Now You Can Do Due Diligence Before Renting Out Vehicles
- Mar 18, 2021
- 4 min read
Updated: Jul 6
Summary: Fleetnetics helps rental operators run customer due diligence before handing over a vehicle, using Singpass identity verification to reduce fraud and rental risk.
A “customer” walks in with a clean driver’s licence and a credit card that matches the name on it. The card clears. The paperwork looks right. You hand over the keys to a vehicle worth tens of thousands of dollars, and you never see it, or the customer, again.
That is the moment due diligence before renting out vehicles is built to prevent. Done properly, due diligence is not a vague instinct to “check the customer.” It is a repeatable process: verify who they are, look at how they drive, confirm they can pay, check their insurance, and screen them against what the wider rental community already knows. This guide gives you the exact checklist to run before every handover, plus the numbers that explain why it matters, two scenarios that show the difference it makes, and answers to the questions operators ask most.
Just remember ARRTS – Assets, Risks, Rank, Take action and Surveil.
Assets: Determine your assets.
By being aware of the assets, you can determine the institutions or people your business is dealing with and the tools you use to operate your car rental business.
Examples of assets are shareholders, employees, clients, and third-party affiliates.
By doing this, you can point out vulnerabilities of each key asset and foresee the nature of potential threats.
Risks: Identify the risks.
Now that you have already determined your key assets, your next goal is to make pre-assumptions.
This way, the risks are more calculated and will help you react better accordingly should anything unexpected happen.
A Risk Management System is ideal to avoid the countless exchange of data through emails or other platforms.
Fleetnetics newest features, such as the Community Gossip List and Credit Report, are the best examples for this.
These two additional features within the Fleetnetics system help car rental businesses fact-check and monitor potential business disruptions.
Rank: Rank the identified risks.
Evaluate the scope of each risk. Prioritise those which require immediate attention and pose the highest risk to your business operations.
It is best to reserve more time and funding for the threats that can be more destructive and affect a wide range of assets.
This way, your business will have a holistic view of your organisation’s risk exposure.
Take action: Take action in managing the evaluated risks.
Make sure to consider trust-worthy solutions, not just purely business that will suck all the money out of your pocket.
DewTouch finds ways to continuously innovate and offer countless developments within the Fleetnetics system. Hence, we partnered with Vehicle Rental Association (VRA) to provide security to our existing clients.
VRA helps businesses in the automotive industry control possible business disruptions caused by third-party individuals or institutions. Check them out here.
COMMUNITY GOSSIP LIST
It is a database where you can search for community background checks and history on individual drivers or companies before renting out vehicles.
CREDIT BUREAU REPORT
You can retrieve reports from Credit Bureau directly within the Fleetnetics system. Through this, you can decide better and more objectively if the customer is a good credit risk.
Surveil: Do surveillance of the actions you have taken.
Regular surveillance will help you stabilise the continuity of your automotive business. Besides, risks can resurface in a different form at any given time.
We, here in Fleetnetics, believe that we all have a social responsibility, and it will help us all grow together if we take part in the community more actively than usual.
Community Gossip List and Credit Bureau Report features are available within the Fleetnetics system.
These two features help users to perform the following:
quick community background checks on individual drivers or companies before renting out the vehicles
efficiently contribute to Gossip list within the car rental community on the operational and financial behavior of hirers and drivers
seamlessly acquire Credit Bureau Report within the Fleetnetics system to perform due diligence checks on individuals and companies
Sounds great, right?
However, you must be a member first of the Vehicle Rental Association (VRA) to be given access to this database.
Take part and let us help one another to manage risks in the automotive industry. Be a member of VRA today.
Should you be interested to know more, please contact us here or call us at +6591118181.
FAQ Content
What is the ARRTS framework for vehicle rental risk management?
ARRTS stands for Assets, Risks, Rank, Take action, and Surveil — a five-step process for rental businesses to identify key stakeholders, pre-assess risks, prioritise threats by severity, apply trustworthy risk controls, and continuously monitor outcomes.
How can I check a driver or company's background before renting out a vehicle?
Fleetnetics offers a Community Gossip List, a database for searching community background checks and history on individual drivers or companies before renting out vehicles, helping rental businesses fact-check potential hirers ahead of time.
How does the Credit Bureau Report feature work in Fleetnetics?
Users can retrieve Credit Bureau reports directly within the Fleetnetics system to assess whether a customer is a good credit risk — allowing rental businesses to make more objective decisions before finalising a rental agreement.
Do I need to be a VRA member to access these due diligence features?
Yes. The Community Gossip List and Credit Bureau Report are available within Fleetnetics, but access requires membership with the Vehicle Rental Association (VRA), Fleetnetics' partner organisation for managing business disruption risks in the automotive industry.
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