Comments on: Anyone else experienced the gas gauge scam?

By: frank

frank — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 20:20:43 +0000

Never mind Gas rip offs, try false damage claims from AVIS for hundreds of dollars. I just got back from Germany where I rented a car from AVIS at the Frankfurt airport for 6 hrs. When I returned home I got a bill for $811. They claimed that they had to repair a 1 in scratch on the bottom of the front bumper. We had to get down on our hands and Knees to see what looked like a 1 inch surface scratch. I called AVIS customer service in the US who said they can only provide me with the documentation and have no affiliation to the German Avis and could only offer me the phone number for the Frankfurt rental office. I am still fighting this case and would like to see a class action suit against this type of false charges. I am sure other there are may other like me.

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By: Amanda84

Amanda84 — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 01:40:15 +0000

This is kind of the same thing, only in reverse. National gave me a car (which I got to pick from the line up), I put all my stuff in and turned on the car, and wouldn’t you know it, it was about 1/8 of a tank short. I didn’t want to go on a search to find a car that was all the way on the F line, so when I left I asked the guy at the checkout station, and he said that it was considered to be full.

Now I was in town for an interview and only needed the car for a day and I was not going very far, plus the company I was interviewing with was paying for the rental, but I digress. I stopped to fill up the tank when I was on my way back to the airport and I put in 5 gallons, 5 gallons! My drive from the airport to the interview site was maybe a 30 mile round trip, and I was driving a compact car. I know if I had returned the car with the 1/8 missing from the tank I would have (well the company) payed through the nose to fill it up. I was very irritated, and I will not rent from National if I need to rent it for personal use.

I did e-mail HR of the company I was interviewing with to know what happened, and they seemed quite apathetic, but thanked me for my concern.

By: kg2v

kg2v — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 11:58:42 +0000

I actually had a fun one last summer – fun in a good way (and yeah, I’ve been hit with the gas ‘fee’ a few times)

I was traveling to NM, and I forget wich of the big 3 I rented from, but I had reserved one class of car, and about 2 weeks before the trip realized ‘I really need the next size up’ – they wanted a fairly large fee to change my reservation

I get to the airport, planning on asking for the larger size, and seeing what I could get, when I got the usual “upsell” sales speach – offering me the next size up at less than 1/2 the daily rate the web site had wanted, plus no ‘change fee’ – I looked at the guy, smiled, and said, “Sure, I’ll let you get the upsell” – and he gave me a discounted refuel (to keep it on topic) option.

Sometimes, YOU can game the system

By: Kathleen Eaton

Kathleen Eaton — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 22:08:28 +0000

If rental companies want to represent themselves as not scamming people on fuel, why isn’t each car returned topped off by the rental company immediately and the top-off amount noted on the customer’s return sheet. That may not be the way they are organized to do it now, but how they organize returns and refueling is their choice. One writer who worked for a car rental agency spoke of tanks being topped off after the cars are washed to ensure that the next customer gets a full tank. If that can be done at one agency, it can be done at all of them and it can be done when the cars arrive rather than after a wash.

By so doing, there wouldn’t be any question of idiocyncratic fuel guages or whether or not the top-off charges imposed later were kept as profit rather than used to actually ensure each renter gets a full tank. A receipt could be produced on the spot showing how much gas had been required for each vehicle making disputes unsupportable.

By: tim

tim — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 17:00:41 +0000

There is a scam at Chevron , Travel Center, 13188 Main Street, Hesperia, California.

The scam is not in the price gauging but in how they have programmed the pay at the pump. I was there enroute returning to Las Vegas and did the usual swipe and fill up. The price came to $22.30. A day later I was at home posting the receipt and noticed a “prepaid” amount of $25 – “see cahsier for refund”.

Altho’ I only consumed $22.30, and had driven off, I was not able to drive all the way back for the $2.70 refund…they had charged me $25! NO WHERE HAVE I EVER BEEN charged an automatioc PREPAID at the pump …this is done for cash payers inside!

Someone is skimming the difference. PLEASE INVESTIGATE AND GO TO THE PRESS.

Tim

By: Natalie

Natalie — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 23:11:26 +0000

I rented a car from budget in Orlando last weekend. I recieved a letter in the mail today telling me that they were charging my credit card for two gallons of fuel at $6.99 a gallon. I filled the tank up at a gas station right at the airort entrance (with a hefty convienance fee I might add). I returned the car and offered the receipt to the guy checking the car in. He replied that he did not need the receipt because the tank was “clearly full”. I was very surprised to receive the notice that they were charging me. I called to compain and they asked me to fax the receipt. I told them that I was very frustrated because I had offered them the receipt when I turned in the car and they told me that they didn’t need it. They say that they will remove the charges within 72 hours of receiving the receipt, but we will see. I will never rent from Budget again, since I have never had this problem with other companies I have rented from. I feel like they are stealing from me since I was so careful to return the car witha full tank.

By: Appanage

Appanage — Thu, 21 May 2009 13:51:23 +0000

I wouldn’t be putting my money on Hertz so fast. That pulled this junk on me last week, and then I started talking to colleagues about it. I found 4 different people who’d been gas scammed by Hertz and none by anyone else.

By: kefxb24

kefxb24 — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 20:16:42 +0000

This just happened to me yesterday with National at ORD. Their receipt shows a refueling surcharge of $14.28 to cover 3 gallons at $4.76/gal. I watched the agent check the fuel gauge and then proceed to assess the fee.

I guess it did not count that I refilled the tank down the street from the rental center, putting in 4.776 gallons at $4.099/gal – and had the receipt to prove it.

I drove a total of 71 miles, so I do not know if this is a common practice for National.

Not only did I complain, but I reported this to our corporate travel department, which forced us to switch to National from Hertz because “we will save money”. Hertz never screwed me like that.

By: andy crosby

andy crosby — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 22:50:52 +0000

I found this site after wondering how common this was, I had a similar situation with a Uhaul rental this weekend. I drove the van about 17 miles total – thinking that a cargo van with a few hundred pounds in it might get 10mpg, i put in about 2.5 gallons figuring that would put it back to where i started and then some.. in the end i had to put 5 gallons of gas in to make the needle move back to the original position, and it was still slightly shy, although at that point i had two gas reciepts and was somewhat annoyed so i was willing to argue it if they tried to charge me. Everything else about the rental was actually great, the vehicle was in excellent condition and the service was decent…Luckily they didn’t try to charge me either. Still i ended up paying for probably around an extra $15 of gas, which left me wondering if there was some kind of modification they do to the gauge to make it less accurate in this regard. With my own car i always just fill the tank so i’m not sure how common it is to see the needle move differently for fuel usage rather than filling, perhaps there is a pressure issue there or something but..after seeing this site, the cynic in me says they set it up deliberately..