Reminds me of a time where I rented a car, I checked and looked over the car, it had some weather damage (dents caused by hail). I had them sign a piece of paper (rental employee and the shift manager) saying I wasn't responsible before I took the car off the lot and placed it in the file. I returned the car, sure enough, they tried to blame me for the damage. I showed them the signed piece of paper, that 'shut them up', and left. They tried to fine me over 6500 dollars..
@@gregbrunner599 Yup, me too! Who is renting a car but doesn't have a cellphone? People take films and pictures of trivial things al the time, why not protect yourself?
Rent a Lambo, say, and you'll find the rental company themself often doing that video walkthrough. "Tires are pristine, no scratches on wheels, bumpers are perfect, lights are perfect, etc, etc" Come back with the slightest hairline anything on any part of the car and you learn just how much parts for a Lamborghini cost.
I rented a Budget car for a vacation in Arizona. Coming down a long, dark, narrow road in a storm, there were downed tree branches on the road. The next day I noticed a 10 inch patch of scrapes on the right front quarter panel. I showed the agent when I returned the car, expecting to pay my insurance deductible. To my surprise, the agent said the I didn't do it. He showed me photos on a laptop of the damage that Budget had taken from the previous rental. Wow, was I impressed.
I haven't rented a car or moving truck that many times over the years but I'll always use Budget because it was quick and easy and they always gave me good service. The one time I used Enterprise it was a pain.
She should have told customer service that the company claims she drove the truck at over 300mph for 72hrs straight. Don't talk about the miles. Talk about the speed. That's more obviously impossible.
We were doing a siblings trip to vegas. I told my brother don't rent from hertz. He said why? I listen to a lawyer and i decided never to rent from hertz. I also will never buy an rv and carry any cash when flying or driving through kansas. I forgot buying a home from a hoa or buying a condo.
A home with HOA is not per se an issue. Just read the statutes of the HOA before you sign on the dotted line! Usually if there is not or a very low monthly HOA fee, walk away, than you're dealing with a for-profit HOA organization and they are responsible for 95% of the horror stories because those companies live on the fines.
I rented a car from Avis. At drop off, my flight left 2 hours before they opened. I followed the instructions for early drop off. I did take pictures of the car from all sides when I dropped it off and a pic of the odometer. On my layover in Atlanta, I get a notice from my credit card that Avis had tried to charge me for 18K. I tried calling the airport and no one picked up so I called the national number. They told me that I hadn’t returned the car so they billed me for it. I asked them if the airport had checked their dropped key box at the airport desk and looked in spot X in the parking lot. They put me on hold and about 20 minutes later came back and said sorry. The car is there and everything was settled with no additional money due.
@@scottmcshannon6821 Last time I rented a car, there was one worker. She literally received an incoming car, checked the person out, drove the car through the on-site car wash, vacuumed the interior, came back in to check in the next person renting, went out with them to the just-cleaned car, walked them through everything, and saw them off. I was next in line and had reserved a 15-passenger van. While she was checking me in, she mentioned that she'd gone across town that morning to pick up the van from another branch office. Her boss came in halfway through all this. Went to his room, closed his door, and got on his computer (visible through the window). I'm guessing he's the one who drove her that morning. I tried giving her a tip but she said they weren't allowed to accept tips.
I actually had some nice experiences with the female staff. On arrival/ drop off ask when they finish work. They did amazing work overnight. @@scottmcshannon6821
At what point does bills like this become fraud if they refuse to fix or adjust it or they make it so hard to contact anyone that can actually help you with such a dispute.
That's a good question: the threshold of how difficult it is and / or how long it takes to get the money back to be classified as fraud i guess would be decided by a judge. But how often it happens might also be a factor.
@@dmdx86 It may be in this specific case, but the point the other guy was making was that there comes a point where it becomes deliberate. And it if happens more than once there is a point where it definitely becomes intentional for them not to fix it. The question is, where is that threshold? It will depend on the specific circumstances.
Something I learned from being a travel technician in which I would get a rented car every week for about a year and a half. Always, always get your receipt from the car company. That was actually my company policy because if there was a dispute after you left, well, it gets difficult. Versus if there's a mistake when you're there, you can dispute it right there and most of the time they're much more reasonable.
I bought a used van which was originally bought by a rental company. It's odometer and speedometer were quite a bit off, racking up miles much faster than reality.
Why am I NOT surprised? Sometimes using cell phones for tracking and trip history can be quite valuable. Normally I hate the idea that my every move is being tracked and recorded so I try not to use it as much as I can. In this case it would be evidence to support your argument.
@@JohnSmith-pl2bkI bought a new Oldsmobile van from the dealer. Later discovered that it was recording more miles than my phone app recorded. So, OEM tires undersized.
Rented a car from Orlando International - family vacation from the U.K. On returning the vehicle the rental agents hip printer wasn’t working - they said if I wanted a receipt to go to the booth. Thankfully I did so, as around a month later I got a phone call back in the U.K. asking when I was going to return the black Jeep I was driving. I sent a scan of the receipt id obtained for the white coloured Jeep I had returned on the agreed date. I ended up sending a photo of the car I had rented parked outside our vacation rental, and only after this did they stop pestering me.
Am I the only one that goes around the entire inside and outside of the car that I rent on pick up and drop off? I felt good about doing it until Steve didn't bring that up as a measure to prevent them from doing this...
you are not the only one. got a jeep from enterprise and a plastic cover on one of the hinges was missing and they didn't write it down until i told them about it.
The past few years I've seen rental cars with 30,000, 40,000 even 50,000 miles now. A few month ago I picked one up from Budget with a Carmax sticker on the back, so they're getting cars from anywhere.
Photograph all damage on and in the car when you pick it up. Photograph the odometer at the start. Photograph the odometer at the end. Look at the receipt the guy/gal hands you at the dropoff location.
I had a similar issue with Budget. I rented a cube van to move some of my father's possessions. 55km round trip. 3 hours. Budget said I did 650 km even with moving the stuff and returning it with a full tank they said I averaged over 200km/hr in rush hour in a cube van. I had to dispute it as they were sticking to their guns.
It’s all done by computer. I read a story of a man who would get a electric bill for $0. He ignored it until they threatened to go to collections. So he sent them a check for $0. Never heard from them again.
"Cutting back everything. Including cars. Why not zero cars?" Reminds of a conversation I had with my doctor regarding my lowered blood pressure. I asked, "Well, if 105/68 is good, what’s the end game? 0/0? That is the best for arteries, right?" She just chuckled.
Love how they “can’t” do anything about it until the media becomes involved! Suddenly a little bad press and then solutions seem to fall from the sky! 😂
Uhaul tried to charge me for driving 1500 miles...in 4 hours....with a 15 foot Uhaul van. They read the odometer wrong. I found it funny that the employee didn't seem to question how the Uhaul van was doing 400 miles per hour even when I pointed out the error. 😅
I’ve always thought it was ridiculous that Enterprise gives you 2 keys but they wire them together which does away with the whole reason of having two keys. I asked one time what would happen if I cut the wire so my wife and I could both have keys on our person while traveling. They told me I would be charged a fee.
What would even the logic be of that, if they give you two keys and tie them together yet expect you not to separate them? Surely just give the single key, then...
When I take my car in for service, the customer service representative takes a video of the entire car...inside AND outside to ensure the car doesn't have 'new damage' when the car is returned to the customer. To protect yourself when renting a car, take a video with the sales rep present, inside (including odometer) AND outside, to protect yourself against unscrupulous charges.
Avis is part of the Budget rental car group. Avis and Hertz (Hertz owns Dollar and Thrifty) are horrible companies. Avis overbooks their cars. You get to the counter and the type of car you reserved is not available, so you are forced to wait for it, or get whatever they have in the lot.
Did you use the actual numbers given at the seven and a half minute mark or the rounded numbers given at the beginning of the video? The former numbers give the 333+ mph.
My guess still unacceptable but a guess. Rental car was an US one where it was in miles all the time. It then got rented out in Canada and used the milage but then the person driving switched it from miles to km so the speed display shows and you don't need to always convert miles to km in your head. After that the car was returned and now instead of miles they have written in the km. No fat fingering needed and the clerk when they look at the number and subsequent rental odometers they see it remains high and sees it was low beforehand. This would trip up some people I know as they can't logically think that it's impossible to travel that distance and they wouldn't figure out that it might just be a conversion error.
And no fuel stops, either? How much would the gas have cost? You'd need 2500 gallons to do a trip like that, at that speed. Edit: The Piper Malibu Meridian flies at about the speed we need here, about 261 kt. Its fuel consumption at that speed is 37 gallons per hour at about 25,000 feet where the atmospheric drag is lower than at sea level. Even so, the Meridian would need 2664 gallons of fuel for a 72 hour continuous trip. At sea level the fuel consumption would double that because of the increased air density, so a Yukon (assuming it has the same aerodynamic drag as a Meridian which I'm sure it doesn't) would be over 5330 gallons, and that's assuming the engine could put out the requisite power (it can't) and the tires would last a full 22,000 miles at that speed (they can't)
"Where we're going we don't need no stinking roads." That's why -Avis- Hertz, sorry Avis justifiably wrote the bill. Back to the future V the rental corporation is always right.
At least it's a private company and not the government. The government would just throw out the evidence as being not substantial enough, even if the worker admitted to fat fingering the odometer on purpose.
I rented a car a couple of years ago for about a week and put around 150 miles on it. When I got home, I received a bill for an $8 toll bridge charge in NJ from a 3rd party company associated with the car rental company. I disputed the charge because I rented the car in Las Vegas, NV. I would have to use a wormhole to get to NJ from NV when I had only driven 150 miles. They agreed and dismissed the charge. I took a video of the rental car before I left the rental car lot and I noticed the front license plate was missing. My guess is someone stole the front plate and it's being used on a ghost car on the East Coast.
This toll error is way more common than you'd think. It is usually caused by the toll reader or license plate reader sending incorrect information back to the rental agency.
@Gold-Standard That reminds me. Have you heard the stories of when some idiot gets a vanity plate of "NOPLATE", "NOTAG", "XXXXXXX", "UNKNOWN", "NONE", "MISSING", "VOID", or "NULL"? Apparently in some jurisdictions, it can cause all the tickets with missing information to go to the person with that plate. Snopes cited a half dozen cases where this problem cropped up. They thought they were being clever, but they weren't laughing when they had to sort out hundreds of tickets for months and change their plate.
They could easily catch errors like this, but they deliberately do not, because they got to charge her $8,000 and keep that money for a more than 10 days and make interest on it. It's nothing more than a way to steal from for a while and not get charged with a crime.
Yeh I doubt Avis cares about the tiny interest this would generate. This just sounds like a mostly automated process combined with disinterested staff who don't care enough to put the effort in to resolve it.
Please, everyone, we carry cameras in our pockets. Whenever you rent a truck or car, take pictures of the outside and inside of the vehicle, including the dash with the key turned on, when you both pick up the vehicle and when you drop it off. Make sure the dealership is visible in at least one of the pictures. That advice saved my former boss' butt once.
I used those disposable cameras (you could get cheap if you didn't prebuy processing) before digitals came along - only had them processed if there was a problem ($12) for things like this. Rented a boat once and they sent me a letter demanding $2k for damages. I sent back the pre-photos and a note that said No.
Many years ago I rented a car for several hours. When I returned it I was handed a receipt that said I had the car for 2 days. I pointed this out at the time and was told that they could not correct it and that I had to call the main office in the morning. My point is getting a receipt and inspecting did no good whatsoever. I took me a couple of weeks to get my money back.
so broke laws there. main offive may be liable to coerce lower employees to do dirty practices. they cant just put false info on reciepts then make it hard to correct it.
Makes you wonder how many people got screwed over with ridiculous bills before social media. Let's see - physically and mathematically impossible? Go ahead with the charge. Maybe they won't notice. SMH
She should submit the receipt to the Guinness Book of Records. If they accept it, the $8000 is worth it. If not, she could use that rejection to her benefit during her dispute.
Cannonball Run is ~2800 miles. That woman did ~10 Cannonball Runs in 3 days. Average, 1 Cannonball Run in 7 hours. The best Cannonball Run record was over 25 hours.
The companies aren't the only ones that can document the condition of the car when it's returned. We all carry phones with cameras in them these days, take time-stamped pics of the car and odometer in case you have to dispute charges like this... esp if you have to leave the keys in a drop box cause no one's there. Also, I can see how a mistake like this could happen, but the moment the company refused to correct such an obvious error it ought to be considered fraud and investigated as such. If it's not, we need some changes to the law to make it so.
It happened to me once last year when I rented a 20 foot box truck from Uhaul just for one day. I drove it a total of 40 miles and returned it same day, I was shocked when they sent me the final bill of $501 when it should have been $139 I desputed it right away and they recognized their error and corrected it.The attendant read the mileage backward, maybe because of dyslexia
I rented a car from Enterprise and drove 2,600 miles. I always get the unlimited mileage. I was not planning to drive more than 100 miles, but kept getting calls from companies when they found out I was in the area. My 2 day business trip turned into 3 weeks.
Yeah. I learned the same lesson with express drop off. The attendant was too busy moving cars. I reluctantly left the car with keys inside as instructed. I got a bill a week later that showed I rented the car for 10 days when my work trip rental was only two days. I will always leave the car with an attendant and verify the paperwork before I leave from now on.
I like this. Just like how they make drunk drivers go to treatment or domestic abusers take anger management, they should make the people who charged this bill take some logic classes at the local university.
Now to mention, showing up other rental companies like that would get them more business than that bit off loss would cost them. At least, if the situation hadn't made it to the news. Now, it'd just be a face-saving measure so that they don't look as bad as Hertz.
My husband has always thought I was a bit overboard by taking pictures and video of the vehicles we rent. I do this at pick up and drop off. This includes the display with mileage and the full interior. I was told once that I dinged the vehicle. Well, I had proof I picked it up in that condition simply due to this routine. I sent a quick email and photo proof with all documentation while on the phone. Not sure how many times they charge customers for little dings, but I wonder if it keeps them afloat at times...? It may seem excessive, but boy has it really helped me a couple of times. I highly recommend over documenting your rental car. 😁💯💯
One thing my friend and I failed to check were the tires. A bald one blew out and left us stranded in the middle of nowhere. A trucker driving by saw our plight, got out, zipped up, and helped change the tire.
