I rented a motorcycle in Italy, and am facing major repair charges because of a pothole I hit, what can i do?

Question

I need help relieving the stress of this accident. Basically a fender and another plastic piece were cracked, and now I am stuck with a 1068euro (about $1500) bill. What can i do? Is there any American tax relief on accidents?

Answer 1

How about you learn to drive and pay attention when you ride on a bike...  

Pay them and consider it a lesson to pay attention to what you are doing.  Obviously that was a good size pothole.  Probally really hard to miss.. Didnt think to move out of the way or anything?  just thought on look a pothole that looks like lots of fun....

Answer 2

IF you didn't get insurance to cover repair then you are SOL.  Your choices are limited and have been provided by other people above:

1.  Suck it up and pay the bill.

2.  Dispute the bill with your credit card (as I would assume they required a CC for deposit).

3.  Don't pay the bill and skip (which could cause problems later for you).

Answer 3

if it was fender damage then theres no way it should be 1500, a couple major things would have to break to have a 1500 bill

Answer 4

that pothole must have been the size of ohio....try suing the town that it happend in....no pothole,no accident

Answer 5

Skip the country.

Answer 6

Um. Could you just come back to the states and say you never got the bill? I know, Im a b*****d.

Answer 7

You SHOULD have just taken it to a shop and had it fixed before you returned it.  Rental agencies in Europe will rip you off blind.  Used to live in Europe; been there done that.  A buddy was charged over £200 in the UK for a flat tire (nail) that would have cost him £5 at any garage to have fixed.

The b******s already have your credit card number so they'll just bill the repairs to the card.  If you challenge it with the CC company, they'll provide a copy of the rental agreement where you agreed to be responsible for the damages.

There is a US tax deduction for casualty losses, but frankly with that small of a loss, any tax savings would be less than the cost of a jar of Cheez Whiz IF you itemized deductions and had a very low income.  If your income for the year is more than about $14k, it's worthless to you since there is a 10% AGI floor to the deduction.  And since most folks with incomes less than $14k don't have enough deductions to make it worth itemizing, the odds of any tax savings are effectively zero.