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<\/p>\nA San Diego physical therapist said she felt paralyzed for months when she and her father couldn’t prove she wasn\u2019t responsible for damages to a rental car.<\/p>\n
\u201cHi, Dad, how is it going? Are you doing good?\u201d Sofia Bettaglio asked her father, Juan Bettaglio, as they connected online.\u00a0She lives in San Diego, while he lives back home in San Jose.<\/p>\n
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Sofia and her dad, Juan Bettaglio, went through more than a dozen representatives as they tried to prove she wasn’t responsible for damages to a rental car.<\/p>\n
It’s evident in their conversation that they are close, despite Sofia Bettaglio’s career taking her away from home in the Bay Area to where Interstate 5 ends in Southern California.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd she\u2019s a beach girl, so San Diego is perfect for her,\u201d Juan Bettaglio said to NBC 7 via a streaming platform.<\/p>\n
However, this beach girl and a few friends went from jet skis to snow skis back in February on a four-day trip to Lake Tahoe. They flew to Sacramento and rented a car through the Turo app to drive the rest of the way.<\/p>\n
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Sofia Bettaglio and her friends enjoyed their time skiing in Lake Tahoe. She said the rental car was parked in a garage most of the time.<\/p>\n
\u201cI try to be a very good driver, especially when I\u2019m in other people\u2019s cars,” she said. “I want to be very mindful of the speed limit, mindful of where I\u2019m parking, cautious throughout all of it.”<\/p>\n
They skied three of the four days they were out there and soaked in every moment of their trip. She said the car hardly left her friend’s garage, where it was parked most of their stay in Lake Tahoe.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was snowing some of the days, so it was just a magical time. We deserved that trip,\u201d Sofia Bettaglio said with a laugh.<\/p>\n
Once the magical time was over, she said they drove back to Sacramento, washed the car, took and submitted pictures of it to the app, parked it at the airport and flew back home to San Diego.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I got off the flight, I got a message saying, ‘There are a bunch of scratches on my car. You owe me this much money,’\u201d she said, paraphrasing the message.<\/p>\n
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The owner of the rental car sent Sofia Bettaglio this message asking for \\$1,300 soon after she returned it.<\/p>\n
The car’s owner wanted $1,300 to cover the damages. He asked her to send the money directly to him or go through the app, where she\u2019d likely pay more money.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat just really scared me. I didn’t really know what to do in that situation,” she recalled. “‘Oh my gosh, what do we do? Do we have to pay this money?’ And then I told my dad.”<\/p>\n
\u201cAlarm bells start ringing right there. There\u2019s a platform that you\u2019re working through. There\u2019s a reason for it, so yeah, use the platform,\u201d Juan Bettaglio said was the advice he gave to his daughter.<\/p>\n
What followed were months of emails between Sofia Bettaglio, guided by her dad, and more than a dozen claim representatives from Turo. At one point, they were even told that Sofia Bettaglio no longer owed the money.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re, like, great, you know, we’re done here. And then three weeks after that, they say, ‘No, sorry, we’ve determined that you are responsible for the damage,’\u201d recalled Juan Bettaglio. \u201cAnd then it just kept going back and forth, back and forth, for four-and-a-half months … Incredible.\u201d<\/p>\n
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A few weeks after the claim was filed, Sofia Bettaglio was cleared of responsibility for the damages. A few weeks later, she was charged again.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo my dad was like, ‘We\u2019re going to contact someone else. We\u2019re going to take this elsewhere. We\u2019re going to contact NBC 7 and see what they can do about this,\u201d Sofia Bettaglio said.<\/p>\n
NBC 7 Responds reached out to Turo to find out what was going on. They eventually responded with an email that said: \u201cOur team has reviewed the claim and agrees that we should step in to rectify the issue with the guest. We are waiving the customer’s damage claim, and we are taking punitive actions with the host, as well.\u201d<\/p>\n
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