Toronto, Ontario — Reports suggest that Avis has accidentally overcharged one of its customers for the second time in the past month.
Domenic Maggi, from Bolton, Ontario, claims he was overcharged more than $7,000 by Avis rental after a family trip to Italy.
This comes after a Vancouver woman was overcharged nearly $8,000 by the company after a trip to Toronto.
Maggi had arranged a car rental for his multi-week trip throughout Italy, having rented through Avis’ European subsidiary, Maggiore. He rented a Fiat Tipo through a four-week company promotion .
Having planned to return the car early, Maggi was shocked to see that not only was he charged the full rate for the rental, but a rate over $7,000 more than the promotion promised.
“Early returns are permitted and the rental counter was aware when we picked it up, and they confirmed that the extra insurance we were buying would be prorated upon return,” says Maggi.
“Upon return, the car jockey processed the return, printed the receipt, and the system closed the order. At that point, I noticed that the amount was wrong. Apparently, the system couldn’t handle the early return and defaulted to the book rate instead of the contracted rate.”
This systematic error resulted in Maggi’s bill being over 8x more than the promotional rate.
Upon pointing out the issue in person, Maggi was informed that he would have to contact customer service through email.
More than 10 days later, Maggi still had not heard back from the company, and the charges remained on his credit card.
Having read coverage of the previous error by Avis, Maggi decided to reach out to the media to tell his story. It was only after contacting the media that Maggi was provided answers and a refund was promised.
“I’m massively frustrated, and certainly my wife is not happy about this either,” says Maggi. “It’s a lot of money. With no response from them, it’s a little bit unnerving.”
Maggi has not yet received a refund and is still waiting for the error to be fixed.
This is the second significant customer service mix-up for the company in the past week.
Does this say something about the rental car industry itself? Or is this simply another one-off error unfortunately made in quick succession after last week’s article on a similar issue?
