Deposits & claims

01What a deposit is

A security deposit is a refundable amount held against damage, loss and the charges a trip can incur — excess mileage, a fuel shortfall, a toll, a traffic citation. It is not a fee, it is not part of the rental price, and it never appears in your rental total.

Set by

The host, per listing, within the platform band for that drive mode

Shown

On the listing, in search, and again at checkout — separately from the rental total, every time

Held by

The platform, never the host. A host is never paid your deposit

Returned

In full, unless a claim is filed and upheld or accepted

02How much is held

The band depends on the drive mode, because the risk does. Within the band, the host sets the number against the value of the vehicle.

Bands are platform configuration, not law, and a host cannot set a deposit above the band for the mode. Luxury-category vehicles are the exception the band is loosest on, and the one place the waiver in §05 is never offered.

03Paying less over time

Your deposit band falls as you build a history on the platform. The tier is computed from your record and recalculated when a booking closes — nobody at Sugbo Rentals can put you in a tier by hand, and you cannot ask to be moved into one.

04Card hold or wallet charge — this is the part that matters

A card pre-authorisation and an e-wallet charge are described the same way by everyone in this industry and they are not the same thing at all. GCash and Maya cannot pre-authorise, so on an e-wallet the deposit money genuinely leaves your account and genuinely has to travel back.

A card hold is not free of side effects either: it reduces your available credit, and some issuers show it in your transaction list in a way that looks like a charge. It is not one — nothing is captured unless a claim is settled against it.

05The damage-protection fee

Where a host offers it, you can pay a small non-refundable fee instead of posting a deposit at all — a default of 8% of the deposit band. The platform then carries the damage risk up to the band amount rather than holding your money against it.

Instead of

The deposit — nothing is held and nothing is authorised

Refundable

No. It is a fee, and it is not returned on a completed trip

Offered when

The host has opted the listing in — the host's recovery now depends on us paying, so it is theirs to allow

Never offered for

New-tier renters, or luxury-category vehicles

Covers up to

The deposit band for that listing, subject to a platform ceiling. It is not insurance and it is not a collision damage waiver

It does not cover everything a deposit does. Excess mileage, fuel shortfalls, tolls, citations and house-rule breaches are still yours to pay — the fee stands in for damage, not for the running costs of the trip.

06When it is taken

Not when you book. The deposit is placed at 48 hours before pick-up, and the reason is mechanical: card authorisations commonly lapse in about seven days, so a hold taken in September for a December trip would be dead long before anyone reached the vehicle.

1. 1
   At requestThe rental only

   Authorised on a card, or charged on an e-wallet. The deposit is not touched.
2. 2
   T − 48hThe deposit is placed

   Card hold or wallet charge, whichever you chose. You are notified either way.
3. 3
   T − 24h · T − 2hIf it fails, we retry twice

   With a notification each time. Three attempts across 46 hours, so there is real time to fix a card limit or top up a wallet.
4. 4
   HandoverNo live deposit, no keys

   A handover cannot start without a deposit in place. This is not a discretion the host has.

07The handover is the evidence

Almost every deposit argument is decided by the handover checklist, so it is worth knowing what it captures. Both parties complete it, at both ends, in the app:

• Eight photo angles — four corners, dashboard and odometer, fuel gauge, interior front, interior rear. Timestamped and geotagged.
• Odometer and fuel level, written down rather than remembered.
• Existing damage marked on a vehicle diagram — this is the step that protects you, so mark everything, including what the host has not.
• Accessories — spare tyre, jack, early warning device, tools, charger, child seat.
• Both signatures, digitally. On bring-your-own-driver, your nominated driver co-signs.

Drop-off is compared automatically against pick-up, and the differences — new damage, excess mileage, a fuel deficit — become the line items a claim is built from.

The checklist works offline and syncs when you have signal again — parking basements and provincial Cebu being what they are.

08After drop-off: two clocks, and they do not touch

Settlement and reviews start at the same moment — both parties signing the drop-off — and then have nothing to do with each other.

1. 1
   T + 0Drop-off signed, trip completed

   The comparison against pick-up is generated and both sides can see it.
2. 2
   T + 0 → T + 48hThe host's claim window

   48 hours to file a claim with evidence. If they do not, the deposit is released automatically — nobody has to remember to do it.
3. 3
   + 48h from a claimYour response window

   Accept or dispute. Silence is acceptance, so this is the one deadline on this page you should not let pass.
4. 4
   ≤ 5 business daysMediation, if you disputed

   We decide on the evidence and write down why. The undisputed remainder of your deposit is released without waiting for it.
5. 5
   On resolutionReleased, and the booking closes

   A card hold is voided or partially captured to the awarded amount; a wallet charge is refunded less any deduction.

09What can be claimed

A claim is line items with evidence, not a number. These are the categories, and each one is settled against something recorded rather than asserted:

New damage

Present at drop-off, absent at pick-up, on the photo comparison. Repair quote or invoice required

Excess mileage

Odometer difference beyond the listing's daily cap, at the excess-km rate published on that listing

Fuel shortfall

Against the listing's fuel policy — same-to-same by default, full-to-full where the listing says so

Missing accessories

Spare tyre, jack, early warning device, charger, child seat — from the accessories checklist

Tolls and traffic citations

Incurred while you had the vehicle, including citations that arrive weeks later. The citation is the evidence

Cleaning

Beyond ordinary use. Sand and a day at the beach are ordinary use; a spill that needs professional cleaning is not

House-rule breaches

Smoking, pets where prohibited, undeclared inter-island travel, travel outside the listing's zones

Late return

Where it is on the booking. A late return that displaces the next renter is the most expensive of these

10Disputing a claim

Open the booking, choose Dispute this claim, and say what you disagree with — the whole claim or specific lines. Add anything you have: your own photographs, a receipt, a fuel slip.

Evidence standard

Timestamped, geotagged handover photos outrank later assertions from either party

Who decides

Not the ops person who handled your booking. That separation is deliberate

How long

Five business days or better, from the moment you dispute

What you get

A written decision citing the specific evidence relied on. "Claim upheld" on its own is not a decision

Appeal

One escalation to a senior reviewer — a check for procedural error or missed evidence, not a re-hearing

Audit

Every action on a dispute is logged: who did it, when, and what changed

Whether a binding-decision clause survives against a consumer — particularly a foreign consumer whose home jurisdiction restricts such terms — is with counsel. The cap and the appeal exist largely to make it defensible.

11"Released" and "in your account" are different days

Release is our decision that the money is yours. It is deterministic and it is ours. Funds returned is your bank or wallet moving it, which is neither. Both dates are shown on the booking, because quoting only one is how support tickets get made.

“Five business days” means Monday to Friday in Asia/Manila, excluding Philippine regular and special non-working holidays — which matters over Holy Week, when the calendar is short and Cebu is at its busiest.

If a refund fails at the provider — a closed wallet, an expired card — the obligation stands. It is raised internally and re-issued. Nothing is written off because a transfer bounced, and the booking does not reopen.

12A worked example

A 4-day self-drive booking on a ₱3,500/day listing. Deposit band ₱15,000, and you are Established, so −30%. Rental paid by GCash, deposit posted as a card hold. At drop-off the odometer is 120 km over the cap and the tank is a quarter light.

Because the deposit was a card hold, ₱2,300 is captured and the rest of the hold simply disappears — the ₱8,200 was never taken from you in the first place. Had the deposit been on GCash, the whole ₱10,500 would have left your wallet at T−48h and ₱8,200 would be travelling back over the following five business days.

The scuff line is worth reading twice: it was claimed, disputed, and not upheld, and it cost nothing — because the drop-off photographs did not show it. That is the whole argument for spending five minutes on the checklist.

13For hosts

The deposit is not your money and it is never part of your payout. Your rental proceeds are paid out 24–48 hours after completion; the deposit sits with the platform on its own clock.

• File within 48 hours of drop-off, or the deposit auto-releases. There is no extension, because the renter’s money cannot be held open-endedly on a maybe.
• Attach the evidence with the claim. A claim built on the handover comparison is decided quickly; one built on assertion is not decided in your favour.
• Claims above the deposit are not clawed back from a paid-out renter or host. They escalate to ops and are pursued between the parties, with the platform supplying the record.
• A payout is never reversed to satisfy a claim. A claim filed at hour 47 is satisfied from the held deposit, not from money already in your account.
• Set the deposit honestly. A deposit at the top of the band on a modest vehicle converts badly, and the tiers already give your repeat renters relief.

Offering the damage-protection fee (§05) is your decision per listing, and it is a real one: it converts better, and it swaps your recovery from the renter’s held money to the platform’s reserve.