Car rental offices launch ID checkers

A Saudi investor in the transport and communications sector revealed to Asharq Al-Awsat that car rental offices have started using a device that verifies the authenticity of individuals’ identity data in order to prevent fraud and impersonation that a number of investors in the sector faced.

The Car Rental Committee in the Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Jeddah called for the inclusion of a blacklist of names and circulars to companies on a daily basis, in order to avoid dealing with some individuals, in order to prevent the escape of renters by cars and full possession of them, and persistence for long periods of non-payment of financial dues.

The committee put forward a number of obstacles to the Jeddah Governorate Police in its meeting yesterday, and proposed solutions to it, which are capable of accelerating the wheel of investment in this sector, which contains job opportunities for Saudi youth, and whose investments amount to more than 7 billion riyals through more than 700 licensed car rental offices in Saudi Arabia.

Saeed bin Ali Al Bassami, head of the Car Rental Committee at the Jeddah Chamber, said: “It is necessary to find a deterrent punishment for these cases that occupy the security authorities by following them up and searching for them and recording a precedent for them to become more keen not to commit violations and to adopt a circular in searching for the vehicle and the renter when they are found, and to continue circulating.” And the search for the tenant, as it is known that the general search is for the vehicle without the tenant.

Al-Bassami pointed out that “one of the obstacles that the sector complains about is the large number of forgers and impersonation of some tenants, for whom a mechanism must be found to include a blacklist of names, and to circulate to companies on a daily basis in order to avoid dealing with them.” From the police, Brent is given to register the request from the computer system and to find a unified number for inquiries and communication between police departments, companies and car rental offices regarding reports, as vehicles are left inside walls for several months, which causes damage to them.

And he added: “A solution must be found in follow-up and inquiries about this through the website of the Jeddah Governorate Police,” calling for “unifying forms and requests for reports in all departments,” noting “the loss of financial rights for the owners of the rental sector, especially regarding transferring transactions to courts and claim By obligating immediate payment or referral to civil rights to link to the statutory guarantee to pay the rent owed by him, while preserving the right to request referral to the court within a specific period, and that the length of the period in litigation is not to justify procrastination, and to suggest coordination to find a mechanism between the police and passports to link the system in the event of a circular on Foreigners or residents, in addition to the committee’s request to the police not to release the tenant except with an official government bail or one certified by an official authority.

The head of the Car Rental Committee in the Jeddah Chamber added that “some of these obstacles indicate the acceptance of some of the accident departments, changing the driver who committed the accident in the name of the lessee so that the accident is covered by insurance, and the exported cars are suspended in the vehicle registry when passing through the company despite its legal exit outside the country,” noting that “Any solutions that will be taken by the police or traffic will raise the investment rate in the sector to 50 percent of the actual investment in the market.”

It is worth noting that the Jeddah governorate comes at the forefront of cities in the car rental movement, with its acquisition of nearly 300 rental offices, and the large, medium and small transport sector is estimated at about 67 billion riyals. 90 percent, and the number of cars in the car rental market in the Kingdom is approximately 100,000 cars, operated by more than 1,200 companies and destinations working in this field.