Submitted by marcz_z t3_zqpdnm in personalfinance
I just got 4,781 EUR invoice for 4 days car rental from Avis. In the invoice it states that odometer showed 804,854 km at return, and that I need to pay for 16,677 km at rate 0.23 per km. Those numbers doesn't make any sense. I only drove like 300 kilometers.
I've seen that others have experienced similar situations with car rentals, are they doing this to mess with people or is it just a "honest mistake"? It seems to happen too often. What the hell is wrong with car rental companies?
And this was the time when I was in a rush and forgot to take the photo of odometer at the return, so technically I have no solid proof? Though those numbers are just too unbelievable, it's not even physically possible to travel this kind of distance in a damn Peugeot, maybe with a space ship..
I've already contacted them but haven't received any response yet. I hope that it will be resolved.
I guess this is a reminder to others that you should ALWAYS take all the proof you can when returning the rental car.
Numbers in invoice:
Total Distance Driven : 7,877 km
Miles/Km at start : 545
Miles/Km at return : 804,854
Kilometres 16,677 @ 0.23 = 3,835.71 Eur
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Update 1:
Today (22-12-2022) I got response from Avis that they have issued a refund. Still haven't received it yet but they mentioned that it could take 3-5 business days.
I created ticket in https://avis.us.abgcustomerservice.com/ and also sent direct email to rental location office. Though there I didn't get any actual response.
Then today I found direct manager contacts through https://www.elliott.org/company-contacts/avis-budget/ (the site was mentioned in comments, thanks for that), and customer support manager replied very soon that they have confirmed the error and refund has been issued.
I hope that this is the "happy ending" of the case.
Anyway this caused quite some stress to me and I spent several hours in finding contacts, writing emails to Avis and my bank - for something that was not my fault and should have been noticed and handled automatically on Avis side.