car hire scam AVIS

zorrowales

CAR HIRE SCAM 1 - AVIS - TAKING MONEY TWICE
Car Hire - Wow what an experience i have just had - I think i have uncovered aMassive worldwide scam.
I have hired a lot of cars for my staff in the last 3 years & have rarely used AVIS as they have been too expensive.
i wont be using them again -
We hired a car from Bristol recently , all other cars were booked it was a last minute thing -
All was fine , a bit expensive , but needs must.
They took payment from my card - £160 + fuel deposit / No problem
We then extended that hire for another week - No problem another payment taken from my card
I now noticed that the payments were NOT showing as been extracted from my account / but the availability of the £320 had been blocked on my account - No problem , i am experienced , i have seen that before.
A 3rd week hire was taken up , again the blockage - went up to - £480.00 - no problem
OR SO I THOUGHT !!!!
on day 21 ( 3 weeks hire ) we returned the car.
My account was blocked by £480.00
On day 23 - AVIS Took £480.00 from my account - A payment showed on my account as out-going.
NO PROBLEM I THOUGHT -
UNTIL I LOOKED TO THE LEFT HAND COLUMN -
THERE MY AVAILABILITY WAS STILL BLOCKED - BY £480.00
SO AVIS HAD BLOCKED £480.00 & TOOK £480.00 - LEAVING ME £960 OUT OF POCKET ON A £480 TRANSACTION
ANNOYINGLY THIS PUSHED ME £200 INTOOVERDRAFT ALSO - CAUSING FEES TO BE ADDED £35.00
I CALLED THEM & THEY SAID THAT THEY HAD RETURNED THE MONEY TO THE BANK & IT WOULD BE RESTORED TO MY ACCOUNT ANY DAY SOON -
3 DAYS LATER NOTHING - SO I CALLED CUST SERVICES / A POOR STRESSED CHAP EVEN MORE STRESSED AFTER ME COMPLAINING TO HIM - ADMITTED THAT THE WHOLE DEPT IN HUNGARY SPENT 90% OF THEIR TIME DEALING WITH THESE CALLS .- HE KINDLY GAVE ME £50 COMPENSATION TO COVER MY OVERDRAFT FEES.
HE SAID I WILL CONTACT YOUR BANK TODAY TO GET THE MONEY RETURNED TO YOU WITHIN 24 HOURS.
NOTHING MATERIALISED.
REMEMBER THIS IS NOT A DEPOSIT RETURN /THIS IS TAKING MONEY TWICE .
I CALLED CUST SERVICES TWICE MORE - 2 MRE STRESSED PERSONNEL / I MEAN STRESSED !!
NOTHING SO I CALLED THE UK MD ( HIS NUMBER IS ON LINE ) HE CALLED & SAID HE WOULD UPGRADE THE COMPLAINT TO HIS EXECUTIVE PERSONELL INCUST SERVICES
LOVELY LADY DEBORAH KANE - GOT ME THROUGH TO HIM
ANYWAY I HAD A CALL FROM EXEC CUST SERVICES AGAIN - GRANT - AGAIN TELLING ME THE COMPANY LINE
THIS IS DAY 7 NOW SINCE THE MONEY WAS TAKEN - IN Y BOOK THEY HAD TAKEN / STOLEN MY MONEY FOR 7 DAYS NOW - STOLEN - THATS TOO STRONG A WORD ISN'T IT ????
CALL YOUR BANK HE SAID - GET AN EMAIL ADDRESS THAT WE CAN SEND THEM INSTRUCTIONS TO RELEASE YOUR MONEY -
I CALLED THEM - BARCLAYS LADY COULD NOT UNDERSTAND WHAT I WAS ONABOUT ( ANOTHER STORY )
I HAD TO USE PAYING AT TESCO EXPERIENCES ON YOUR CARD TO EXPLAIN... STILL DIDNT SINK
ANYWAY - SHE EVENTUALLY SAID - AVIS HAVETHE RIGHT TO TAKE THAT MONEY UNTIL APRIL 2 -2014.
DAY 12 THE MONEY WILL BE AVAILABLE..
EVENTUALLY THE MONEY WAS UNBLOCKED ON DAY 13
SO THEY HAD STOLEN MY MONEY FOR 13 DAYS.
I ESTIMATE - MY £500.00 X 2 MILLION PEOPLE WORLDWIDE ( AVIS IS A BIG WORLDWIDE COMPANY )
= £1 BILLION IS BEING HELD IN AVIS'S ACCOUNT.
THIS IS FOR 12 DAYS ONLY REMEMBER.......
12 DAYS HAPPENS 30.5 TIMES PER YEAR.
SO 30.5 X £1BILLION = £30,500,000,000.00 / 30 BILLION , 500 MILLION POUNDS.
NOW THAT FIGURE IS KINDA FRIGHTENING HUH ?????
IF THIS HAS HAPPENED TO YOU - BOMBARD THIS SITE - LETS SEE IF WE CAN MAKE THINGS HAPPEN TOGETHER AS A FORCE-
SINCE THE CRUNCH BIG CORPORATES HAVE TRIED EVERY SCAM GOING
BECAUSE THEY KNOW NOBODY EXPECTS ANYTHING BETTER FROM THEM
STAND UP GOOD PEOPLE AND REPORT ANYTHING -
IT IS THE ONLY WAY WE WILL WIN -
EVIL PREVAILS WHILE GOOD MEN STAND BY & DO NOTHING
ZORROWALES

zagfles

They haven't taken money that is "blocked". They've just reserved it. This is bog standard with car hire companies and hotels and other retailers do it as well, it can sometimes take a couple of weeks for the block to disappear. Sounds like you used a debit card - best to use a credit card and make sure you have a credit limit with a large headroom if you hire cars.

zorrowales

CAR HIRE SCAM 2 - Europcar / Alamo / National - Overcharge & skullduggery - Cardiff Airport

Car Hire - Aspreviously mentioned -
I have hired a lot of cars for my staff in the last 3 years & have Used thes guys above ( The same company )
once only through an agency on Travelsupermarket.com
i wont be using them again -
Bewareof their CONS.
We hired a car from Cardiff Airport last summer
A good deal - £100 for a Ford Focus level car / bad news was the £500 deposit / Full tank of fuel.
Anyway , we extended the rental into week 2 , price went up to £127.00 , new rates for that week i was told .
It's normal , but £127 was a big jump
Week 3 , up to £139.00 , Week - 4 £145.00 - Week 5 - £147.00
I returned the car at 90% full - i have the receipt for £60 still.
I was late / nobody there / so i left the keys in the box as you do with car hire co's.
I had also put the car through the car wash , and given it a clean inside, hoover , papers etc
I thought nothing of it until i had a large bill on my card
They had charged me for a full valet - £89.00
They had charged me £143 for a full tank of fuel.
Extortionate price per litre £2.70 ( twice the price of a litre at the pumps )
Remember - i had put£60 in 8 miles before dropping the car off.
Amazingly -They had charged me for 55 litres of fuel - i study cars & thugh hang on -
A Seat Leon DIESEL only takes 51 litres - THIS WAS CONFIRMED - WHEN I CHECKED the website -
SO I HAD BEEN RIPPED OFF
BUT HANG ON WHAT WERE THESE OTHER charges -
£3 per day for road side assistance in case of breakdown - £21 per week ????
Why would an experience car renter of 30 years experience like me take this on a BRAND NEW SEAT LEON ???
SEAT IS PART OF THE VW GROUP
WE ALL KNOW - RELIABILITY IS A MASSIVE FACTOR
THE SNEAKY LITTLE GENTLEMAN AT EUROPCAR CARDIFF AIRPORT ( BOY I WISH I COULD USE ANOTHER WORD )
HAD BEEN CHARGING ME FOR THESE EXTRAS WITHOUT MY KNOWLEGE
I COMPLAINED TO EUROPCAR OVER A SERIES OF EMAILS
I REALISED I WOULD NEED TO TAKE THIS FURTHER IF I WAS GOING TO GET ANYWHERE -
UNTIL MY RECENT AVIS EXPERIENCE I HAD JUST PUT IT DOWN AS A FRUSTRATING EXPERIENCE
NOW I AM ON THE WARPATH - WATCH THIS SPACE
TRUST ME - GO WITH ENTERPRISE - £200 DEPOSIT / RETURNED WITHIN 48 HOURS OF CAR RETURN
FOCUS - £110-130 PER WEEK DIESEL BRAND NEW
NOT BRILLIANT - BUT VERY GOOD.
ZORRO WALES

zorrowales

Reserved / blocked / stole the money for 12 days
it means the same -

why would they do it other than to make money?

There was no reason to hold it.

Car was taken back / checked over / signed off.
Contract over - ebd of !!!

Somebody actually took it back out while i was there.
Fuel deposit was returned
it is their system that is at fault
a system where they deliberately hold your money for 12 days.

Dont get used to these scamsters's systems as a norm

enterprise charge you £130 + a £200 deposit for a focus

the deposit & fee shows as coming out on your account 1-2 days after you take the car on a debit card.

Card should make no difference - their time scale is ascam

you take the car back

the deposit is back in your account within 24-48 hours

a nice easy transaction

i recommend with a massive experience of 250 weeks worth of hire in the last 3 years -

go enterprise

never had trouble with hertz either

redpete

zorrowales wrote: »

Reserved / blocked / stole the money for 12 days
it means the same -

Totally different, last is criminal, others are procedure.

why would they do it other than to make money?

Incompetence.

There was no reason to hold it.

They reserve funds because of the ease that they could get ripped off. They didn't release your reserved funds earlier because of incompetence.

zorrowales

no it wasn;t incompetence

They all promised to correct it but couldn't

This was procedure - formulated at board level

This is pure rip off

sorry my report was so long - but i had to show all the processes.

i understand they blocked the money before the contract end -
But we are talking about after the contract end / they held on to it for 12 days.

i know they have their procedures
BUT
Theirs are designed for them yo make a lot of cash

Check my maths in my report

AVIS are massive

AVOID THEM BIG TIME

meer53

Somehow, i don't think your "report" will put many people off using Avis.

It might put them off reading any more of your "reports" though.

DTDfanBoy

zorrowales you clearly don't fully understand the process.


Avis requests that the bank hold the money on whichever card you supplied, nothing is actually removed from your account, Avis hasn't had use of your money for the 12 days, it's still been sat in your account but has been ringfenced.

meer53

Avis holds £30 billion pounds of it's customers money :eek:

You couldn't make this up could you ? Hysterical or what ?

PeacefulWaters

It was so horribly laid out I didn't read a word of it.

If it's worth reading please could somebody paragraph and font control for me.

Thanks.

philip1988

As AVIS have pre-authorised £480 from the OP's bank account, surely when they come to actually finalise the payment this should come from the pre-authorised amount and not a separate transaction.