SOME car hire companies use potentially unfair terms in their contracts, while others provide little or no information on terms and conditions on their websites, according to research by Which? Holiday.

The terms and conditions of Enterprise, Europcar and Hertz all contained a clause that Which? Holiday viewed as potentially unfair. This stated that if customers could not produce the keys in the event of the car being stolen, then they would be liable for the full value of the vehicle.

This means that even if the keys were stolen at the same time, or the vehicle was involved in a car-jacking, the customer would still be liable for the full cost of the car.

Further to this, Which? Holiday found that two car hire companies – Avis and Enterprise – had no information about the terms and conditions of hire on their websites, leaving customers unable to read all contractual information before booking online. Alamo, Budget and National provided some, but not all, of their terms and conditions online.

Which? Holiday also found it difficult to compare the cost of hire car as a number of the companies investigated did not include the full costs of waivers and extras on their website