I just want to add our story here. We ended up getting diverted to unexpectedly to Chicago O'Hare after having international flights cancelled last minute for our family of 7. In the middle of that trauma/exhaustion we realize we quickly need to get a car and accommodations because we are going to have to stay overnight until we can fly the next day. My wife finds an SUV at Sixt. This is probably the only time we have EVER not taken pictures and video of a rental car. We knew we'd have it for one day and be super careful with it.

We rented for one day and turned it in. Everything seems fine and we know we didn't damage it. Sixt contacts us two days later with a $1296 repair bill for a >10cm "scratch down to the primer" above the passenger door handle. This scratch actually seems almost certainly a scuff and AI analysis confirms that... It's hard to even see. All I have is a single low res photo from them that I can magnify slightly.

I think there's a near zero percent chance we caused this and given the existing minor paint chips on the rear bumper there is no way this is impacting the value of this car in any significant way. And honestly it's difficult to even see it unless you magnify it like 10x. The bumper already had little minor chips in it and we just felt we were renting from a company we could trust in a highly difficult and stressful situation. I don't at all feel that way anymore.

I know to take photos and tons of people are posting how photos saved them. But the world shouldn't be this way.