Gordon Houston prepaid $97 for a rental car in Cancun through Hotwire — a rate that was supposed to include all required fees. But then his car rental company, Europcar, added a mandatory insurance charge to his bill, leaving him with a $268 bill.
Who pays?
In the short term, Houston shelled out the extra money. But then he checked with me to find out if Hotwire should have disclosed the mandatory insurance in Mexico.
Hotwire guarantees that its rates are all-inclusive:
Hotwire Hot Rates include all applicable tax-recovery charges and fees — there are no hidden charges. For regular-rate rentals, Hotwire calculates estimated charges based on the agency’s published rates, taxes and fees. All rentals include unlimited mileage unless otherwise noted.
The way I read this, a mandatory insurance charge should have been disclosed at the time of the rental, if not included in the price.
But that’s not what happened to Houston.
Before leaving for my trip, I verified that my credit card company covered all types of rental car insurance and that no additional insurance should be purchased.
Upon arrival in Cancun, the Europcar agent insisted that it was company policy that I take the extra insurance (otherwise he could not rent me the car). He even insisted that this would have been on the Hotwire agreement page.
Reluctantly, I accepted the insurance. Upon my arrival back home, I ended up being charged $268.29 for the rental car.
Oddly, I received another email from a Hotwire customer at about the same time.
For nearly a month now, I’ve been fighting to recover over $280 from Hertz or Hotwire in connection with a reservation for a Mexican
rental I made through Hotwire.On Hotwire’s website, I reserved a Hertz car for a week in Mexico for an estimated $113.85 — a flat $90 for the rental of the car, and an estimated $23.85 in taxes and fees. I did not pay Hotwire at the time of the reservation and understood that I would pay Hertz directly when I rented the car.
At the Hertz desk in Mexico, I was presented with an entirely different set of charges. There, I heard for the first time about the mandatory Mexican liability insurance that you discussed in your October 11, 2008 post.
I did not have the option of declining the insurance, which amounted to approximately $110 for the week. But that wasn’t the only surprising charge. The price of the car had mysteriously risen to around $108, and I was assessed a “SERV.CHRG” of approximately $135. No one at Hertz or Hotwire has yet been able to tell me what that’s about. Together with two smaller fees (about $44), my total bill was for $397.41.
I asked Hotwire about both of these cases. Here’s what it told me:
If insurance is required by a supplier for a particular booking, Hotwire will provide that information up front during the purchase process. In this case, neither Europcar nor Hertz seem to require additional insurance for car rentals at these branch locations in Mexico.
It appears that the customers may have been “hard sold” by the branch representatives when they arrived to pick up their cars. In many cases, it can be a good idea for customers to get some form of additional coverage, but it shouldn’t be positioned as mandatory when it’s not.
Because this charge was coming from the supplier and was not required, this would normally need to be worked through the supplier and the customer directly. However, in some cases our customers can’t get a satisfactory resolution, at which point we will try to help as well. Both customers were contacted and compensated in the total amount of the cost of their insurance, and now both suppliers are aware of these specific cases so that they can work with their two branches to solve the problem for future car rentals.
That’s great. So insurance wasn’t mandatory, but someone at Hertz and Europcar told these customers it was, and refused to rent until they accepted the insurance.
You can almost understand why car rental companies are doing this on deep-discounted Hotwire rentals. They’re making almost nothing off these cheap rentals. Hard-selling insurance can turn an unprofitable rental into one that makes a little money (even if you have to tell a lie to do it).
Hotwire did the right thing by advocating for its customers in both these cases and securing a refund.
(Photo: Danny Playami/Flickr Creative Commons)
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{ 15 comments… read them below or add one }
How successful do you think Mr. Houston, or any consumer, would have been in obtaining that refund without your help?
Once we, as consumers, are faced with that situation, what is the appropriate next course of action? The way you describe it, there is no reason for the car rental agent to cave, as his or her location would rather rent the car to someone else, or lie to consumers (“hard sell” is too nice a euphamsim) in order to extort the additional fees.
The above problems, the corruption, the murders of tourists, are all the reasons I refuse to go to Mexico.
I used to go often. Now BOYCOT is my answer.
There are many other countries in the area.
We had this problem in Cabo, Puerto Vallarta, and Cancun – every time we went to Mexico. The first time, we refused the car but could not find another car without having to pay this “mandatory” fee. It’s predatory and corrupt and not limited to rental car agencies. On our last trip, I caught a hotel maintenance worker robbing our room. We lost the last day of our vacation being questioned by the hotel and at the police station. Our possessions were not returned, and we didn’t get an apology – nevermind dinner. We’ve crossed Mexico off our destination list also.
I was under the impression that car rental liability insurance in Mexico was mandatory, but a google search turns up mixed results. Anyone know for sure?
I have a thought. Since this seems like a scam on the part of agents, why not REQUIRE they put this into writing. Tell agent, you WANT what they’ve spoken to you written down about it being MANDATORY without exception. Otherwise, if they refused, break out your cell phone and tell them you will record them stating it is MANDATORY without exception. Then, when it comes time to dispute, guess who can’t deny their misdeeds?
Justin
Call your credit card company or bank if a debit card and charge the transaction back. I am having issues with both Hotwire and Alamo for charges that are bogus and that is what I am doing, contesting the charges with my bank. If enough people chargeback the transactions, then the banks will get smart and make these companies stop their crappy policies.
For car rentals Mexico is certainly different than the US. While in the US I haven’t yet seen a company that mandates any sort of supplemental insurance like CDW, LDW, third-party liability, etc, in Mexico this is not the case.
I’ve found that the best place to understand the rules of the rental is the company website or Expedia. In some cases the company website is doing a poor job and referring to the location for the terms and conditions of the rental, but Expedia is really doing an excellent job in disclosing the full details. Get a quote and check the terms and conditions of the rental. In many cases you will see that one kind of insurance or another *is* mandatory. The only companies with no mandatory insurance whatsoever in Mexico are Avis, Budget and Hertz.
Europcar is one of the companies that is doing a poor job on their website. They refer to the specific location for the full terms and contitions. Checking on Expedia you can see that they do have a mandatory insurance in Mexico and this is stated in the terms of the rental. The exact words: “IF LDW IS DECLINED THE CUSTOMER MUST PURCHASE THE THIRD
PART LIABILITY COVERAGE AND WOULD BE RESPONSIBLE FOR
THE FULL VALUE OF THE VEHICLE RENTED”.
Of course, when buying through an opaque site like Hotwire you don’t know the company beforehand. I think Hotwire should do a better job when selling car rentals in Mexico and include their terms and conditions before selling you the rental. Just like their sister company Expedia does.
I have had this problem with the Avis family in MVD. As I recall it cost me an additional $300. There was not way I could get out of it. The insurance is NOT manditory, but I was helpless to refuse.
At this point, does anyone NOT think that car rental agencies have become illegal scam operations? Between this, and the bogus damage scam, and the various other disreputable car rental practices that have been reported on this and other travel websites, I see no doubt.
Europcar seems to be particularly scam-riddled. I was almost a victim of the bogus damage scam at a Europcar rental office in Rome a couple years ago. The only thing that saved me was that I had taken time-stamped digital photos of the damage before I left the lot – which proved that it was there before I took possession of the car.
Then, three months ago at a Europcar office in Germany, I was given a downgrade in car class, but no refund on the price difference. They insisted at the time that the VW was the same class as the Mercedes that I’d selected when I made the reservation, and I had no way to dispute them at the scene. When I got home I went online and confirmed that it was three categories lower, with a significant price difference. I have tried everything with Europcar to get resolution, to no avail. I have now disputed that amount on my credit card, but I have no idea if the dispute will be ruled in my favor. Not all of them are – even when your case seems ironclad. (I disputed a charge from a jeweler once who gave me a significantly less valuable item than the one I ordered and paid hundreds of dollars for – and my dispute was denied!)
Now, after reading of this scam attempt by yet another Europcar office, I have permanently written them off my list. They will no longer get my business, or any opportunities to scam me.
The sad fact is that we travelers are often left over a barrel. When you are standing in a car rental agency, in a foreign city, dropped off by a shuttle, luggage in hand, and a hotel reservation waiting for you…and you’ve already paid for the vehicle…what choice do you have but to cave in to the extortion? If you walk away, you will probably NOT get your money back – hey, you declined to pick up the car, there’s no proof as to WHY you left, so you are out of luck.
The only options we have are to 1) keep reading these types of forums and learn which companies are disreputable, and what their common tricks are, and 2) be prepared with printouts of everything you can find to back up your claim to fair pricing. And when even that fails, call on Chris!
As I’ve posted before, Mexican businesses seem to quiver at the thought of a formal complaint to PROFECO. I can’t find the English link, but you can go to http://www.profeco.gob.mx/consumidor/denuncias1.asp and scroll down to “Atención a residentes en el extranjero”. If you don’t speak Spanish run it through Google Translate- this website leads you step-by-step through the process of filing a formal consumer complaint. Somewhere out there the page exists in English. I threatened a former landlord with a PROFECO complaint after my landlord refused to return my security deposit at our scheduled meeting, forcing me to leave the country without the deposit. I filled out the paperwork and sent it to her, saying the next step was submitting it to PROFECO, and I got my money back within the week. Between H1N1 and drug problems, the last thing a company wants is for the government to become aware of the fact that it’s exploiting tourists. Use PROFECO!
Seems I’m not the only one then. These kind of companies should not be allowed to operate, they should be closed. You pay them in good faith for a service and when they don’t provide the service you paid them for, they don’t even want to return your money, let alone any sort of compensation for the hassle they’ve put you through.
The turning point is the company’s alleged refusal to rent the car to you.
Could you have contacted Hotwire right there at the rental office and told them of the need to refund your bid price if they (Hotwire) could not arrange on the spot to get you the car at the bid price?
it seems people who go to Mexico for a vacation should go at own risk; I am certain that many people have no problems; however with outbreaks of swineflu, drug trafficingetc. police corruption tourists should go at their own risk and not expect any sympathy from us if things go wrong,
your site is very nice, very useful for me , i bookmarked your blog
Dollar agent slamming and demanding mandotory insurance purchasing required changing the monthly rate from $ 659 to $2166. Any recovery possible?
Do I file a charge of discrimination?