Michael

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 ...)

StuDudley

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

kerouac

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.

StCirq

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.

Michael

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.

Sarastro

<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.

Michael

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.

Sarastro

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.

StuDudley

>>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

Michael

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.

ira

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.

Sarastro

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.

lizziea06

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

StuDudley

>>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

lizziea06

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.

Michael

<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.

kerouac

Good news!

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

StuDudley

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

Stu Dudley

Michael

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

WineHunter

< 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 >