Subject: Car rental scam warning
Author: "Abram, Richard"
Date: Mon, 10 Jun 2002 10:37:58 +0000
Dear friend/colleague
We have just been the victims of a particularly bare-faced scam run by EUROPCAR. It operates as follows (full account
further below; this is the bare plot).
* You book car for agreed price, pick up at airport, use it, and return it on time to unattended desk [this is the
warning sign].
* They bill your credit card with a whopping, unnotified surcharge.
* You complain; they say you returned the car four days late.
* You complain again; they look into it and insist it was late BUT if you can prove you caught your flight they will
credit you.
* You provide the proof; they then go quiet on you and refuse requested confirmation of credit.
* When your card account arrives, there is a credit but it is 74.17 EUR short.
* You complain again; they have gone on to Plan B, which is to pretend you failed to refill the tank (though you have
already thought of this and pointed out you have proof of fuel purchase).
* You demand the amount be credited, they go quiet on you again, you issue an ultimatum, and hey presto the credit is
finally made, unadvised; the whole thing has taken two months, and hours of personal time.
THE ACTUAL STORY
In March we booked on line a car which we duly picked it up at Le Havre airport. Our journeying around Caen was
incident-free, and five days later we returned to Le Havre, refilled the tank, and drove to the airport to return the
vehicle at the time and date appointed. This time the EUROPCAR desk was not manned, though it was during their advertised
opening hours.
(This is the first, and necessary, part of the scam: you get no receipt, but simply post the keys and completed return
form through a slot: your warning, did you but know it, to keep every piece of paper connected with the car and the
flight home.)
Less because of that, however, than because I had read about hidden extras arriving with the credit card bill, I e-mailed
EUROPCAR on our return and asked them to confirm that the final account would be for the contracted inclusive total of
337.83 EUR. They replied that there would be a 63% surcharge as the station at Le Havre said the car had been returned
'later than booked'.
Hoping this was a simple mix-up, I pointed out that we had caught our flight that evening and could prove it. French
customer services (M Hamelin, you know who you are) now stepped in to say that Le Havre insisted the car had been
returned four days late - but that if we could fax him proof of catching the flight he would credit us (just like that!).
I did: air ticket plus taxi receipt London City--home (with request for confirmation the overcharge would be credited).
After that (12 April) EUROPCAR ignored all further communications. We found out why on 29 April, when the card account
revealed the credit had been made, but less 74.17 EUR. A strongly worded note to our M Hamelin - the word 'fraudulent'
now inevitably coming to mind and hand - elicited the incredible explanation that they wanted a second bite at the
cherry: they must have forgotten to mention it earlier, but the latest charge was for 'refuelling service'. Good thing
we paid by credit card to refill the tank. M Hamelin would enquire; if the station did not respond we would be credited
'automatically'. By now it was clear he was going through a familiar and practised routine.
And so it proved, in that as before he now ignored all further communications. Only by phoning the credit company at the
beginning of June did we find that a credit for 74.17 EUR had been made, without advice, on 28 May; over two months after
we hired the car. At no point did we receive an apology, and only once in passing was there even the vaguest pretence
that all that happened was done in error.
The moral of the story: never use EUROPCAR, and when you hire a car, keep all receipts etc, including boarding passes,
especially if you have to return it to an unattended desk.
Richard Abram and Erin Headley
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