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Car Rental Gotcha
While clearing my desk I ran across the receipt for the car I rented during my recent travels West. The total bill was $423.16 to rent for one week a recent model Chevy Cavalier, 4-dr., automatic, w/air conditioning and cd-player, and unlimited miles. It was a good car, it did the job nicely, and the rental company was fine. The problem is that I reserved the car and made all my travel plans based on the fact that it was supposed to cost $127 for the week. That's right: I was quoted a price of $127, but I ended up paying $423.
SO, this receipt reminds me that I wanted to rant about what a rip-off car rentals are and how there appears to be no such thing as "truth in advertising" when it comes to this crap and why aren't innocent and naive consumers (like myself) protected from this kind of scam!?
But why bother? In a few years I'll be a lawyer, and then, well, let's just say the car rental business better watch out. Paybacks are a bitch.*
*Yeah, I know having a J.D. won't probably enable me to sue the pants off of car rental companies for lying to their customers, but I'm told an active fantasy life is healthy, ok?
Posted July 16, 2003 11:57 AM | life generally
What was the reason for the big rip-off? Under 25? Or something else?
Posted by: falconred at July 16, 2003 02:29 PM
No, no under-age driver or bad driving record problems, just taxes and fees. I don't even know what they charged me for because I was kind of in a hurry and not paying attention, but the reciept says they charge $16/day for insurance, $9/day for something called SLI?? and $2.20/day for the facility usage fee 'cause I rented the car at the airport (Denver International). Then there's an 11.11% "A/P Fee" and 13% taxes and bam bam bam it all adds up. Of course, they knew about all these fees when I first checked on their rates, but did they tell me about them? No. They have a disclaimer that says the quoted price may not reflect various taxes and optional fees, but I think that's a bit disingenous when those "taxes and fees" end up tripling the cost of the rental. Of course I'm sure if I complained I'd get the good old "buyer beware" bs, so...
Posted by: ambimb at July 16, 2003 02:42 PM
