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“Unfair billing to credit card, dismissive attitude”

written by ajneale on 23/09/2018

This is a review of car rental experience starting June 8th in Nice with drop-off in Paris on June 23rd or thereabouts. I have pursued Europcar for what I believe is grossly unfair treatment and have exhausted avenues with them since then. My concerns are not just with their service but with their dismissive attitude towards customer complaints. They are very quick to take advantage of their ability to put charges on the customer's credit card account, but unwilling to provide evidence for the charge.
In France, it is very easy to get a traffic ticket without knowing you have been ticketed. So be it. I have received 2 speeding tickets from the French authorities in the mail at home in Canada, weeks after the original offences (which were minor overages, and, as mentioned, with no indication at the time). Before even receiving the official paperwork, Europcar had charged my account adnin fees for 3 infractions at 35 euros each. My contract with Priceline states that the admin fee should be 25 euros, which is very high to start with.
In response to my queries, especially about the mythical 3rd ticket, Europcar has provided my with unintelligible internal documentation, and has refused to provide the notice they must have (or perhaps didn't) receive from the authorities. Now they are saying I have to wait a year to not receive anything through the mail from France before they will consider a refund. Have you ever heard of anything quite so ridiculous?
I am out of pocket by 55 euros, which isn't the end of the world to me, but this practice is infuriating and fraudulent. I have no doubt if they are treating me this way, then I am not alone.

On another subject, I am also concerned about sneaky up-selling at the point of rental where I wound up buying an add-on that I didn't want or need. I blame myself (a very tired traveler at the time) for not carefully checking the contract against my reservation. Nevertheless, this is a note of warning to others to check carefully.