Car hires & car parking 'charges' - not fines

ch750536

Another interesting one on the go at the minute, thought I'd share.


Two similar stories.
I was in the UK recently with car hires.
Occassion 1: Service area off motorway.
I was tired, so pulled in, had some food & drink. Had a sleep. Tried to pay for parking (2hr minimum) and machine was broken. Called the number on the machine , 0845 on roaming - no answer but then it was 4.30am.
Occassion 2: Water fun park. Parked up, paid parking fee with witnesses. Had fun & left.

A month later I have 2 amounts deducted from my card by hertz. £60 + £42 admin fee & £100 + £42 admin fee. I query them and I get the reply.

Hertz wrote:

Thank you for contacting us. I appreciate the opportunity to review your
concerns.
I have investigated your case, and have found that the parking fines was
charged to you correctly. One of the conditions of rental is that if Hertz
is required to pay and/or process road tolls, fines, charges or associated
costs, we may charge you with the amount we are required to pay plus an
administration charge for doing so.
Any disputes on the fine itself must be taken up directly with the local
authority, contact details for which are included on the enclosed document.

I look at the attachments and they are car parking invoices, not fines. There was no local authority involved as this was a private car park.

Me wrote:

Hi, thanks for the info.

It appears that these are parking charges and not parking fines or penalty fines. According to your own terms and conditions you had no right to pay these parking charges which I deem to be incorrect and am therefore not going to pay them.

Your terms and conditions state:

"Traffic fines
An administration fee of GBP 42.00 (including tax) will apply per parking, traffic or congestion charge fine."

You have paid a car parking charge, not fine. This is quite clear on the invoice they sent you.

"A fine is a criminal sanction." - That is a legal definition. I broke no law or bylaw, therfore I was not fined. You had no right to pay these invoices with my credit card, it was not authorised. If you pay any invoice (which is what it is) that is sent to you without the permission of the cardholder then you are breaking the terms laid out by Mastercard.

Additionally, my work situation has changed requiring frequent hires. I'm not sure I like dealing with a company that pays phantom invoices sent to them without the consent or notice of the cardholder. I can understand paying fines as per the terms & conditions but paying fake invoices without even calling me is poor behaviour. You have my phone number on record. The last thing I need is to be looking over my shoulder for another fake charge.

Since you decided to pay the car parking charges this is your cost, not mine. I would like a full refund for both charges along with the admin fee's. I'll allow 7 days for the processing of this refund upon which time I will commence a chargeback request with Mastercard.

I would also like some confirmation as to whether this is normal practice for Hertz as it will certainly impact my decision to hire with you in future.

In the meantime I try to contact the two private car park companies. Both give the same answer. "You have nothing to dispute as you have paid". Legally they don't even have to talk to me at all. In essence, Hertz took away any chance of me claiming the invoice as false AND misrepresented me by paying (makes it look like I admit the invoice).

Hertz wrote:

Thank you for contacting us. I appreciate the opportunity to review your
concerns.

I regret our first correspondence did not meet with your approval. We
appreciate the opportunity to review this matter again.

I have fully considered the details of this case, and can confirm again
that you have been charged correctly.

Whilst I appreciate that this may be disappointing to you, the charges are
in accordance with your acceptance of them.

Me wrote:

Thanks for the reply Claire,

" the charges are in accordance with your acceptance of them."
If by this you mean my acceptance of the terms & conditions, I stand by those terms.

Can you point me to where in the terms & conditions it states you may charge me for items that are not fines.

Me wrote:

Claire,

The 7 days is up & I still have not had a response to my repeated request (twice on the phone, once in writing) for clarification of where it states in the terms & conditions they you can pay invoices (not fines) without either notice or consent on the behalf of the hirer.
As I have to give you every opportunity to correct this I will commence my claim against you at 11am Monday unless you deliver a suitable response.

Hertz wrote:

Thank you for contacting us. I appreciate the opportunity to review your
concerns.

I have fully considered the details of this case, and can confirm again
that you have been charged correctly in accordance with our rental terms.

For you ease of reference, I have provided the rental document provided to
you, at time of rental where is states we will pay the fine and recover the
cost from you.

Document contains the same terms I quoted to them.

Me wrote:

Thanks for forwarding the document. It would have assisted if you answered the question (4 times of asking) - Where in this document does it state that you are entitled to pay invoices for non fine items?

" What about parking fines, road tolls and other traffic related charges?
You are responsible for payment of all fines, road tolls, congestion charges and other similar charges incurred in relation to the vehicle during your rental."

I suspect that is what you are referring to but it would be helpful if you could confirm this.

Firstly:
The title "Parking Fines, road tolls, congestion charges"
All 3 of those items are backed by law. A fine, a road toll (a legally enforceable one) & the congestion charge are all controlled by law. I have non issue whatsoever in paying any of these items as they are legally enforceable. This also means I have right to appeal, which is needed.

This means the fourth item on that line "other traffic related charges" must be in line with the first 3, other similar fines \ charges backed by law where a legal case may proceed with non payment.
The invoice you paid does not fall into this category and is therefore invalid. It is an invoice raised by a private company with no legal recourse.

Secondly:
If I was speeding, parking incorrectly in a sanctioned parking area and driving without paying in the congestion charge area I would expect you to pay them as I always have the option of disputing and proving my case. If I win the case I am refunded in full.
The invoice you paid was final. There is no recourse. I was told "You have nothing to dispute as it is paid." I can't ever get a refund from them as I never paid them, you paid them and then charged me. As it happens I did pay for the parking with 3 witnesses. The parking company simply will not discuss the issue as they don't have to and don't want to due to your actions.

Thirdly:
As a person parking a car in one of their car parks the contract is between the driver and the parking company. There is no recourse to Hertz, no claim can be made on Hertz in any way. It is even likely that Hertz would be breaking data protection laws if they passed on any details about the driver to the parking company. The only legal route in this situation is for Hertz to forward the invoice to the party involved. For this reason Hertz cannot under law pay this invoice for me - they are not party to the contract. They have no obligation and no recourse for non payment.

I have to say at this point that customer services have not been very effective at communicating. I appreciate it is in your own interests to communicate poorly. I have stated my argument clearly as to why I have been incorrectly charged and in return I have received a PDF and two confirmations that the charges will stand without any reasoning or debate.

I stand by my Monday morning deadline but appreciate your position on the matter being closed.

Hertz wrote:

Thank you for contacting us. I appreciate the opportunity to review your
concerns.

It is not necessary for the authorities to stop a vehicle in order to issue
a violation. Instead, a picture of the license number is captured, and the
owner of the vehicle is billed later. The picture is sent to the location
authorities to be processed.

When notified of the violation by the authorities in-country, Hertz is
obliged to provide the local authorities with the renter's contact
information based on who had the vehicle out on rental at the time the
alleged violation occurred.

As registered owners for the vehicle, Hertz pay the fine directly to the
local authority in question and then rebill the customer for the amount
due. An administration fee of 42.00 GBP is billed each time a fine is
processed. Hertz will receive a separate notice for each traffic violation
during the rental period. The administration fee is billed by Hertz per
violation and is in addition to the cost of the infringement. Your bill
will reflect the combined total for the administration fee as outlined
above and the fee for the specific violation.

Me wrote:

I think I'm done, that's a cut & paste argument with so many errors & issues. The main one being that my whole point is that this invoice was not a fine and it was not raised by authorities. I'll commence small claims court proceedings now.

Me wrote:

Claim submitted through Money Claim Online, ref: xxxxxx

Marcusm

Why did you not simply netting a chargeback through the credit card company on the basis that Hertz have charged you for an item which is it covered by ate & Cs, ie the basis on which you have disputed it with them.

Fred Swanson

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Victor

ch750536 wrote: »

I appreciate it is in your own interests to communicate poorly.

You need to raise a complaint with Hertz, while they will address the issue, there is no guarantee they will do so in your favour.

ch750536

Fred Swanson wrote: »

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Yes, I don't mind them sending me the invoice, my issue is that Hertz had no right to decide that I must pay it. With no recourse for an incorrect invoice as 1) they don't have to & 2) I didn't pay them.

Marcusm

ch750536 wrote: »

Yes, I don't mind them sending me the invoice, my issue is that Hertz had no right to decide that I must pay it. With no recourse for an incorrect invoice as 1) they don't have to & 2) I didn't pay them.

And the easiest means to punish Hertz is to instruct the credit card company to perform a chargeback as the charge was unauthorised.

Losty Dublin

OP, how did these parking fines/charges come to be levied on you and your rental car?

Carawaystick

British motorway service areas have cameras ad record the time of arrival ad departure or all vehicles. They charge the owner of cars who stay 121 mins or more. And the british vehicle licensing agency would sell their own granny to isis for a few bob.

So they send on the charge to Hertz. Hertz then charge the car hirer the carpark charge and some extra for a bit of profit for them.

Fred Swanson

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Victor

Fred Swanson wrote: »

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Are there motorway bye-laws that cover this?

Fred Swanson

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Marcusm

Victor wrote: »

Are there motorway bye-laws that cover this?

Yes, they require that they provide free parking for 2 hours and are silent on the charges applicable thereafter. As such, they are in no better position than any private operator.

3DataModem

Marcusm wrote: »

And the easiest means to punish Hertz is to instruct the credit card company to perform a chargeback as the charge was unauthorised.

Not so easy to chargeback a car rental company. Their contact is basically designed as a shield against chargebacks, and little else. But good luck.

Marcusm

3DataModem wrote: »

Not so easy to chargeback a car rental company. Their contact is basically designed as a shield against chargebacks, and little else. But good luck.

A chargeback shifts the onus of proof from the cardholder back to the merchant. By its very nature, the cardholder can establish that he didn't agree to the specific charge and the question, to be proved by the merchant within 14 days, is whether it falls within the contractual Ts&Cs. Whatever propriety you may attach to car park charges of this nature, they do not fall squarely within the category of "fine, congestion charge" etc. they are not levied under a specific legal authority and could not have been enforced against Hertz. They are not in the nature of the charges covered under the agreement and at some stage, one or other of the card corny or Hertz will have surrendered the position. Taking the OP's statements at face value (machine not working etc), this would be an equitable result.

Fred Swanson

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Carawaystick

Victor wrote: »

Are there motorway bye-laws that cover this?

I wouldn't say motorway byelaws, a lot of the services in britain are offline at or near junctions, so non-motorway traffic could use them if they wanted to (be ripped off).

There may be some contractual agreement between the services provider and the road authority for signage on the motorway for these services.

ch750536

Legal department just called and spouted quite a lot of nonsense for a legal department.

'You had no right to get involved in a contract between myself and the car park company'
Hertz - 'Under the freedom of information act we are required to pay all fines blah ablah blah'
Me - 'What's it got to do with the freedom of information act?'
Hertz - Repeats the blah blah.

They did eventually admit they had no right to pay the invoice. They declared it is their policy to which I replied 'Your choice, exactly'.

They also pushed me to try to get a refund from the parking companies, as I stated to them, not my issue. They paid them, they can chase them.

They said they will see me in court over this one.

Fred Swanson

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Youngblood.III

I wonder....if after renting a car, would it be worth cancelling your credit card and getting a new one everytime a person rents a car...it would prevent a rental company coming after you months later with bogus charges

Fred Swanson

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Youngblood.III

Fred Swanson wrote: »

It doesn't work.

Why? Surely you can't charge a credit card that does not exist.

Fred Swanson

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Losty Dublin

Youngblood.III wrote: »

Why? Surely you can't charge a credit card that does not exist.

The charge is ultimately made to the account and not to the card itself. The card is just a means of accessing the account via a conduit merchant..

For example, your visa debit/laser card allows you access funds from your bank account, both at a shop or online. The cards number may be changed from time to time but the account remains the same. The retailer gets paid via the merchant but not directly from your account, to which they have no access.

Also, more than one card may be used on an account but they still draw from the one account. If you cancel the card the debts and charges incurred still link to the account.

Youngblood.III

Eh....different cc company? Surely not.

Fred Swanson

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ch750536

Received court papers, they seem to be looking for a day in court.

Fred Swanson

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ch750536

I did through money claim online.

If you mean who are the parking companies it was ParkingEye and Smart Parking Ltd

Have since found out that hertz charging a fine of £42 to pay a fine is also possibly illegal.

Fred Swanson

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ch750536

I'm taking hertz to court, not the parking company. Hertz paid the invoices without my consent.

Fred Swanson

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ch750536

Notified that they have changed the court to Reading. They intend turning up then.

Fred Swanson

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ch750536

My case is nothing to do with the Beavis case. I'm not requesting any adjudication on the legality of the invoice, my issue is that Hertz removed my right to contest the invoice when they paid it & they had no right to do so. The contract was between myself and the car parking company. It was in their own interest to pay the invoice as this allowed them to charge £84 in fees, more than the original hire.

Fred Swanson

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ch750536

their t's & c's

ch750536

Have a date - 2nd Feb 2016.

Fred Swanson

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ch750536

Beavis case has nothing to do with this though.

Peregrinus

Quite possibly, but if at a quick glance at the papers this looks like a case where Beavis might be raised by either side, then it makes sense to defer until Beavis is decided.