Dealing with toll payments for roads and bridges/tunnels has become more complex. Many places now use toll-by-plate systems to bill drivers, or they require a transponder in the car to track toll fees. If you drive through a toll in a rental car, the toll bill goes to the rental car company and is later charged to your credit card. Rental car companies often impose additional fees for every day that you go through a toll during your rental, turning it into another source of revenue. We’ve discussed ways to avoid these charges by renting from a company with fair toll payment services. But what if the rental car company sends you a bill for tolls that you are certain you didn’t incur during your rental?
By Beyond My Ken (Own work) [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC BY-SA 4.0-3.0-2.5-2.0-1.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0-3.0-2.5-2.0-1.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
Here’s where things become complicated. How can you prove to a bank that the company that charged you is wrong? I had a similar instance with a rental car company when they insisted that I was responsible for returning a car with a full tank of gas when I only rented it with half of a tank. Steve did a smart thing and requested a copy of the itemized bill from Plate Pass, the company Hertz uses to process toll payments. He also kept a copy of his rental statement from Hertz.
Quite clearly on the rental car bill, his rental in Philadelphia started at 1:24 PM, and the first toll on the Plate Pass statement was for the George Washington Bridge at 2:03 PM. That’s a 112-mile trip in 40 minutes without going through any tolls before hitting the GWB. Anyone who’s ever driven through New Jersey in the middle of the afternoon knows it is pretty much impossible.
Steve also supposedly managed to rack up this toll bill over 4 days and still returned the car to Philadelphia with only 178 miles on the odometer.
Even with this mounting evidence in his favor, the companies could not quickly solve the problem. At first, he called Citi and they told him he’d have to resolve it with Hertz. When calling Hertz, they told him he’d have to resolve this issue with Plate Pass. Eventually, Plate Pass agreed that the toll charges on his rental didn’t add up and that they would issue him a credit. This was in November. He still didn’t receive a credit on his charge card, so he called Citi to dispute the charge again, claiming that Plate Pass agreed the charge was incorrect. It remained that way until the beginning of January when Steve finally received a check in the mail with a refund of the total charges of the tolls from the rental. No explanation was given; it was just a check in an envelope.
While this story was resolved in Steve’s favor, you can see how difficult it was to prove he was in the right. What if he had driven the car for more miles or, even worse, driven it to New York? How could he prove those weren’t the tolls he had gone through?
I shared this story to show that it’s possible to win when arguing with banks and travel companies, even if they make things difficult. It may take more time and effort than necessary to prove you’re right, but persistence pays off in the end.
A hat tip and a huge thank-you to Steve C. for sharing his story.
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7 comments
I had a similar situation with hertz in cabo. I was told that the estimate of charges would be around $306 USD but when I finally saw the bill it was around $470. I was very surprised and disputed it with bank of America. However they got back to me in a month’s time that the charges were right and I was liable to make that payment. I at once wrote an email to hertz corporate complaint email and about three weeks later i got a refund from hertz Mexico apologizing for their mistake and a refund of $179 USD back to my credit card!
Rental car companies are slime 90% of the time.
This has me worried. I’m renting from Hertz in a couple of weeks in Europe and don’t want to hit any similar circumstances. Any specific advice for Europe?
I wouldn’t worry too much. I’m sure the systems are different in Europe and while this experience was with Hertz, I could happen with any rental company.
Don’t mix diesel fuel with gas!!! And watch out for cities that have tolls in the historic parts.
It takes about a year for the tolls to reach your rental company and then find you. By the time you decide what to do your tickets will have been referred to the EU to limit your ability to re-enter the EU. Might be taken to jail or might get option to pay off the airport magistrate – really depends on the port of entry.
I had Alamo try to charge me over $100 for a photo ticket violation. Checking with the fining agency, though, showed that the ticket was for the same day but 6 hours before I picked up the car. When I sent this to Alamo, all I got was a curt “our records show the violation was yours”. I disputed with the credit card, and Alamo never replied to them, so 60 or 90 days later, it was resolved in my favor. So no loss except my time, but it really bothered me that Alamo never apologized for their mistake.