7 steps to take if Avis Car Rental overcharges you

Editor’s note: “On Your Side” is a new Consumer Reports feature that coaches real consumers on how to solve their real problems. Our first case involves Colette, who was improperly charged hundreds of dollars more than she had expected on her two-week car rental from Avis in Paris. Here's her story:

In July 2013, I rented a car at Avis’ Charles de Gaulle airport location in France. I made the reservation from my home in Oregon and paid for it with my credit card, for a total cost of $1,232, which included a booster seat.

When my husband and I arrived in Paris, we added additional drivers at a cost of €93  ($120), making the final total $1,353. I specifically declined the Avis collision damage waiver (CDW), since contracting the rental through my credit card made that unnecessary.

But when I ultimately received my credit card statement, the charge was $1,763, or $410 more than the contracted $1,353. I disputed the billing error, my credit card issuer deducted that amount, and I presumed the matter was settled.

However, since January of 2014, I have been deluged with dunning letters from Avis, mailed from Hungary (!) and France demanding the $410. There has been no human contact at all from Avis, only form letters, disconnected telephone numbers, and one working number that automatically hung up each time I dialed it.

I did everything requested of me, whether justified or not, but I kept receiving letters from Avis threatening legal proceedings or worse. I made about seven calls to resolve this. I called Avis in the U.S., which referred me back to the number in France which was not in service. I called Avis Customer Service, which suggested I send an e-mail and telephone again. I have also sent letters to the CEO and President of Avis.

In May, 2014, because this so disturbed me, I finally sent Avis the $410. I have in hand the return receipt requested with signature as proof that this check was received, and I’ve spent close to $150 to prove that I do not owe this money.

But in August, 2014 I received another collection letter threatening to sue me and demanding another €302.

I sent letters and documentation to the Avis US headquarters in Parsippany, N.J. and the French headquarters in Paris as well as the collection agency in Marseille, which has cost me for international delivery and tracking. I have kept a strict account (and copies) of everything I’ve done and sent.

I have a pristine record of paying all that I owe with a credit score well above 800 and have never been remiss in fulfilling all my financial obligations and dealings. I am at my wit's end and ready to engage my lawyer, who is one of the best in financial matters in the country.

Colette G., Bend, Ore.

Got a travel, money, or other consumer problem that you've tried to solve but just can't get fixed? Give the details to On your side, and our consumer coach and advocate may take on your case for publication on ConsumerReports.org. 

Colette sent a copy of her letter to Consumer Reports. We worked with her and ultimately, she was reimbursed for the $410 overcharge. We also negotiated another $435 payment from Avis to cover the expenses of proving she didn’t owe the money and the time and trouble she spent on this ordeal. The process took her seven and a half months plus another month after we got involved.

A spokesperson for Avis, Amy Ackerson wrote to Consumer Reports about this issue: "Avis strives to provide its customers with the best service possible. Unfortunately, we failed to meet her [Colette's] expectations in this case. We hope we will be able to keep [her] as a customer."

If you find yourself in a similar situation, here’s what you should do:

1. Keep your rental agreement. Colette laid down a strong foundation for success by hanging onto the paperwork and keeping close track of the terms she had agreed to. The error, not revealed by Avis until the end, was the rental agency’s insistence that Colette had accepted the collision damage waiver (CDW, the European equivalent of the loss damage waiver or LDW in the U.S.).

But Colette had declined the CDW and had a copy of the signed rental agreement to prove it. She sent a copy of that to her credit card issuer, which resulted in removal of the bogus charge.

2. Decline the CDW/LDW carefully. Consumers shouldn’t reflexively decline these waivers, which release you from liability for damage to the rental car—for a very high price. As we advise, Colette checked with her personal auto insurer and learned her policy’s collision and comprehensive coverage would not extend to Europe. Then, she checked the terms of her credit card, which did provide coverage. That armed her to correctly decline the waiver when she picked up the car, a black four-door Opel sedan.

3. Hunt down the top executives. Colette didn’t pussyfoot around. She found the names and went right to the top to dispute the improper charge with the Avis CEO in the U.S. and the European division’s President in France. She did the same with Avis customer care and the Marseille collection agency that was sending her threatening letters. The quarter-pound packages of documents she mailed cost her about $25 to $57 in postage with package tracking.

4. Slam ‘em on their web-site and Facebook. Following advice she had read in Consumer Reports, Colette posted her dispute letter above on the Avis web-site and on her own Facebook page. Her FB friends in France, Los Angeles, and Oregon piled on with stories about their own difficulties.

5. Call in reinforcements. In August, Colette also sent a copy of her dispute to Consumer Reports, at which point we contacted Avis’ media relations department. Coincidentally, about the same time, she received her first contact from an Avis executive, who apologized and promised to investigate—but offered no solution. The dunning letters, meanwhile, wouldn’t stop.

“Without Consumer Reports, I would have had to use my lawyer,” says Colette, who detected a suddenly more solution-oriented attitude from Avis. Now, Avis executives were telephoning and writing Colette, but still trying to solve the problem on the cheap.

Amy, an Avis spokeswoman who never gave us her last name or phone number, said the matter had been turned over to an “executive escalation” team. Escalation teams come into play when consumers finally make it to the executive suite, after surviving the get-lost obstacle course of customer service, disconnected phone numbers, auto-reply form letters, and collection agencies. At this point, the consumer’s problem becomes the executive’s problem, and thus a headache for some subordinate executive.

6. Demand a complete remedy. At one point, Amy told us that the matter had been resolved: The collection agency dogs would be called off and Colette “should receive a letter that the matter is closed,” said Amy.

But Colette told us otherwise. “I’m sorry they told you that, because it is not true,” she said in her polite manner. So we wrote Avis a list of demands that would settle the matter, including a written release from liability for the unwarranted charge; written confirmation that the collection action would stop and a guarantee that derogatory information would not appear on Colette’s credit report; and reimbursement for $240 in expenses, including $35 for a stop-payment fee on the $410 check she had sent, which Avis had somehow lost and hadn’t cashed.

7. Get cash, not vouchers. We told Avis Colette should also receive some sort of compensation for the 40 to 50 hours of trouble she had to endure trying to resolve this over many months. Colette picked up the ball here. The executive had “offered a €50 voucher toward our next rental of an Avis car. I was appalled and told him that it was unlikely I would ever rent another Avis car,” says Colette. The offer was upped to €100 in Avis vouchers, but Colette pushed for $150 deposited into her credit card account—which she got.

With the problem now finally resolved, Colette can focus on the fond memories of her vacation, the purpose of which was to re-acquaint Colette’s granddaughter and great-grandson with France and their relatives. “Half our family is French, and it was important to us that they should know their lovely French cousins,” says Colette. “We went to restaurants, to open marchés, cooked French food, had breakfast by the river in the garden, washed our laundry the old fashion way, in the river, hanging it on the line at the bottom of the garden where an old mill wheel was still dipping itself into the flow of water from the fast running river.”

–Jeff Blyskal (@JeffBlyskal on Twitter)

Copyright © 2005-2014 Consumers Union of U.S., Inc. No reproduction, in whole or in part, without written permission. Consumer Reports has no relationship with any advertisers on this site.