If you’ve left something in a rental car whilst rushing to catch your flight, and trust us you are not alone, then we’ll do our best to re-unite you with whatever you might have left in the rental car. Ideally, you’ll want to contact the rental agent before you’ve left the country (city or airport) to see if they can find your lost property, but if you’re already cruising at 35,000 feet before you realise you’ll need to get in touch with us when you get home.
We’ve been going for over 10 years now and in that time, we’ve helped hundreds of thousands of customers arrange over a million rental days in the best value car hire from
Heathrow to
Houston,
Edinburgh to
Edmonton. Indeed, don’t just take our word for it, we were recognized as being the Best Car Hire Website in 2010 and in 2018 have recently been awarded the accolade of Best on the Road at the Travolution Awards in London. In that time, it’s fair to say that we’ve had some unusual requests and many customers get in touch to see if they can retrieve something that they’ve left in a rental car. The most common item left in a rental car in unsurprisingly glasses, whether reading or sunglasses, our car rental lost and found department have attempted to reunite hundreds of pairs of glasses with customers over the years.
Another frequent member of the lost property cupboard is the humble child’s teddy bear to cuddly toy. A little harder to re-unite and whilst often of little monetary value, reuniting a cuddly toy with its rightful owner is one of the most rewarding of all, something those will little ones who’ve grown attached to a soft toy will understand! We’ve compiled a list of the most common items left in a rental car (that we’re made aware of!) and also some of the most unusual requests.
Lost & Found in a Rental Car
Percentage (%)
Most unusual item left in a rental car?
Whilst we could have some real fun here, we’ve not had any really outlandish items left in a rental car, remember this is only what customers have reported to us, so whilst it’s highly likely that some very amusing or embarrassing items have been left in a rental car, nobody has come forward to admit it and we’re not in the habit of contacting customers who *might* have left something embarrassing in a rental car.
Unless you count leaving your child in a rental car! Yes, that’s right, we’ve had a customer report that they left their child in a rental car and asked if we could arrange for it to be returned. Bemused at first, after clarification with the customer of course they meant their child
SEAT! Having decided to take their own
child seat rather than rent one, they left the child seat (not the child!) in the car. An expensive mistake as the logistics and costs involved with reuniting a child seat from
France to the
UK were somewhat prohibitive!
Car Rental Lost Property
Many of our rental partners operate a ‘Lost and Found’ platform reuniting customers with their lost property. It’s particularly common in the USA and most items can be recovered and reunited to their rightful owners, however it’s no so straight forward if you’re renting a car in outside of the USA. If you’ve left something in a rental car, get in touch to see if we can arrange for it to be reunited.
What to do if you leave something in a rental car?
- Get in touch with the rental agent asap and let them know your reservation ID and the car registration
- Give them an item description of your lost property
- Tell them where you left it in the car (if you know)
- Leave contact details for them to contact you
