Avis Consumer Reviews - Page 5

MORRISVILLE, NORTH CAROLINA -- Avis — I am a frequent business traveler and have dealt with rental car agents/companies for over 25 years. The vast majority of these interactions have been positive. I have rented from Hertz (#1 club), Budget, Avis, Alamo, National, Enterprise, Dollar, Thrifty and others.

Recently, I have had two experiences with AVIS that show a complete disregard for the customer and a willingness to cast the customer as an adversary. On two separate occasions, I have fulfilled the term of the rental agreement, returned the car on time and as agreed, and with a clean interior, keys and full tank of gas. AFTER a few days, penalty fuel charges have appeared on my credit card statement- either completely erroneous (not related to damage claims, etc.) or outright fraudulent which has required me to contact customer service repeatedly, fax receipts, letters, documents, etc. all in an effort get these charges removed.

Not only does it take time and expense to do this, but the attitude of customer service has been to cast me as an adversary rather than a partner. Not once has one agent apologized for my inconvenience, even though I have done nothing wrong. Customer service at AVIS has been atrocious. It is business 101 to take care of your customers, particularly business customers if you are a car rental agency. The poor customer service at AVIS is laughable given the other choices available to the business customer in this sector.

At this time, based on credit card charges made after the fact on more than one occasion, I cannot recommend AVIS. I have spoken to other businessmen who have reported problems with them as well. If you MUST use AVIS, keep a copy of your rental agreement, keep copies of all receipts, go to the counter after you check-in your car and get a counter receipt if you have time. I do all of this and can eventually get the problem resolved but if you don't, be prepared to be screwed by AVIS and the burden of proof will be on YOU. For the record I have had consistently good experiences with Hertz and National. I must recommend to AVOID AVIS at this time.

It's not uncommon to rent a car for a day as I wished to do for a one way trip from the Pittsburgh airport to Baltimore-Washington Airport. I made the reservation using Avis from the Orbitz website. I was asked to specify a time of pickup and return and I entered 11 AM for both. I happened to get to the Pittsburgh airport a little early and ended up renting the car from 9:42 AM. Printed out on the rental agreement is pickup at 9:42 with return at 11AM the next day.

Any reasonable person would understand that I wanted the car for a day and came early for it, so technically the Avis rental agreement should have had 9:42AM pickup and 9:42AM return. Instead, the Avis rental model plays dumb and assumes that I want a car for 25 hours and 18 minutes with a charge of $121.99 for the first 24 hours and $104.11 per hour for the additional 1 hour and 18 minutes (a severe penalty for keeping the car beyond a "day").

This sets up the scam since the rental agreement lists 11AM as the return time which is consistent with your initial intent of renting a car for a day. However, if you return the car after 9:42AM you get hit with the hourly penalty. The rental clerks are complicit in this deception since they do not change the computer generated return time to make the rental 24 hours.

They play dumb and the consumer gets screwed - as I did by returning the car at about 10:05AM. No doubt Avis figures that there is more money to made by fleecing unsuspecting consumers like myself, than in lost revenue from those who shun their services because they restrict their purchases to honest corporations.

MALAGA, AIRPORT SPAIN -- During a Trip to Spain we were upgraded to a Seat Minivan at Malaga Airport. The car was in a very narrow parking space with very low lighting. We Checked the major body parts for damage as best we could, and didn't see anything. Here's the catch...and we were caught, we arrived with 1 hour to spare to go home. I dropped off the luggage with my wife and proceeded to the car rental return. There was a long line and waited 15 minutes. A young woman with an electronic check in reader checked me in. Great I thought however all of a sudden she pointed to a spot on the front of the rocker panel and said there was damage.

Now I have driven the car for a week, parked in a private garage and walked around the car many times you had to get on your hands & knees to see this small scratch damage, yet she knew exactly where it was like she had a GPS to direct her to the 286 euro damage she calculated and was told to go to the office with my credit card and add it to the original reservation. Furious is not the word but I couldn't miss the flight so there was no way to check in the car without paying almost half of the rental fee for a scratch. I contacted AVIS in USA and waited for the European division to send the report. It never came and the time frame for the claim ran out..

Now we take a digital picture of the whole car in a brightly lit area if there is bird droppings we mark it down as paint damage. It may take longer but at least you have something to keep the damage scam from happening again and we leave more time to check in now. "Once bitten shame on the dog, twice bitten shame on you!" I have heard of other travelers getting stuck with repair costs that are way out of line also.

So take your time and look the car over with a fine tooth comb and write it down and have it signed or acknowledged by the car rental agent or manager. The loss of 286 euro = $ 365 US not a nice way to end a wonderful vacation. PAY attention or you will PAY for lack of attention.

NEW YORK, NEW YORK -- DO NOT RENT FROM EVER!!! Such a ripoff. AVIS SCAMS THEIR CUSTOMERS!!! I would just like to comment on my rental experience out of JFK international airport. I arrived in New York off a flight from Dublin. I had to get to Pennsylvania that night to visit a very sick relative of mine. It was all last minute so of course I didn't have time to make a proper reservation. I've rented with Avis before and it's ALWAYS been a great experience.

When I was sorting out a car with the representative he assigned me a death trap (Kia Rio) and then proceeds to charge me $120.99 a day. The best rate they had, he claimed. Waaaay overpriced if you ask me but again, I was in a hurry to get to PA, I agreed and was on my way. On my way back from central PA I gave plenty of time in order to return the car. I hit traffic right after exiting I-80 onto I-287. What should have been a 1.5-hour car trip took me 5 hours. Anyone who is in traffic for that long can understand my frustration.

I knew I couldn't make it back to JFK in time so a closer option was Nanuet, NY. When I dropped the car off I explained my situation and even though I was 3 hours late returning the car I was charged for a whole day. Another $120.99!! This is ridiculous to me. It's a Kia Rio!! I feel completely scammed and I'm soooo disappointed in Avis. I called customer service to inquire about my issue the refund was not approved. The second time I called to inquire they said I would be credited with half a day. I appreciate that but I was still charged for the other half of the day I wasn't driving the car.

If I would have known this to be the outcome I would have kept the car for a half a day longer to get my money's worth. I will never use Avis again. my father is a rewards member and has been for years and after this disaster he has vowed never to use Avis again as well. I am extremely disappointed with my experience and especially coming from one of the most traveled through airports in the world. I know you have the right to raise your rates but to charge that much for a bottom line car is ridiculous. I will be sure to share my experience on every car rental review website so this never happens to anyone else.

VANCOUNVER, WASHINGTON -- My wife and I were planning a 2 week trip to Newfoundland and searched online for car rental rates. To our astonishment Avis was about $400 to $500 below all other rental companies for a 2 week rental from the St. John's airport. Too good to be true maybe? We arrived at St. John's after midnight and went to the Avis counter. Sure enough they had a car for us but unfortunately there was only one person at the rental counter so we had to find our rental car on the parking lot ourselves. It was a lighted parking lot so I was able to walk around the car. It looked fine in that light.

At the end of our 2 week trip we returned the car to the Avis parking lot at around 5:00 AM on the morning of our early morning flight to Toronto. There was no one at the Avis counter so we had been instructed to fill in the return information: mileage, full gas tank, etc. and leave it with the keys on their counter. There was no damage on the car when it was returned. The rental car had been sitting on their parking lot from around 5:00 AM until Avis opened their office at around 8:30 AM.

A couple a month later I received a letter from the Avis' office in New Jersey with an invoice for around $1100 for damages to their car. My credit card company (MasterCard) had denied their attempt to charge my credit card for their invoice. When I phoned my credit card issuer to inquire about the Avis attempt at charges, they indicated (although they wouldn't say so in so many words) that they've seen this situation before and they always protect their cardholders in instances like this. I've told Avis to get lost and they've given up trying to collect themselves. Now they've turned the file over to a collection agency that isn't getting anywhere with me either.

I look forward to defending myself in small claims court which will never happen. Even Avis isn't dumb enough to start a suit when they know it will cost them more than their phony invoice is claiming, especially when they don't have a case in the first place. I've read a business report about businesses in North America that are expected to fail before the end of 2009. Guess which car rental firms on on list? Budget and AVIS. Both firms have debt that is suffocating them to a point that they won't be able to survive. Maybe Avis will be replaced by another rental company that doesn't try to rip off its customers.

SCOTTSDALE, ARIZONA -- We made a reservation 6 months in advance to get the best deal, as we always do. We reserved a full size car for $181.30 and had a $20.00 off coupon that was to be taken off at the counter. All was well until we returned the car and found that out bill was $355.41.

When we asked why they said that they had upgraded us to a larger car. We went to speak to a manager ** and he said I had initialed it so therefore I knew about it. He said his manager would call me in the morning. The girl went over everything that I signed for and the only mention that I signed for was that I was denying the insurance and that I would bring the car back with a full tank of gas, there was absolutely no mention of any upgrade.

Nobody called us and after two days of telephoning I finally got to talk to a manager. He told us unfortunately there was nothing he could do since I had initialed it. I explained to him that if I wanted to upgrade I would of used my upgrade coupon instead of my $20.00 off coupon.

I had no need for an upgrade and did not want an upgrade. The car we rented was no bigger or better than most mid size cars that we rent. This is sheer trickery what they did, and they know it. It may have been that they were out of full size cars. I don't know. We waited in a very long line about 45 minutes and there was still a very long line when we left. I know that they were very busy that day. A fellow that I spoke to at Avis named ** told me that they will upgrade you if they are out of you size car and in that case it should have been a complimentary upgrade.

My question is why was I upgraded? I have called my credit card company and disputed the charges, but the manager at Avis said they had a signed contract so it would do us no good. I am sick about this. This sure put a nasty finish to our wonderful vacation.

CALIFORNIA -- We normally rent from Hertz and have always received very good service. Recently we went with Avis because of a lower price quote, and that's a mistake I'll never make do again. Several days into our one-month rental, a tire warning light appeared on the dash. We called Avis, and were told to ignore it, that those lights usually don't mean anything. We tried to get it checked anyway at a service center attached to an Avis office, but couldn't find anyone on duty who would give us the time of day. The tire did seem okay, so we kept on driving.

A couple of days later, we were about to get into our car to go to an important meeting and found a completely flat tire. Avis eventually sent a repair person, who put on the small "donut" replacement tire from the trunk. We called Avis to say we either wanted a full-sized tire or a new car. They actually told us we could continue to drive the car (for over two more weeks!) on the temporary tire.

We of course refused to accept that, but Avis wouldn't take any responsibility for getting a new car to us. We had to call several agencies in the area until we finally found one that could provide a replacement. The only car available was not at all what we wanted--a big gas-guzzler, which even the agent admitted was on the lot only because no one ever wanted to rent it. But at that point we had no other choice.

The crowning blow was when, after we had lost a full day's service on the car and had to do all our own legwork to get a less-than-satisfactory replacement, we arrived at the pickup spot to be told we would be charged $8 a gallon to refill the tank on the crippled car! I can only add to the chorus of unhappy Avis renters on this site and say that we will NEVER rent from Avis again.

CHICAGO, ILLINOIS -- I just read an interesting article in the Sun-Times (a local Chicago paper) about a guy who received a $45 dollar bill in the mail ONE FULL YEAR after he had rented a car through Avis. Apparently his toll payment transponder did not function properly on one toll. The highway toll authorities apparently contacted the car rental company to find out who was driving the car, and in turn fined him a $20 missed toll fee. The car rental company (Avis) in turn fined him $25 for also missing the toll. The funny part, the poor guy had his own toll transponder in the car which automatically pays tolls as you drive through them.

They have been known to malfunction, which is of course no fault of the driver/owner since they have no way of knowing if it worked or not. Long story short, he called the toll authorities to complain. They said they would not discuss it with him since he was not the owner of the car. He had to take the issue up with Avis. Avis said they would not discuss it with him since it was a toll authority issue. So he went back to the toll authorities and again he was denied. The poor guy did absolutely nothing wrong and here he is wasting hours of his time and getting nothing but doors slammed in his face.

When he asked why he was never notified of the "missed toll", the toll authorities said they have up to 2 years to notify a consumer of a missed toll. But apparently consumers only get 7 days to pay a missed toll from the date of the infraction. Huh? What kind of messed up system is that? In the end, the guy ended up writing to a reporter of the Sun-Times who in turn contacted the toll authorities.

She was able to talk to someone who researched the problem and saw the consumer had indeed paid all his tolls that day but one, which would lead them to the conclusion that the device or their tollway made an error at that one toll. So they decided to reverse the $20 fine and then the reporter spoke with Avis who said they would do the same. All this over a 30 cent toll mistake that had nothing to do with the consumer. Be careful when renting cars in the Chicago-land area!

LISBON -- I have been renting cars on business trips since 2000. Have always rented with Hertz and never had a problem with the rental and billing. The rate quoted is always unlimited miles. In oct 2006 however our office in portugal came up with some idea of trying Avis. Their rates for short trips were definitely lower than Hertz so I gave it a try. Barely 2 months with them and I had my first problem.

For a particular rental they had 3 contracts in the system one which said 220 odd eur 1 which was something like 160 eur (correct one) and one which said 0 eur. Don't know really what crooked system they use but it was smart and billed the highest amount. After a lot of complaining they corrected it. I had to stop payment from my credit card company for them to take action.

I should have stopped renting with Avis however don't know why the devil I continued. 6 Months later the next bad experience. 1 Of the rental rates happened to be a 0 miles one. I never choose that but its the same crooked system they have that came up with the rate. I always go to Avis.Com and do the booking as the rentals are in different countries each time.

At the rental agency counter nobody alerted me that this is a 0 miles contract. They just said 240 odd eur with collision damage waiver. I said "OK" and signed as always not reading the stuff in between. End result it works out to 500 odd eur when I return it. Over 500 eur for a rover 25 for 4 days. That's just a swindle. I protested that there is something wrong. They checked and finally told me its a 0 miles contract that's why the different and they also said that its possible to correct it.

After I week I check back they say "contact customer service". I complain for 1 whole month nobody bothers. I cancelled my application for Avis preferred card giving reason that I have had a bad experience and don't want to use their service and still nobody bothers.

After almost another month and lots of complaining they say that the rate is special rate for americans coming to portugal and I should have booked on Avis.Com.Pt. In this globalised world they are still living a secluded life. They refuse to correct it. I signed the rental so they don't care.

Only option now is to go the consumer protection agency deco. Anyhow I have stopped renting with them after June 2007 and gone back to business with Hertz. Gave the feedback to my office and they removed the recommendation for Avis off the internal website. No more Avis.

I'm not sure there is any point in writing this, but just in the slim case you are interested, I should like to explain to you how your operations in Copenhagen add to the stress of travel and do nothing to help ease the stress of travel. Fortunately there is so much choice these days, I won't have to use either of you again.

I took the trouble to pre-book my car 1 week before I travelled. When I arrived at the AVIS counter at 22.30 on 27th June, your incompetent staff had nothing ready. I still had to fill in all the forms and then had to wait 25 minutes for a man to bring the keys down from the 3rd floor car park. I gave up waiting and went next door to Hertz who gave me a car in 5 minutes, but I still had to take all of my luggage to the other side of the airport and go to the 3rd floor to get the car. This is a disgrace and a waste of my time. Why can you not bring the car to arrivals?

Now the return. I had to drive to the 3rd floor parking where there was a chaos of cars arriving, no parking spaces, not enough staff, etc. But then I had to walk with my luggage to terminal 3 to hand in the keys. I then had to walk to terminal 2 for my flight. All in about 20 minutes of my time and energy wasted. Why could I not hand the keys in on the 3rd floor parking? This is not a service, it's an insult. I think both companies should be thoroughly ashamed. You are not giving a service you are hindering travel and adding to the stress. But not anymore with me! Goodbye!