an Operator interested in Self-drive rentals? Have you tried it? How was your experience? Feel free to share in the Comments section!

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