Licence checks and fraud prevention at the rental counter

At the counter, a licence check has three steps, always in the same order: is the document authentic as a physical object, does it match the person standing in front of you, and do the category and the date of issue cover the vehicle you are about to hand over. If one of the three does not add up, the keys stay in the drawer.

The rest is organisation, not instinct. A proper check fits inside two minutes, follows a written procedure that is identical for every member of counter staff, and ends with the electronic transmission of the driver's details that Italian law requires of rental operators before handover.

The three checks you never skip

The commonest mistake is not looking too little, it is looking in the wrong order. Staff who start with the personal data end up reading very carefully a document they never actually picked up. A mid-quality forgery gives away the card itself long before the data on it.

1. 1The card: is it authentic as a physical object? Polycarbonate, laser engraving, optical features that change as you move it.
2. 2The person: do the face, the apparent age, the signature and the behaviour match what the document claims?
3. 3The entitlement: do the category, the validity and the date of issue cover the vehicle you are handing over, on the day you hand it over?

The card: touch it, tilt it, light it

• By touch: even thickness, intact edges, no laminate lifting at a corner, no raised element glued on top of the surface.
• Tilt the document and the optically variable features change colour or image. A hologram that looks identical from every angle is a heavy signal.
• Under a UV lamp, security fibres and fluorescent printing light up exactly where the model says they should. A document that stays uniformly white and bright is ordinary paper.
• Mismatched typefaces, uneven letter spacing, overtyped figures, a photograph whose edges are too sharp against the background.
• The machine-readable zone on the Italian electronic identity card and on passports: the lines at the bottom must match the data printed above.
• For foreign models, the Council of the European Union's public register of authentic documents shows the front, the back and the security features of every model in circulation.

The person: face, data, behaviour

• Compare the face on the features that do not change: distance between the eyes, where the ears attach, the shape of the nose and chin. Beards, glasses and hair change, proportions do not.
• Have the customer sign in front of you, then compare with the signature on the document, without showing it first.
• Ask out loud for something that is printed on the document, the place of birth for instance, and watch for the hesitation.
• The first and last name on the document, on the contract and on the payment card must be the same person, not three similar variants.

Italian, EU and non-EU licences

What really changes your operational risk is where the licence was issued and when. A licence issued in Italy, in another European Union state or in the European Economic Area is valid as it stands, within the category and expiry shown on the back. But read the date of issue: a driver who has held the licence for less than 3 years is a neopatentato, a new driver, and may not exceed 100 km/h on the motorway or 90 km/h on main extra-urban roads, with a permitted blood alcohol level of 0.0 g/L, the same as for drivers under 21 and for professional drivers.

Checking that is not your legal duty, but it is worth handing over in writing with the keys. The same sheet can usefully restate the ordinary limits: 130 km/h on the motorway and 110 km/h on main extra-urban roads with separated carriageways, dropping to 110 km/h and 90 km/h in rain or snow, then 90 km/h on secondary extra-urban roads and 50 km/h in built-up areas, with an ordinary blood alcohol limit of 0.5 g/L. The warning triangle and the reflective jacket are your equipment and must be in the vehicle.

Licences issued outside the European Union

A driver holding a licence issued outside the European Union and the European Economic Area may drive in Italy provided they have not been resident here for more than a year and they present the valid original together with either an international driving permit or an official translation into Italian. The international permit on its own is worthless: it is an accessory document and must be shown with the original. Recognition rules change over time, so in case of doubt the source is the Portale dell'Automobilista, the motoring portal of the Ministry of Infrastructure and Transport, or the counter of the Motorizzazione Civile, the vehicle licensing office.

What to check, document by document

This is the grid to print and keep under the counter, above all for the shifts when the owner is not there.

The signals of a high-risk customer

None of these signals on its own justifies a refusal. Two or three together do. The rule is simple: as the pressure to close quickly rises, the check slows down.

• Unexplained haste, pushing to skip the signature or the walk-around for damage, constant phone calls during check-in.
• A freshly issued document and a freshly issued card, with a phone number that does not receive the verification message in front of you.
• A payment card in a name other than the driver's, or a third party wanting to pay on their behalf.
• Interest in the top of the fleet that is out of proportion with the customer's profile, and not a single question about price.
• A drop-off in another city requested with no reason and no verifiable address.
• Details that do not cross-check: a booking surname different from the one on the document, an email address created the same day.

The check before the keys: the mandatory notification

In Italy a self-drive rental does not end with the signature. The operator must transmit electronically the identifying details of whoever takes the vehicle to the data processing centre of the Ministry of the Interior, through the dedicated Polizia di Stato portal, when the contract is signed and in any case before handover. Access is not open: each company applies to the competent Questura, which issues the credentials. Failure to notify is a punishable offence.

• Always transmit before handover, never after the fact, and file the receipt with the contract and the handover report.
• If you cannot even type the name because the document is illegible or inconsistent, that is already a signal: stop there.
• Collect only the data the contract and the notification obligation require, keep it only as long as needed, and give the customer the privacy notice. The reference is the Garante per la protezione dei dati personali, the Italian data protection authority.
• Procedures and forms change: check the instructions from the Questura and the Polizia di Stato periodically.

Fitting the check into check-in without slowing it down

A serious check does not lengthen the check-in if you move it upstream. The agency that fights the clock is the one seeing the documents for the first time when the customer is already at the counter with a suitcase in hand.

1. 1Ask for the licence and ID at booking, not at handover, and check the card on the images as soon as they arrive.
2. 2Three gestures are left at the counter: the original document in your hand, the face and signature comparison, the electronic transmission of the data.
3. 3Write the procedure on a single page and pin it behind the counter: whoever works on Sunday has to do what the owner does on Monday.
4. 4Give staff the right to refuse without asking permission, otherwise they will hand over the keys to avoid trouble inside the company and cause trouble out on the road.
5. 5Minimum kit: a counter UV lamp, a magnifier and the register of authentic documents open on a tablet.

The booking channel is worth thinking about too, because that is where the customer's identity is collected for the first time. On DRIVO, the European marketplace that connects travellers with independent and local agencies, an agency works with verified profiles and reviews, runs its calendar, fleet and bookings from the back-office, and receives payouts automatically through Stripe. Listing the fleet carries no fixed cost: no sign-up fee, no monthly fee, commission only on completed bookings. Listings are multilingual in five languages.

If the suspicion comes after the vehicle has gone

It happens: the document passes the check and the doubt arrives two days later, when the phone is switched off or the payment card is disputed. There is only one rule here: recovery is not a rental operator's job.

1. 1Freeze the paperwork: signed contract, copies of the documents, receipt of the electronic transmission, handover report and photographs, payment records.
2. 2Do not announce your suspicion to the customer and do not negotiate: a warning makes the vehicle disappear.
3. 3File a report with the police with all the paperwork and the vehicle details, including the plate and any tracking device fitted lawfully and declared in the contract.
4. 4Notify your insurer within the deadlines in the policy and, if the booking came through an outside channel, its support team as well.
5. 5Review the case with your staff within the week: which signal was there and went unseen?