Car rental in Dubai kept my deposit for pending fines that never appeared

It became something you can formally complain about a while ago — two months is well beyond any reasonable window for fines to surface. Traffic fines and Salik charges appear on the official RTA and Dubai Police systems quickly, which is why rental companies normally hold deposits only for a limited period after return; an open-ended hold with no committed date and nothing showing on the systems is not a pending-fines problem, it is your money being kept. Do this: check the plate yourself on the RTA and Dubai Police fine-enquiry services and screenshot the clean result with the date visible. Then send the company a written demand — email, not another phone call — attaching the screenshots, your rental agreement and the vehicle return inspection report, and give them a firm deadline of about a week to refund. If the deadline passes, file a complaint through Dubai's consumer protection channels under the Department of Economy and Tourism; car rental firms are licensed businesses, and regulator complaints get answered in a way phone calls do not. The civil courts remain available if even that fails, though deposit disputes rarely travel that far. A licensed UAE lawyer can send the demand letter for you, which often shakes a deposit loose faster than months of calling.