As stated in Epilogue I, we are going to give an update on our car rental situation with Avis.
To put it mildly, it has been one of the most frustrating experiences we have ever had from our travels. We had used our CapitalOne credit card for the rental and so we tried to dispute the additional charges with them once we got home. We were finally able to download a copy of the return receipt, and it verified that the car was not turned in on the date we dropped it off in Rome. It was turned in late two days later, the expiration date of the rental term. We had nor rented a car in Europe for several days in a long time, and not in Italy since I was there on my first trip in 2001. The final return receipt showed we had driven many more miles than we had, it showed we did not fill up the gas tank, which we had, and even that the car had been turned in late, all of which added fees and penalties.
In three attempts with CapitalOne, I submitted very detailed information and copies of the agreements and the handwritten “manual receipt” we received when we turned in the car. Unfortunately, none of that was good enough proof for them to dispute the charges. One key item that we lamented not getting a receipt for the gas when we filled up the car in Rome. That would have at least supported our claim that we had turned the car in full of fuel, although I am not sure how they would have reconciled the difference in dates from when we said we filled it up and when the rental receipt showed we turned in the car, two days later. However, without the receipt, CapitalOne would not dispute the pre-paid gas fill charge that was already included on the rental, which was not by our choice, but we had been told it would be credited if the car was full at the return.
I now know that we should have immediately called our rental broker, Auto-Europe. I had not realized the agreement stated that that they would represent us in a dispute when I used them for the rental. After I had so much trouble with CapitalOne, I finally read the Auto-Europe FAQ and discovered that they would provide that service. Had we called them on the day after the return, we may have avoided all of this. In the end, Auto-Europe was able to get one day of rental credited back to us, but that was only about 30% of the total additional charges. Without the gas receipt, they could not dispute the gas fill charge either.
To make matters worse, about four weeks after we returned home, we received a notification from the rental car agency that they had forwarded our address to authorities in Italy so that they could send us some type of bill for an automated traffic violation. We received that notification from the Italian authorities a few days later, but there was no information on it that we could use to look up the violation, via the internet, to see what exactly it was for, the amount of the fine, or any other details. It just gave us the ticket number and case number, and indicated it could be up to one year before we see the actual charges and fine. The violation could have happened when the car was being used after we turned it in, adding salt to our already festering rental car wound.
From doing research on the internet, most people just say to ignore the fine, unless you plan to drive in Italy again. I am not sure we will ever rent a car there again after what we went through this time, and I doubt we will take another long trip to Italy any time soon, having just spent this much time there. At least nowhere where we need to rent a car. We have been to Italy several times now, and Tuscany is the only area where a car rental is warranted. We will see what happens with the traffic violation and if we actually get a fine notification in the mail.
It was interesting that the rental agency, Avis, declined to charge us an administrative fee for the traffic violation, their initial notification indicated they were not charging us a fee even though it is included in the rental language. Since we had a dispute going on at the time we received the letter, maybe that had something to do with them waiving their administrative processing fee. We will be monitoring our credit card for the next several months just to make sure we don’t see a fee automatically charged.
Otherwise, the blog posts have been edited for typos, but as always, we are never sure we find everything. We are now planning our next trip, a Transatlantic Cruise from Ft. Lauderdale to Warnemunde, Germany, with four nights post cruise in Berlin. This trip will be in April. 2020.
FOOTNOTE: We never did receive any additional correspondence about the alleged traffic violation. It has been over a year, and nothing has become of it. It is possible we are the benefactor of Covid related disorganization in Italy, who knows. At this point, we would not respond to it anyway.