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Avis - Additional Driver Fee

Avis • Corporate Points program • International thievery • Disputed return date • A visit from Repo Man • Additional driver charges • Young drivers • 4WD vs. AWD • Misc. problems

Kevin of Kansas City sent the following to Janet Moslin at Avis headquarters (2/5/01):
Dear Ms. Moslin:
I am disappointed to have to write to you again. You assured me that the additional driver fee problem that I had on two previous rentals with Avis would not happen again. Unfortunately it did - this past weekend when I rented an Avis car for one day.

In case you forgot my brief history with your company, let me recap:

In late August last year, I called Avis Reservations to rent a car. I was told that with my situation - girlfriend ("life partner") that lives at the same address as I do - I would not be charged an additional driver fee. In picking up the car at the airport in Kansas City they insisted in charging the fee and I had to essentially make a "scene" in front of your customers and escalate the situation to management to get it waived as a "courtesy".

I called Avis Customer service and wrote the Chairman a letter (that you responded to) describing my frustrations with your company. Both you and Avis Customer Service, in two separate letters dated September 18th and 28th, stated that a mistake was made by the airport location, "sorry for any inconvenience", and Senior Management responsible for Kansas City would be contacted. Additionally Avis Customer Service gave me a $50 voucher for my troubles.

Thinking the problem was fixed, I called an Avis suburb location close to my house in Kansas City to rent another car. I picked up the car on October 21, 2000, again that location insisted in charging the additional driver fee, even though I had two letters from your company stating differently.

I had to accept the fee to get the car and I called you afterwards to discuss. You seemed appalled by the entire situation, apologized profusely for my troubles, said that all regional management would be contacted again, and credited the entire rental charge (around $200) back to my credit card.

This brings us to this past weekend. My girlfriend and I rented another car from Avis to be picked up at the airport location. I called Reservations earlier to reserve the car and get a price, and I just happened to ask about any additional driver charge. I explained the situation and, of course, they said no fee would apply.

When we got to the airport on Saturday, your associate, Andrew Walker, was taking our information for the rental. I told him that I needed to add "her" (pointing to my girlfriend) as an additional driver. He asked "is she a spouse or co-worker?", I said no, and he said that "there will be a $25 one-time fee" to have her added. This time I calmly said OK, but I was thinking to myself this is absolutely unbelievable. I was reassured by yourself (an associate that reports to the Chairman) that this would never happen again. You also said, "you can not get any higher than me, I will take care of it".

I ask myself Ms. Moslin, "Is this a problem just happening to me or could this be a problem for a lot of people renting cars from Avis?" According to your Web site, you have over 4,400 locations. Lets assume that each location has one "incorrectly additional driver fee" charged per day (I am sure it could easily be more than one per day - it has happened to me 3 times in five months). Do the math and you will find that this is over $40 million dollars a year of improper additional driver charges. Does this have the ingredients of a Class Action Lawsuit? I wonder. I am asking you to credit back the entire charge for that one-day rental - again if I knew I was going to have these problems I would have chosen another rental car company and Avis would have received nothing from me.

Follow-up:

After this letter, Ms. Moslin said that "I should have told Avis that I have a life partner. I disagreed saying that it is not the customer's responsability to fish for hidden procuedures within Avis. I asked her about a customer that would not have my experiences with Avis - they would not even know about this "life partner" thing. She did not have an argument. I feel stongly that everyday Avis is collecting $25 from people they should not be.

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