OVercharged by car rental company

daheff

HI

I've recently rented a car from a large car rental company in Europe. I was expecting a charge of about 370 Eur from them, but got my card statement yesterday and it was a whopping 830Eur!!!

Now I just rang them and was told the following:

1- Because I returned my rental early the basic fee has increased to 540 Eur (i had to return home unexpectedly and was unable to contact the company prior to return to advise them. I was told there wasnt any issue with an early return when i returned then car!)

2- Damage fee of 340 Eur for a slightly (and i mean very slightly) scraped hubcap. Again i was told it was ok when i returned this.


While I can (very grudgingly) accept that there was some damage done to the hubcap, I would feel that the fee is disproprionate to the damage done (it would not cost 340Eur for a set of 4 new hubcaps (car is opel insignia) )
Luckily for me I have excess insurance bought...i just feel the company is taking the p*ss on this and that really annoys me.

As for the extra charge for returning the car early...this is unbelievable!! The excuse they gave me is that the system recalculate the fee based on a different daily rate because of the early return. I dont agree that I should pay more for this...maybe not get a refund (although I'd like one) definitely not more!


what are peoples thoughts? where do i stand on requesting a charge back for my credit card (As I was not charged what was agreed for the rental -not the damage part...just the rental part).

munchkin_utd

the early return fee on the face of it sounds like a rip off, BUT you havent given details of your original rental so its really hard to guage if they are being underhand or not.
Did you pay fully in advance?

I never heard of this before now, but maybe its fair enough. As the Budget terms and conditions state, longer rentals often get lengthy discounts on the per day price. If you return early then obviously these terms don't apply as a shorter rental has different prices.

What they don't ask though is the valid question : if you return early, what SHOULD you pay?

Should it be simply the cost for all days agreed in advance at the agreed price price? (i.e. if you have the car 1 day but booked it for 20 - you pay for 20)

Should it be a discounted cost per day relevant to a longer rental, but only charged for a short number of days? (meaning that then the whole world will be booking for a month if they only want a car for a few days, in order to get a discounted per day price!)

Should it be a standard walk up fee at the new number of days like you were charged?

if you look at it from their point of view, nearly no matter what they do they could be accused of shafting the customer.

The hubcap charge sounds like a right scam though. They can be got for about 15 to 20 euro on ebay. Maybe double check that they aren't charging for a replacement alloy wheel as that just sounds off the scale altogether for a hubcap (but for a branded alloy bought singly probably in or around the ballpark that you could expect)

daheff

thanks munchkin


yeah i agree that the cost of the hubcap is prob only in the region of 20-30 eur...i'm sure i'll be told that they have to buy a set, they have to take the car out of service for a day...admin fee...mechanic fee...yadda yadda...bs in my book. One of the wheels had a similar scrape (front right, i did rear right)....so i wouldnt go with all that fee!

In respect to the rental charge...i would expect that they charge me the full amount..but where they can rent the car for the days they had it returned early then they probably should give me a reduction (will they? hell no!)

I deffo wont pay them for an additional charge coz I brought it back early!!

dricko_lim

they will never change the hubcap I worked for a rental company last year. They charge a fee as it 'devalues' the car. I used to charge £25 per hubcap if at all. Sometimes I didnt bother unless there was a crack as most dealers change them anyway when selling. In a busy period they are not going to take the car off the road and I never charged more for a car back early. very odd as I thanked the rental gods it if a car came back unexpected haha as your normally crying out for cars this time of year

daheff

dricko_lim wrote: »

they will never change the hubcap I worked for a rental company last year. They charge a fee as it 'devalues' the car. I used to charge £25 per hubcap if at all. Sometimes I didnt bother unless there was a crack as most dealers change them anyway when selling. In a busy period they are not going to take the car off the road and I never charged more for a car back early. very odd as I thanked the rental gods it if a car came back unexpected haha as your normally crying out for cars this time of year

dricko_lim I think you put it in a way that I haven't yet been able to ! You are spot on the money with it. Thanks!

jmorrisey

daheff wrote: »

thanks munchkin




I deffo wont pay them for an additional charge coz I brought it back early!!

Ehm...have you not already been charged to your card and effectively paid them that additional charge?

Procrastastudy

Cost of the rental - read the contract. It's not unusual for a per day basis to be higher than a weekly/periodic one. Fair? No. What you agreed to? Probably.

Hub cap damage - did you take photos? I suggest you start writing to the company and dispute the amount they are charging. If they are insisting it's because they are replacing the hub caps etc insist on being provided with the receipts for the repair. If it's a devaluation fee simply dispute the amount.

Victor

Procrastastudy wrote: »

Cost of the rental - read the contract. It's not unusual for a per day basis to be higher than a weekly/periodic one. Fair? No. What you agreed to? Probably.

But surely 5 days should cost less than six and six less than seven, etc.?

readytosnap

when you returned the car any damage would of been noted on the return sheet (or whatever they call it, the one with a drawing of a vehicle so you can mark out any defects etc), i would not pay it i would pay the original fee and that is all get onto the CC issuer and get your money back, if they insist on the hub cap, buy a set here and send them over, they are just ripping you off. as for being off the road for the day?? why was that? to replace the hub cap? tell them to take that day out of your rental seeing as you returned it early. are there any reputable car hire companies out there? i have had issues with avis (USA) before ( their cleaners stole stuff i left in the car), but they didnt wanna know, and i am a "preferrred" customer ( fat lot of use that did me, b*stards)

munchkin_utd

Victor wrote: »

But surely 5 days should cost less than six and six less than seven, etc.?

not necessarily!

suppose I book a special promo weekend special with Enterprise which of course must include the weekend but can be from a Thursday to a Monday. I could get that for a tenner a day for a Ford Ka so 40 euro say.

If I leave it back on Saturday they could say that the weekend rate is no longer valid seeing as it isnt "out" over the weekend so for those 2 days I might get changed to the normal rate of 30euro a day making the bill 60euro!

So 40euro for 4 days or 60 euro for 2 days!

Many companies block or take a deposit off your credit card so even if you dont agree, they can go ahead and take the cash.
BTW, enterprise are normally fierce sound so they'd be the last crowd to actually deliberately pull such a stunt - but I am more familiar with their prices so am using them as a pricing example.

daheff

While I appreciate that booking a car for a short period may cost more per day than booking it on a longer period, I fail to see how ,having booked for the longer period, and agreed a price for this period, that I should be charged a higher fee because I bring it back early. It makes no sense. If the car rental company charge me as per agreed then they get the money agreed. They then have the car to rent out should they be approached for a last minute rental (for the days left on my rental).

By overcharging me the car rental company are just being greedy (and in breach of the contract- so I can get my card company to issue a chargeback).

the issue of the damaged hub cap is a different one. I'm not disputing that i did any damage to the car - just the amount they are charging for it!
As there was already another hubcap with similar damage (on the same side) that hadnt been fixed i can conclude 1 of 2 things-

1 - they wont be replacing the hubcaps while its being rented
2- if they are replacing the hubcaps then they would already have charged the person who did the initial damage for the out of service time...and cannot justify charging me for the same thing (it would be logical to think that they would replace both hubcaps together -and that it'd probably take somebody 30 mins to do both)

in either scenario I would feel that my charge is then limited to the cost of the new hubcap and the time taken to replace it (15 mins? @ say 15 Eur an hour)- i;d max it at 40/50 eur and certainly not the 340 eur they are trying to charge me.

Also should they be charging VAT on top of the damage fee? If the fee is to cover the service then they would already have VAT on this fee -and would in affect be double charging me the VAT (VAT on top of cost+vat)?

daheff

jmorrisey wrote: »

Ehm...have you not already been charged to your card and effectively paid them that additional charge?

yes & no...its on my credit card bill..but not left my account. I can request a chargeback from my card provider and get this returned to me.

daheff

So they finally came back to me (after i had to chase them again).

told me that they were charging for a new alloy wheel plus admin fee. Admitted that they overcharged on this -by about 15 Eur-and are going to refund this.

I told their agent there was no alloy wheel on the car and its disengenious of them to say there was (and if they continued to do so that i would make a report of a fraudlent claim against them next time i visit the country, which will be before the end of this year). They are going to reopen the complaint and get the local office to recheck their data.

they did say that they had refunded me for the overcharging on the original rental amount- but my credit card provider cannot see anything.

so more frustration & waiting.....

Victor

daheff wrote: »

I told their agent there was no alloy wheel on the car

Who puts alloys on a hire car (unless it's a Lamborghini)? Lots of hire cars don't even have hub caps.

daheff

Victor wrote: »

Who puts alloys on a hire car (unless it's a Lamborghini)? Lots of hire cars don't even have hub caps.

in fairness to them, any time i've gotten a car off them its been in good nick. But yeah...only the high end vehicles have alloys.




I must reiterate that yes i did scrape the wheel (hubcap) and am not looking to not pay for it (i have excess insurance so its not coming out of my pocket)- I just dont want them to take the p*ss...that really annoys me.

Have you thought that the reason that you have been overcharged is because you have bought the excess insurance?

Excess insurance is a huge ripoff.

Another scam I came across in dublin airport was.. "You MUST take the car back empty, we don't allow you for any fuel in the tank" Needless to say i only used that company the once.

keithclancy

Deleted User wrote: »

Have you thought that the reason that you have been overcharged is because you have bought the excess insurance?

Excess insurance is a huge ripoff.

Another scam I came across in dublin airport was.. "You MUST take the car back empty, we don't allow you for any fuel in the tank" Needless to say i only used that company the once.

I think I know the company your talking about.
Was out the Dublin road not near the other ones in long term parking.

I brought it back full and wasn't charged for the fuel as thats what it advised on the voucher. (Had to make a point of this)

With regard to charging the OP extra for returning the car early, THE ONLY thing I can think of is that the kilometer allowance may be different.

E.G. The kilometer allowance might be 100 km / day, so 3 days with say 500 km would be more expensive than 5 days at 500km, significantly so.

Saying that, i've often rented cars from Sixt for longer than I needed it and dropped it back early without problems.

The excess insurance, I never purchase it from the Rental company, I have an addon with my travel insurance (20 euros extra / year) it reduces my excess to zero.

daheff

Deleted User wrote: »

Have you thought that the reason that you have been overcharged is because you have bought the excess insurance?

Excess insurance is a huge ripoff..

the reason i feel I've been overcharged is that because the car rental company charged more than was agreed. Its nothing to do with the excess insurance (i think you are confusing this with CDW). My excess insurance is with a third party who will cover the damage.

Deleted User wrote: »

Another scam I came across in dublin airport was.. "You MUST take the car back empty, we don't allow you for any fuel in the tank" Needless to say i only used that company the once.

not sure what you mean by this? Do you mean that you have to return the car with an empty tank? Most companies require that you return with a full tank and charge extra for having to fill it (usually at around €3.50/litre)-now thats a scam!!!

ThisRegard

Deleted User wrote: »

Another scam I came across in dublin airport was.. "You MUST take the car back empty, we don't allow you for any fuel in the tank" Needless to say i only used that company the once.

It's not just Dublin airport, nor one company. A lot of the rental companies are doing that throughout the world now. It just means the cars will be driven harder, I completely ignored any of the eco shift up/down suggestions on the last rental car I had and bascially drove it hard in order to keep the fuel comsumption very high.

munchkin_utd

Deleted User wrote: »

<snip>
Another scam I came across in dublin airport was.. "You MUST take the car back empty, we don't allow you for any fuel in the tank" Needless to say i only used that company the once.

can you name that company as mentioning them is not liabling them which would get boards into trouble, its just drawing the attention of the consumer to specific terms and conditions that would be in the consumers interest to be aware of in advance of making a car booking.

I have to say that I booked a car with hertz at Dublin airport and they blocked the cost of a tank of fuel off my credit card as a security which I wasn't happy with BUT this was not charged upon giving the car back with a full tank of petrol.
Are you sure it wasnt something like this which happened? Or did you use a debit card which would have to be debited at the beginning of the rental?

keithclancy

ThisRegard wrote: »

It's not just Dublin airport, nor one company. A lot of the rental companies are doing that throughout the world now. It just means the cars will be driven harder, I completely ignored any of the eco shift up/down suggestions on the last rental car I had and bascially drove it hard in order to keep the fuel comsumption very high.

Think you're mixing up 'suggested' with 'mandatory'

I've rented 18 times in 3 years in Germany, The Netherlands, Portugal, Ireland, England, Greece, France and Northern Ireland and have never had an issue with dropping the car back full.

I assume your talking about Enterprise, you can just specify that you want to drop back the car full:

http://www.eccireland.ie/topic.php?topic=12

- COLLECT FULL RETURN EMPTY POLICY implies that no refunds will be paid for unused fuel even if the whole tank was paid for upfront. As it is impossible to return the car empty, especially during short rentals, an alternative policy should be available on request.

I had no problem getting my deposit refunded on my card even though the lady at the desk said I should drop it back empty (which is impossible)

If you say nothing then you're agreeing that you'll drop the car back empty.

not sure what you mean by this? Do you mean that you have to return the car with an empty tank? Most companies require that you return with a full tank and charge extra for having to fill it (usually at around €3.50/litre)-now thats a scam!!!

Nah ... its usually around 5 - 10 cent more / liter than the pump price.

ThisRegard

keithclancy wrote: »

Think you're mixing up 'suggested' with 'mandatory'

No I'm not, and 3 years is a long time ago in the car rental business in terms of how they evolve and change their policies. I've been hiring them for the last 12 years, personal and business use and it's only something I've become aware of in the last year. Previously I've always taken them full, returned them full.

For example, this is the fuel policy for Advantage car rental, which are Hertz car rentals budget arm

Fuel Policy Full-Empty Advantage will supply the rental vehicle with a full tank of fuel. The value of the fuel tank will be payable locally. At the end of the rental, the car must be returned to the Supplier with an empty tank. There is no refund on any fuel remaining in the tank. On short hires (up to 3 days) full to full may be possible.

They charge you upon collection of the car for a full tank. From googling it seems to be fairly common in Spain at the moment.

keithclancy

ThisRegard wrote: »

No I'm not, and 3 years is a long time ago in the car rental business in terms of how they evolve and change their policies. I've been hiring them for the last 12 years, personal and business use and it's only something I've become aware of in the last year. Previously I've always taken them full, returned them full.

For example, this is the fuel policy for Advantage car rental, which are Hertz car rentals budget arm



They charge you upon collection of the car for a full tank. From googling it seems to be fairly common in Spain at the moment.

3 Years ago ?

9 times this year. (Business and Personal)

Every time its been suggested to return it empty I just asked to change it to return full.

As I said, Enterprise (Dublin Airport) was the only one that really pushed the issue and folded when I refused it.

I just use Autoeurope everytime when renting personally, so it pretty much random every time I rent who I get.

We use Sixt or Europcar for Business.

Never had to return empty.

munchkin_utd

munchkin_utd wrote: »

can you name that company

It was an Irish company from Cork or Kerry which was operating at Dublin airport a few years ago. They had an office in a corner of the arrivals terminal. I got them through a UK comparison site. Lesson learned! - I use Hertz or Eurocar since.

I know other companies try to get you to take it back empty (I presume because its never actually empty and they gain from all the free unused fuel which they resell to the next customer), but if you say you'll fill it they accept that. This was the only occasion where it was no deal.

In fact they were so insistent I said I wasn't taking the car on those conditions.. They said fine(!) and I walked to the counter and got another from hertz or budget!

L1011

Enterprise have given me cars with surreal amounts of fuel - quarter tank, full, empty, half tank, whatever option possible - in them and asked me to return with the same amount. Which isn't really the easiest thing in the world to guess at when filling up.

I've gone back to Hertz... happens to be a few places with only Enterprise though.

ThisRegard

keithclancy wrote: »

3 Years ago ?

9 times this year. (Business and Personal)

Every time its been suggested to return it empty I just asked to change it to return full.

As I said, Enterprise (Dublin Airport) was the only one that really pushed the issue and folded when I refused it.

I just use Autoeurope everytime when renting personally, so it pretty much random every time I rent who I get.

We use Sixt or Europcar for Business.

Never had to return empty.

You're the one who said you're been renting over 3 years, not me.

And you say yourself, the conditions for some companies, most of which seem to be in Spain at the moment as I said, will charge for fuel on collection of the car, it's in the booking conditions you agreed to upon booking.

When on business use, such as if you use a AWD code like with Avis for example, they're much more flexible as they don't want to risk loosing business accounts.

keithclancy

ThisRegard wrote: »

You're the one who said you're been renting over 3 years, not me.

And you say yourself, the conditions for some companies, most of which seem to be in Spain at the moment as I said, will charge for fuel on collection of the car, it's in the booking conditions you agreed to upon booking.

When on business use, such as if you use a AWD code like with Avis for example, they're much more flexible as they don't want to risk loosing business accounts.

They always do in the form of a hold on the credit card, or a charge and a refund after returning it.

Just checked through a few of my Autoeurope vouchers, they all say to return the car empty.

But I guess you should just read the Terms and Conditions in Advance.

Just got back from Greece 2 weeks ago, rental was with Avis from Thessaloniki Airport, no hassles, its all very clear, they advise how much they charge per liter on the rental agreement.

Again, just make things clear when picking up, if your not happy with the conditions then don't agree to them and read them first.

Renting through a broker your covered anyway, once you've paid them it forms a contract. Any issues with the rental agreement and you just get a refund from them as they haven't held up their end.

jhegarty

Victor wrote: »

But surely 5 days should cost less than six and six less than seven, etc.?

I thought so too , but when I rented a car in las vegas last year it was twice the price to rent for 3 days than 7 days. Not per day but total price twice as much !

The rental warned that if I returned early the more expensive per day rate would apply.

dudara

It's cheaper for the car rental company if the car stays out longer. Every time a car comes back in, it has to be cleaned and turned around for the next rental. Plus counter staff have to process the rental. The longer a car stays out, the more they save on these costs.

keithclancy

dudara wrote: »

It's cheaper for the car rental company if the car stays out longer. Every time a car comes back in, it has to be cleaned and turned around for the next rental. Plus counter staff have to process the rental. The longer a car stays out, the more they save on these costs.

Ugh ... yeh, but if a person pays for say 7 days and returns it in 5 its cheaper for the rental company to re-rent the car for 2 days.

The tasks they have to complete upon return of a car would be the same anyway, just that they get 2 days rental from another customer 'for free'