Does every car rental agency charge this fee?
 

I thought an admin fee would be charged if I did NOT pay a ticket, but I was surprised to find out that Hertz charges you $50 whether you pay the parking ticket or not. I also find it extremely dubious that tiny Cisternino, Italy notified Hertz in the one day it took me to pay the fine. Of course renters are going to make errors when driving in a foreign country, and to have diligently paid the fine and then be charged in addition is annoying. Do all rental agencies use these fines? I was so disgusted with the way Hertz handled the situation (aside from the fee itself, the customer service was horrid), I am thinking of using a different company next time--but if it makes no difference, then I guess I am under their thumb.

Yes, all rental companies do charge that fee. It's an administrative fee for looking up and reporting the renter on that date and time. Handily they have your credit card number to charge.

Read the T&C. You signed them.
Yes about everybody does that. You must understand that the authorities notify the owner of the car that there is an infraction. Then the rental has to check who was driving and notify both the authorities and you.
They charge you for that.
Standard practice.

We got a ticket in Spain, but the rental agency did not charge a fee. Think it was Europcar, but not sure. The ticket came directly from the traffic people.

I completely understand if they actually have to hand over your info to the authorities, but if they can get that far I don't see why they cannot verify it was paid and leave it at that.

It's totally standard. I find it almost impossible to believe that Bedar got a ticket directly from the "traffic people." The "traffic people" report infractions to the rental outfits, which have to report infractions to the local police, which have to fine you and collect the revenues. Hertz has to pay for your infraction, and you have to pay Hertz. It's not rocket science, and you signed the contract - didn't you read it?

yeah it is tough.

The charge is usually around 30 euro per incident.

Sorry, but we got the ticket and paid the fine directly to the traffic people. Now, traffic must have got our info from the rental agency, but the rental agency did not charge us a fee for having given them the info. We paid the fine via credit card and got a 50% reduction for paying quickly.

But how did the "traffic people" get your home address, Bedar, if they did not contact the rental folks? My assumption was you got one of those tickets from an automatic speed camera that takes a photo of your license plate.

Perhaps, though, you got stopped by a real police man who took your contact information from you directly, and so did not need to query the rental agency.

I paid the ticket in person the day after I received it--that is my point. Hertz did not have to do anything at all!

I got a ticket from 'authorities' in Kraków 2 weeks ago. Paid direct. Will wait to serif charged by ? Can't remember which rental it was.
Anyway I didn't lose sleep over it and am not inundating internet about it.

If you can't stand being fined because you can't park and can't read the T&C just ask hertz.

Time for me to take a break from these travel sites. I am becoming disagreeable. Lol.

Nukesafe - As I said above, the traffic people must have got our info, address, etc., from the rental agency after getting our photo from the camera. Point being, the rental agency did not charge us a fee.

Yes, they all charge a fee since they have to fill out the paperwork for the police to identify you as the renter of the car that broke the law. Presumably that process had been started before you paid the ticket so you were charged by the company you rented through. (Or, there may be another fine still coming that you don't know about.)

If you actually read the T&C, it says something like this. The actual amount differs depending on the marketing channel you used.

<i>... provide customer data to relevant local authorities ... a administration fee of €xxxx per traffic fine.</i>

To argue about the reasonableness would be a losing proposition. These are for profit companies. Your choice is take it or leave it. Their equity holders expect the companies to maximize the profit within the legal framework. If you agreed to the terms, they can enforce it. Many people are under impression that these for profit companies collect various fees because they actually incur expenses. What they have is the right to collect fees from you, but they don't necessarily have to incur expenses to do this. You notice all those pesky "regulatory" and other fess added to all sort of bills you see. Companies collect fees ostensibly as if they incur expense. Even if they do, they usually put in administrative margins to make sure they profit from so called "regulatory requirements." Often times, they have strategies not have to incur expenses but still continue to collect fees from you. The difference is additional profit, and it is legal in many jurisdictions.

I do not defend their practices, but that is the market practice I need to accept if I want to rent a car.