I don’t think I’ve ever paid what I expected to pay when renting a car. It’s always X dollars a day, and I’m going to have the car for Y days, so multiply those figures and bingo bango, that’s the bill, plus maybe tax, I guess. But no. There’s the Airport Concession Recovery Fee, the Customer Facility Charge, maybe an additional driver fee … you get it.
Those fees are annoying, but not unexpected or ruinous. As opposed to, say, being charged nearly $6,000 for traveling 28,933 kilometers (17,978 miles) over the week-long rental when you only went 870. Now there’s a bill one does not shrug away with a “what are you gonna do?”
What you will do, especially if you’re Yuehao Huang, the Canadian traveler upon whom these circumstances fell, is not pay. As reported by CityNews, the drama began after Huang returned home from a 7-day trip with an Avis rental. Said Huang, “When I returned home to Toronto, I saw a bizarre $5,900 charge from Avis, and I couldn’t figure out why.” That’s a lot of dough for trip lasting seven days, even with a lot of driving. According to Huang, “We went to Montreal, Mount Tremblant, Ottawa, and then back to Quebec. That’s it.”
Huang’s phone recorded his travel distance as 1,400 kilometres, or about 870 miles. “Which includes when I was hiking and not driving the car,” said Huang per CityNews. “The way I estimated it is that would be me driving 180 km/h, 24 hours, no stop, no gas, no sleep.” That’s 112 mph in freedom units, which, needless to say, is very high. Especially as an average. Really brings the arrival time down on Waze though, I bet.
Huang challenged the bill with Avis as well as American Express, initially without luck. After waiting weeks for a resolution, both companies declared the charges valid, phone evidence and the credibility of the driving feat be damned. For help, Huang turned to CityNews’ “Speakers Corner” section, “A place where your voice mattered. It still does,” per the website. Fascinatingly, the name refers to a physical location from the pre-internet era, but that’s another story.
With media in his corner, Huang got satisfaction in just one day’s time, and received an apology from Avis:
Following a thorough review, we confirmed that a data entry error resulted in the customer being incorrectly charged for excess mileage.We sincerely apologize to the customer for the frustration and delay in resolving the matter. We are processing a refund for the mileage charges. We are also reinforcing our procedures with our teams to help prevent similar issues in the future.
Huang left CityNews with sage advice. “No matter how you trust your rental car company based on previous experience, remember to take a photo before you start driving and after.”
Top graphic image: DepositPhotos.com
That’s hertz level scumbaggry. These rental company’s are total shit.
Why would you go somewhere as beautiful as Mount Tremblant, just to drive on a belt sander?
I heard a story that I’m thinking this is all or part urban legend, but I was told of a guy that went on a party trip to Vegas and rented a Mustang convertible (so probably Hertz?). Story has it he got very drunk and went through a car wash with the top down to cool off. Now let me explain, I fully condone getting very drunk. Driving, in said state, absolutely not, but somehow the car wash was the cherry on the top. And then there’s the why didn’t the car wash attendants intervene?
Anyway, he was really annoyed when he got a ‘vehicle cleaning charge’ added when he returned it. Best of intentions I guess.
Pictures can be clutch when it comes to rental cars. I remember getting an email shortly after arriving back from Brazil from the rental car company asking why I hadn’t turned in the car and asking if I had an eta as to when it would be back or if I needed an extension. I assured them I had returned it the day before, roughly three hours before our flight. Next message from them: no sign of the car on their lot, was I sure?
I just sent a pic my wife had taken of me standing next to the attendant when and where the car was turned in, both of us giving big smiles and a big thumbs-up next to the rental car with the office clearly in the background.
Not two minutes later, the final-receipt came back via email with no further explanation. Perhaps it was an honest mistake, but I have a feeling they wouldn’t have minded taking my $500 deposit and marking it “stolen”.
end of rental paper receipt is key
How would you fight an error that seemed plausible even if you “didn’t do it”?
I’m not that surprised about the treatment from Avis, but to get no help from Amex is a whole other issue. I’d immediately cancel the CC since they clearly value Avis’s business over their cardholder’s.
I had an issue with a restaurant where I was splitting the check and the business charged my card for all of it. When I tried to fix the problem I discovered that you have to know how to complain properly. I thought it was fraud, but not according to the cc/merchant agreement since I gave them my card and allowed them to run it, even if it was only supposed to be for part of the total. Instead it has to be entered into the system as “services not rendered” or something like that. And even then you might not win the dispute since the services were rendered, just not to you. Lesson learned, when you split a bill you may be on the hook for the whole thing.
Yeah, I would be majorly PO’d at Amex on this one. That they couldn’t be bothered to do some basic math is not a good way to retain customers.
Yea, AMEX has gone downhill. They recently let a rogue $24 Uber charge go through on an old/cancelled business card number and wouldn’t take our word for it that it was unauthorized (it’s for our convenience that they let charges go through on old card numbers!!!). At least they did manage to make Uber send us a receipt that included the email of the person who made the charge, so I could track down the former employee who had accidentally left the card in her Uber account and was kind enough to reimburse us.
That’s a pretty good Cannonball pace! Maybe he’s got a new calling.
After decades of trying harder, they finally beat Hertz. In incompetence, but a win is still a win
Did he rent a Nissan Altima? Those premium luxury elite cars are surprisingly expensive.
I had a fender-bender in an Avis rental car. I returned it to the airport, filed their form, and figured they’d call my insurance to file a claim.
I finally got a call from my insurance company. They asked about the accident, which was about 3 years old at that point. They said, “We don’t think we are going to pay them. Sound good?”
Yeah, it did.
Larger companies seem to be completely unable to handle anything outside of their basic core competency these days. When they screw up, it’s up to you to fight them using narrow channels you have to discover along the way. They won’t even connect you to a human to talk about things, because humans are expensive, and the stock price is more important.
I’m not sure who it was who said “they seem annoyed at having to go through me to get my money” but that really sums up the late-stage capitalism corporate mindset.
I wonder if a human at Avis or at AmEx had any input into determining if the claim was legitimate or not. It’s hard to imagine a person handling complaints seeing nearly 29,000km in a single week without raising an eyebrow.
The only acceptable resolution is a full, 100% refund for the entire rental. Ideally a voucher for a free rental on the next trip too. Anything less is a slap in the face.
The fact that he had to go to the media to get this resolved is ridiculous.
Does Avis not log the mileage when the car was checked out, and then again we when checked in? They obviously do right, that’s how they got the milage charge? If it was keyed in wrong, go check the damn car and see what the reading was..
Even if the mileage was wrong at the check out, therefore accounting for 17000 miles, go check previous rental history and see what the mileage was there.