French Consumer Protection?
 

I received a car rental charge on my credit card after my return to the States, half of which is unexplainable. Part of the charge is for RR station pick-up and the road tax, but I never received an explanation for the other half. AutoEurope tried to get an answer, and finally is offering me $30 (much less than what is unexplainable) as a good will gesture because it received no explanation. Which is the Consumer Protection agency that might be able to prod Autoeurop in Périgueux to provide at a minimum the documentation for the charges? Kerouac?

There are a host of additional fees/taxes levied upon those who rent cars. Are you under 25 years old, did you rent a car with automatic transmission, was there more than one driver, did you receive a ticket of any kind (you may not even know if you did), did you return the car with a full tank of gas? Any of these items can incur additional fees.

The simplest course of action would be to contest the fees with your credit card company and let rental company make the explanations.

Note: Autoeurope is a US based broker and has no office in Périgueux.

Sarastro,

Sorry, I meant Europcar. None of the extra conditions mentioned apply, or if they did, I should receive a justification. It's too late to contest via the credit card, I relied on Autoeurope because when asking about contesting it via credit card, I was told that the signed contract is what rules, and that includes something about other charges. I felt that Autoeurope would have more experience in getting some explanation from the rental agency.

Relying upon Autoeurope is fine as long as the charges are from Autoeurope. None of the Autoeurope quotes given to those of us in North America include fees/taxes. (This is not the case with quotes from autoeurope.fr).

The Autoeurope vouchers state that fees/taxes are collected and billed by the return rental car office. The two more nebulous charges are tickets or fuel charges.

Unless the customer or rental agent speak a common language (English or French) complaints can result about mis-understood gas charges. Europcar has been pushing a pay up front for gas, return the car empty plan which has confused a number of renters. A misunderstanding here could cause a bigger final bill from the rental company than might otherwise be anticipated.

If you were ticketed by the French police for speeding (there are unmanned radar cameras all over France now) the rental company pays the fine and adds 25€ service fee. Many, if not most, of these cameras are hidden and it is very easy to be ticketed without your knowledge. This would commonly result in a charge around the area of 100€ and it too can cause a great deal of confusion.

While the contract with Europcar clearly outlines these charges (clearly in French that is) mistakes can happen. There are two ways to really rectify a mistaken charge from Europcar: either call them directly for an explanation or contest the charge through your credit card. Autoeurope may offer to assist you, but they will have little power of resolution.

Have you received the "final papers" from Europcar yet??? It takes abour 3-4 weeks after you returned the car to get them mailed to you.

I recently received my final invoice from Europcar in France for a 4 rental this past June/July, and it included these extras:

Ecologic (whatever that is)................................25.20E
Licences & fees ...............................................20. 44E
Prem/Railway charge (picked car up at the RR station) 31.50
Additional Drivers........................................... ......29.26

VAT on above............................................. ........20.85

Total............................................. 127.25E

What did your Europcar invoice say??

Stu Dudley

<i>Ecologic (whatever that is)................................25.20E</i>

This is most likely for a car with an automatic transmission but it sometimes applies to certain luxury models. Typically the charge is 5€ per day for each of the first 6 days.

If you speak French, I would call the Europcar office in Perigueux. I have rented dozens and dozens of cars from that office, and have always found the staff to be very accommodating and willing to explain things when I'm confused about charges.

"Taxe écologique" is based on the amount of CO2 emissions. It applies to all cars whether they are automatic or not.

I receive all of my Europcar bills by email. If you email them with your contract number (or at least the date, place, name, etc., of rental), they will send you a pdf file of it. Just go to the www.europcar.fr site.

I am sure all cars have differing C02 footprints but I have never paid a ¨Taxe écologique¨

However, the Autoeurope vouchers issued in the USA clearly state that renters driving automobiles with automatic transmissions will pay an ¨environmental tax¨ of 5€ per day with a maximum charge of 30€.

I just rented a car from Europcar through Kemwell in Provence and had no mysterious unusual charges that were not explained. The bill has always explained any charge on it (like the example above. Any invoice has itemization of the charges, I don't know how Europcar could give you an invoice and have it be blank next to a charge.

OK - now I understand what an "Ecologic" is - that must be something new, I don't remember it being on the final invoice last year. We rented an automatic this year because my wife has a hand that isn't working real well - and I agreed to do some of the driving (I am a 1 hand & 1 foot driver).

So - all of the 127E extras are legit - which I figured they were.

Some "incorrect" charges we've received from Europcar in the last 5 years have been:

1. We returned our car on July 15 in Avignon. The final invoice said that we returned it on July 1 in Tours, and that we accepted CDW - which we did not. Obviously, Europcar processed someone else's return against our contract. AutoEurope could not get the actual 1st copy of the contract we signed from Europcar, so AutoEurope refunded the CDW cost to us out of their pocket.

2. We were charged for gas, even though we returned the car with a full tank. Again, AutoEurope could not get the actual return papers from Europcar, so AutoEurope again refunded the gas cost out of their pocket.

3. The final Europcar invoice charged us for a second driver - which we did not sign up for. The cost was refunded to us (don't remember who actually did the refund)

4. We reserved a class C car (or something like that). There must have been an error between what Europcar called a class C and what AutoEurope called a class C, because when the Europcar person showed us the car in Nice, it was a huge bus. There are only 2 of us. The Europcar person said "oops", and went back to the office, voided the class C contract, and did a new contract for a smaller car. When the final invoice arrive at our house, there was a charge for a 1 day rental of a class C car, which was returned with an empty tank of gas. The Europecar agent obviously screwed up the "void" of the class C car.

Just a few things that can go wrong !!!

Stu Dudley

I do not have a fee schedule from Périgueux because they just gave me back the one I received from CDG since it was the same car. There it lists the following potential fees:

Licence and Fees: 29 Day 0.70 EUR/day
Special Equi Rent 1 rental
Special Equi Repl 1 20.00 EUR (not applicable)
Fuel Charge 1 rental
Refuelling Servic 1 11.29 EUR (not applicable)
Pr Station charge 1 Rental 31.50 EUR
Fuel Charge Litres 1.86 EUR (not applicable)

This was on the printout that I originally received as I first picked up the car in CDG. Should I have questioned some of them? Perhaps. But the end of my Sicily trip report explains why I was not paying too much attention at those charges. Moreover, I have never had this problem with rentals before. At any rate, none of the listed non-applicable charges were levied against my credit card. So the difference between the legitimate 61.95€ charge and the 130€ I was charged is still not explained.

Apparently you don't have the final accounting -- just the form you got when you collected the car, right?

Then do what kerouac and/or stCirq recommend -- an e-mail or phone call should get you the info. You have no idea what the charge was so a bit early to be calling for "consumer protection help".

Once Europcar processes your final invoice, you AND AutoEurope will receive a copy (electronic copy for AE). I would think the final invoice should occur at the same time the charge hits your credit card. Call AutoEurope Customer Service to find out if they have received their electronic copy yet, and what the 130E detail says. It takes about 1 week or a little less for the mail to go from France to San Francisco.

Your 130E is almost identical to my 127E charge. The only discretionary charge on my invoice was for the second driver. If you also had a second driver - I think your 130E is legit. CDG pickup might be 3E more than a RR pickup. My rental was for 28 days - 1 day less than yours.

Stu Dudley

"now I understand what an "Ecologic" is - that must be something new"

It appplies to new vehicules bought after January 1, 2008.
The car you rented was probably bought before that date or the level of CO2 emissions was acceptable in which case the tax does not apply. The more CO2, the higher the tax.

<i>You have no idea what the charge was so a bit early to be calling for "consumer protection help".</i>

Except that Autoeurope can't get an answer from them while they did within the week from CDG Europcar (the Périgueux agency is an independent contractor).

I did <b>not</b> have a second driver. The conditions for the Périgueux rental were absolutely identical to the CDG rental down to the number of days.

Although we have never had a problem that would warrant making a complaint, I wonder if anyone can comment on whether there is any "consumer protection agency" in France that is at all similar to what we expect in the USA. We have always assumed that "the customer is always wrong" was the dominant theme.

" I wonder if anyone can comment on whether there is any "consumer protection agency" "

There are several :
INC (Institut National de la Consommation)
DRCCRF (Direction Régionale de la Consommation, de la Concurrence et de la Répression des Fraudes)
Both are government agencies.

"UFC Que Choisir" - private organization, 124 regional associations, 124.000 members.

The DGCCRF (Direction générale de la consommation, de la concurrence et de la répression des fraudes) handles complaints:

http://www.minefi.gouv.fr/DGCCRF/contacts.htm

http://www.dgccrf.bercy.gouv.fr/anglais.htm (English)

So I called the Périgueux office. At first the person claimed that the agency did not deal with the rental. Then she said that I paid an ecological tax and a one-way tax. I pointed out that I paid neither for the first month of rental of the same car. She will ask her colleague what is happening. (to be continued ...)

Michael - if Perigueux is indeed a franchise, the one-way rental may be a valid charge if you did not return the car to Perigueux. This happended to us about 6 years ago when we picked up a car in Biarritz which was also a franchise. The car MUST somehow be returned to Perigueux - since they own the car & not Europcar. That is pay for the driver to go to where you returned the car & drive it back to Perigueux.

StCirq - have you picked up a car in Perigueux & returned it elsewhere?

The ecological tax is probably also valid. Maybe your CDG rental made a mistake and didn't charge you when they should have. Like I stated earlier - we had an ecological tax on our car.

Stu Dudley

I always get my car from a major company-operated Europcar agency, such as the airports or major train stations, so they let me leave the car anywhere else in France with no additional charge. However, the franchise agencies have their own fleet of cars and they like to keep them close to home, so they probably operate with different rules.

In olden times when I worked at Avis, we had one week to get a franchise car back to its proper location or a driver had to be paid to take it there.

Hi, Stu.

Yes, I have picked up cars in Périgueux and dropped them off in: La Rochelle, Bayonne, Avignon, Limoges, Bayeux, and probably other places. Never an additional charge.

I've also requested a vehicle that doesn't normally reside at the Périgueux EuropCar franchise, like a 9-passenger van (which barely fits in the tiny parking lot the company has across the street), and they've brought it in especially for me from some other location at no extra charge, and presumably had to move it again once I was done with it.

Stu,

If you read my comments, you would know that in any case it was not a car from the franchise. They looked at the car I was returning and 5 minutes later I was driving the same car out of the parking lot. If the charge is legitimate, and Kemwel agrees with my questioning the charge, in this instance it is a bureaucratic leger-de-main just to stick the customer with another cost.

<i>They looked at the car I was returning and 5 minutes later I was driving the same car out of the parking lot.</i>

<b>Michael</b>, I have carefully re-read each of your posts and am now more confused than ever.

Do I understand correctly that you rented the same car twice? That you have a CDG rental that is the same as the Périgueux rental and for the same car? Are there clarifying details perhaps in the <i>Sicily trip report</i>? Where did you finally leave this car you drove out of the parking lot after only 5 minutes?

I agree with StCirq that I have never seen Europcar charge a one-way fee for a pickup and drop-off within France. This is something Hertz does.

This thread needs referencing footnotes and perhaps a complete bibliography.

Sarastro,

The Périgueux office assumed that it was a continuation of my first contract. I told them that it was not, that it had to be a new contract because VISA will not carry the CDW more than 31 days on any given contract. I had two contracts from
Kemwel, with the second one starting on the day and time when I returned the car from the first contract in Périgueux (CDG thought that the car was to be returned at CDG because of a mix-up, but my finalized Kemwel vouchers stated otherwise). The Périgueux office accepted the return of the car and gave it right back to me, with a warning that I could be charged for cleaning the interior (it had mud and gravel on the floor, which I cleaned out before returning the car at CDG). As I said, except for the month differential (one rental in May and the other in June), the rentals were rigorously the same, down to the same car as it turned out.

Ok, all is clear.

You wanted to rent a car for 62 days, avoid the lease yet carry the CDW on Visa (which I have not seen offered in excess of 28 days but no matter).

However, you should have been able to avoid the location surcharge by simply ¨picking up¨ the car the second time anywhere other than at a train station or airport. Thus, the final Europcar charges (from CDG at final drop off) should have actually been less than the first which was in Périgueux because this is where you are charged for the CDG pickup.

(Logically I assume that you selected the Périgueux office because it is neither at a train station nor at an airport. If it is at one of these locations, you known you will incur a completely avoidable second location surcharge.)

You should have paid at Périgueux:

1. Road tax 2.90€ (now 3.10€) for 8 days at 23.20€

2. CDG pickup fee - 35.80€

3. Total of 59€ which is 71€ less than what you were charged - 130€

The 71€ could be a speeding ticket but the Périgueux office should be able to clarify this for you.

You should have paid at CDG - 23.20€ for the road tax only.

_____

Overall, the strategy of returning the car and signing a second rental agreement enabling you to continue with the Visa coverage is a good one. It should have only cost you the 23.20€ charged at CDG when finally returning the rental. For those driving automobiles with automatic transmissions, this second pickup will incur an additional 30€ environmental fee making a total theoretical cost of 53.20€.

Still, these costs are lower than what one pays for a lease or for accepting the insurance coverage offered by the rental company.

>>I do not have a fee schedule from Périgueux because they just gave me back the one I received from CDG since it was the same car. <<<

Michael

I interpreted this the same way Sarastro did - thinking you had two different cars, but in the same classification. I now see that you had the same physical car for the entire trip. We've done the same thing 5-6 times, and about 1/3 of the time we just kept the same car & 2/3 of the time we were forced to take another car in the same classification. Once they could not give us the same car because the mileage was too high and they "retire" the car after a certain mileage is reached. Maximum Visa/MC CDW coverage is 31 days - and we often need a car for longer than that.

My guess is that the Perigueux office computer system (may not even be a Europcar wide system) just "assumed" that any car rented from the Perigueux "franchise" & returned to another locatioin (CDG in this case) incurred a one-way charge. Either their system could not handle your situation where you just kept the CDG car, or someone failed to "override/delete" the one-way charge since it was not really a Perigueux car that they had to return from CDG to Perigueux.

Sarastro - I think Michael's problem is with the second rental that he started in Perigueux - not with the contract he initiated at CDG. Therefore he has no CDG pickup fee but obviously a Perigueux RR pickup fee. Therefore, he should have incurred "add-ons" similar to mine:

Ecologic.......................................... 25.20E
Licences & fees ...............................................20. 44E
Prem/Railway charge (picked car up at the RR station) 31.50


VAT on above............................................. ........15.70

Total............................................. about 93E

Since AE refunded Michael $30, it seems to me that he is close to the 130E he was actually charged.

I agree that the one-way fee is bogus if it was a CDG car.

Like I stated earlier, a car I rented in Biarritz & returned in Toulouse incurred a one-way fee because Biarritz is a franchise. That was printed on the AE voucher.

Stu Dudley

Stu,

Nope. I did not incur the add-on fees on the CDG rental, so I should not incur them on the Perigueux rental. I should pay the same fees as for the CDG rental: RR station pick up and road tax for 61+ euros. Why should the rentals be different if the Kemwel agreement is exactly the same for both rentals? I previously listed the potential CDG fees and what I actually paid. A Peugeot 207 does not seem to qualify for a pollution tax.

Hi M,

>Which is the Consumer Protection agency that might be able to prod [Europcar] in Périgueux to provide at a minimum the documentation for the charges?<

Your credit card company.

Last September I had a small accident in a rental. The police report stated that the other driver was at fault. All pertinent information was exchanged. The accident was reported to Europcar and Amex.

Several weeks later I received a bill for 990E, which was passed on to Amex.

To this day, Amex has not been able to get a response from Europcar justifying the 990E charge.

However, they have refused to pay it and have not billed me.

((I))

If you are involved in an accident in France, be sure to fill out the <i>constat</i> which should be in the glove box of all rental cars. The back side is in English.

The rental car company procedure will be to charge your credit card for any damage to the rental whether or not you are at fault. This protects them. It will generally be incumbent upon the renter to contest these charges and offer evidence of some type that he was not at fault.

The best evidence will be to obtain a ¨Déclaration de main courante¨ from a local police station. This document definitively absolves you from any responsibility in reference to the accident. Sometimes it is obvious who is at fault and the car rental company will most likely drop the charge against the renters credit card account.

Save yourself the headache of dealing with AutoEurope and just dispute the charge with your credit card company.

>>Save yourself the headache of dealing with AutoEurope and just dispute the charge with your credit card company.<<

My experience is just the opposite. You'll have much better luck dealing with AutoEurope than with your CC company for an "ordinary" dispute. Ira's "dispute" was not ordinary - it was over insurance on a collision - which Amex covers anyway. Michael stated that "It's too late to contest via the credit card, I relied on Autoeurope because when asking about contesting it via credit card, I was told that the signed contract is what rules, and that includes something about other charges." So his CC comppany is out of the picture now.

My wife worked for Visa at their corporate headquarters for 15 years - till we retired.

Stu Dudley

Oops - missed the bit about it being too late. I work for a credit card company myself and wouldn't hesitate to pass the complaint back to them to sort it out.

<i>Monsieur;
Suite à notre conversation téléphonique, nous vous informons que nous allons créditer votre carte bancaire d'un montant de 75 euros correspondant au frais d'abandon
Avec nos excuses.
Salutations</i>

Case closed, and it is one of the rare times that an apology was included.

Good news!

In my own experience, both Europcar and Hertz have always dropped any charges that I contested.

The 75E will cover a dinner at Incanto (well - almost)

Stu Dudley

For two? and with wine? I don't think so.

< http://www.wineberserkers.com/viewto...354783#p354783 >

AutoEurope brokered my reservation to EuropCar, the actual rental operator, which double-billed me. Each firm told me that the other was at fault, and pointed to each other for refund responsibility.
Horrible service and equipment from EuropCar, when in Paris. It took three months of wrangling via Amex to correct charges. EuropCar customer service blows; the staff tells you to call a number for any problems, which is only a recording which tells you to fax a letter, which garners no eventual response.

I would never use EuropCar again, even if to rent a hearse for my worst enemy for free.

Advice:
Deal directly with a rental company which also operates in the US, such as Hertz or Avis.
Using an intermediary, such as Auto Europe, allows too many opportunities for errors, poor service, and issue non-ownership.
< http://travel.nytimes.com/2010/09/05...5prac.html?hpw >