Unexpected charges from Avis car rental

wrightgs

Earlier this year I booked and fully paid for an Avis car hire with a British Airways flight.

However, Avis had pre-printed the contract before I arrived and added "Requested optional extras" even though no requests had been made.  It was my fault for not spotting this and insisting that the contract was changed and reprinted, but I stated to the Avis representative that I did not require any additional options (I have separate car hire excess insurance, which I showed them!) and after already waiting almost an hour in the queue and with many frustrated Avis customers behind me, I initialled the contract to just get going.

The key issue here is that it appears to be an Avis policy to add these optional extras speculatively to pre-paid hires (the Avis representatives don't mention or highlight these when the car is collected) and gain revenue from customers that don't spot and/or challenge these costs.  After a long flight and potentially a long day already, this just seems like Avis trying to catch-out their customers and gain revenue, which I think is quite despicable.

I saw further evidence of this suspected policy only recently, when again "Requested optional extras" were added to a pre-paid rental and they were for items completely different than I had seen before.  This time I insisted it was changed and reprinted, which caused some disruption as firstly the printer was not working and secondly it had no ink!  I can only apologise to the Avis customers still in the queue behind me.

I have used other major car hire rental companies like Hertz and I don't see them treating their customers in this way.

brianposter

Did you see the contract ?

NSG666

So Avis lifted your leg but you booked with them again anyway and they tried to lift your leg once more?

bagand96

I had this in the USA with Avis/BA a few years back.  All was ok at pick up, but on drop off my card got charged for some incidentals.  I don't think I noticed at the time as the return process is pretty quick at the airport.  I queried it with Avis and BA on my return.  Initially they tried to fob me off saying it was an additional driver charge until I pointed out BAEC members get a free additional driver, and then they tried to say it was something else.  In the end Avis did refund my card.

eDicky

The local franchises of even the most reputable car hire firms can vary in their service honesty and performance, so if your post is meant as a warning you need to identify the exact location.

brianposter

NSG666 said:

So Avis lifted your leg but you booked with them again anyway and they tried to lift your leg once more?

Avis do seem to have a problem with charging correctly so it is important to study all documentation and keep careful records.

That said, they do seem to have tried harder than others to maintain services during the Covid epidemic, so in consequence I have hired from them several times since I last prepared a court submission against them

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wrightgs

The location was Gibraltar airport, where other car hire options are fairly limited.

I recognise that I should have studied the contract more closely, but as the car hire was fully pre-paid, I didn't expect a brand like Avis to speculatively add extras to the contract and list them as "requested" when they were clearly not.  From reading other posts, this appears to be an Avis company policy at many locations, which if true is a poor reflection on how Avis treat their customers.

brianposter

wrightgs said:

The location was Gibraltar airport, where other car hire options are fairly limited.

Hiring a car from one of the offices just across the frontier in Spain seems to work fairly well.