Thank you for sending over all the details of this fine and your rental. I am truly sorry for any frustrations this has caused.

I will look into this for you and will follow it up with our customer service team.

If you have any other questions or feedback please let me know.

Vicki

It is stated in the letter from Avis that the offence was committed on 09/07/09 at 1614 when I was renting the vehicle. The traffic fine clearly states that the offence was committed on 29/07/09 at 1614 and not 09/07/09. The offence appears to be related to parking on a pedestrianised area in Evian Les Bains – we did not visit this area and as I rented a vehicle from Avis at Geneva Airport from Saturday July 4th 2009 for 1 week [Booking Ref.] returning the vehicle on Saturday July 11th 2009. I was clearly not renting the vehicle on 29th July 2009. The reference for the traffic offence is identical on the letter from Avis and the fine from the authority and it appears that an administrative error has occurred and I have been wrongfully contacted.

Having got nowhere with either e-mailing your customer services or phoning I would be grateful if you could look into this and once you have been able to confirm that I was not the renter of the vehicle at the time of the offence I require the following:

1. A full refund of the handling fee which has been charged to my VISA card

2. Confirmation that the local authority has been contacted and my name has been deleted from their files as the responsible party for this fine.

Sorry to hear about your frustrations.

I am happy to look into this for you and follow this up with customer services if you send me an email with the rental agreement number and rental details on. Please email these to comments@avis.co.uk.

Vicki

Thanks for your comment.
I will email you directly to try and help resolve this.

Vicki

After emails back and fourth with your customer service, at any moment, I had the feeling that my comments were being taken seriously. All I got was “it’s your fault, read the small print” even though it isn’t as clear as they tried to point it out and blame me for.

Plus a registration fee charge at the destination it’s a joke! What for?! To show me how important a customer I am?!

Disgraceful!

I am sorry to hear that you are unhappy with the outcome and refund from our customer services and I will make sure that your comments are shared with them.

I will also pass on your feedback to the team in Italy. We take all comments about our service very seriously, good or bad, and if there is an opportunity to take affirmative action, we will do so.

Vicki

I am very unsatisfied with the customer service outcome.

Email after email it was all the same and at the end the refund offered wasn’t what we were expecting at all.

I definitely think Avis DON’T care. To charge me a full extra day for 1:34hs + 20% VAT without me agreeing is not acceptable. The staff in Sicily should have told me the charge beforehand. I wasn’t late with the car but took it earlier and was naive to think it was all ok and my voucher paid in full had it all covered. All it would take was the staff to communicate properly with the customer.

Disappointing. Avis takes advantage of the lack of communication by the staff and then says it was all there written clearly. Worst rental service I ever had.

I am sorry to hear about your frustrations with Avis.

I have passed your comment on to our customer service team and they have let me know that they have just sent you a response in regards to this.

Also, due to the length of your original comment we have had to remove some sections. If you feel that we have cut out anything vital that other bloggers should see please feel free to post them again.

If you have any other questions please let me know.

Vicki

I had a bad experience with my first and probably last rental with Avis. No other company ever gave me such an headache… the conclusion? Read the small print if you don’t want to end up paying double to what was initially agreed because staff at Sicily won’t tell you about anything.

Below is a copy of the letter I sent to Customer Services. They replied but the final answer was basically a “read the small print” and no refunds offered so far. For Avis the refund of €112.90 is nothing but for me makes a big difference because it adds to the total I had paid. I feel really disappointed with this company and feel also I was taken advantage.

A shame really if that is how you prefer to be seen as a company.
Claudia

13/10/2009
Att: Avis Customer Service Manager
Dear Sir/Madam,

I rented a car in Sicily from the 17/09 to the 26/09. The rental was done and paid in full with [A travel agent] and I took a voucher with me to take the car at the airport. On check in we were advised to take a full insurance at a cost of €9 euros a day and we agreed to it as a good precaution.

On the last day my boyfriend dropped the car, signed the return on a machine via a little booth at the airport and we thought everything was ok. He was given a receipt with the total of €210.10 and thought that this was just the Avis receipt for the total charges, which sometimes can differ from the agency payment.

A week later, we received a full statement showing some charges breakdown and only then we realized that we had been charged again a £193.48 on top of the cost of the rental. Needless to say we were in shock!! We agreed to the €9 a day so we’re not in any way disputing the payment of €81, but we were never told this would also have a 20% fee on top, which in other rentals was never the case and I believe it’s a important information to pass to the customer.

After analysing the receipt I believe I am being charged for an extra day but once again this is extremely unfair. The rental agreement had pick up and return at 15:00. We arrived early and went to the desk, thinking that we couldn’t get the car earlier but the lady processed our information without a moment hesitation so it never crossed my mind I would be charged anything extra because she didn’t say anything. Your employee failed to give me some basic but very important information that would prevent me feeling like I have been taken advantage. She should have informed me about the options I could have and let me make a decision based on that:
a) I could take the car earlier but would have to pay extra because of that and how much would that be,
b) tell me to wait till 15:00 to pick up car at no extra cost or
c) return the car at the same time I was taking the car.
There were 3 options for this case as now, after reading your website and the receipt makes me think that is the cause of this charge.

I am writing this letter in the hope that we can sort things amicably without having to involve Trading Standards or the European Consumer Centre. All I’m asking is a bit of understanding. Your company failed with the basics of communicating with your customers and looking after them in a transparent way. Not telling someone that his or her bill is almost double of the rent is unacceptable.

I hope Avis can credit back the extra charges and take just the payment we knew and agreed upon, €9 euros a day for 9 days. Everything else is unacceptable and if necessary we will take our complaints further but I do hope Avis has the good sense to see that mistakes were made on it’s part and act in a honorable and fair way.

Yours truly,
Claudia Braglia Hernandes