Take a rental agency – Avis, Enterprise, whatever. Some of their rental locations (usually including airports, but also other sites) allow after-hours drop-off, meaning that you can park the car, drop the key in a lockbox, and go on your way. But not all sites alow this. Assuming the parking location is accessible at all hours of the day (e.g.: with a provided parking pass or barcode to open the gate) what benefit is there to the agency not to allow returns at any hour?
In: Economics
Maybe tired of arguing with people who return cars without full fuel tanks and damage that they claim was not there when they returned it?
The biggest reason to avoid after-hours returns is because the renter has to be responsible for the car until it can be inspected. The rental company can’t distinguish between a dent that was put in by the renter versus one that was put in after the car was dropped off.
Another reason for the drop off is that they may have a shared parking lot (for instance, at a strip mall), but they are only allowed to have a certain number of their cars in the public parking area. They have to immediately move them to a holding area when dropped off.
Could be due to high number of customers parking cars in No Parking zones and getting ticketed or towed (I used to see this around first of every month at U-Haul near my old apt, where there’d be 2 dozen trucks parked on the street, all ticketed); could be local/state consumer protection laws that require the inspection at time of drop-off; could be some insurance issue; etc.
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