If you drove 70 miles and then needed 6 gallons to refill the tank. There’s something wrong here.

If the rental agencies were actually topping off tanks upon return, it would always be full.

So the average renter is getting screwed both on pickup and on return.

Let me point out that it is not just Dollar that has rogue locations: the Budget location just down the hall from us now charges customers $10 per gallon if they do not bring the car back full. That’s almost twice as much as everyone else at the airport (including us). Maybe you’d all better take Budget off of your approved vendor list, too. Hertz isn’t much better, come to think of it–they’re at $7.50 per gallon, so they should be taken off of your list, too. The rest of us offer a “refueling service” for “only” ~$5 per gallon (no “top-off” fees, either). I guess we’re cheap in comparison, although if I were in charge of operations, I admit I’d make it at least a bit more reasonable–say, $3.50 per gallon (local market’s about $3).

So what do I do to protect myself? When I first rent a car I could stop and fill the tank at the nearest service station, keep the payment receipt, hand it in when I return the car at the end of the trip, and request an adjustment to my bill.

Would that work, or have the rental companies already figured out a way to deny me what I’m owed for filling their tank at the start of my trip?

Better still every States Attorney General has a fraud unit and in my experience are more than willing to help. You can usually file on line in less time than it takes you to bitch here.

Better still every States Attorney General has a fraud unit and in my experience are more than willing to help. You can usually file on line in less time than it takes you to bitch here.

Companies like Dollar count on the “Sheeple” to just follow along and when someone (Like Me) comes along they usually give in because 20,000 ate the dog food.

The fee gives the rental company a potential windfall of $730 per vehicle ($2 x 365 days of “potential”rentals without providing any benefit or service (see comment by Joe F. on Jan. 29).

Note: “potential” can only be reached if no one rents the car for multiple days)

Nothing but Greed – Greed and more Greed!! It will be interesting to see if anyone other companies try to adopt this. I am sure that they are all waiting and watching for the response.
J

Oh, and good luck getting any political help here, because travelers are the greatest tax source available–they have to spend money, and they can’t vote.

Idiots..

American business has discovered a new and wonderfully profitable business model: Provide nothing for something. It’s finest moment is in the imposition of bogus “fees” for doing all kinds of things that cause no expense to the business, but are used as a thin justification for collecting a little charge. One business does it, and soon they all do it. Then one increases the fee so it isn’t so little any more, and the rest increase the fee. You’re outraged, but you have to travel on business, and that means renting a car or staying in a hotel or getting money from an ATM, or employing one of the thousand fee-opportunities that are never described far enough in advance for you to make a decision on whether you want to pay them, and that make corporate America so rich.

I used to rent cars 20 weeks a year and I’m down to about 15 now, even though I travel even more. I just go to great lengths to avoid rental cars, because I’m so sick of the 40 item checklist I have to go through to avoid being ripped off by rental car companies. I wonder if the defection of customers like me is recompensed by the phoney-damage collections and by the fees. I fear the answer is “yes.”

Torienne

Savannah Intl/ Airport. There are TWO gas stations about 1.5 miles from the rental car drop-off. The car rental maintenance yards are about half that distance on the main airport road.

So, what this fee tells me is that I top the tank off 1.5 miles from the terminal [which, btw, is what EVERYBODY does] and I use a half of gallon of gas to go 1.5 miles. Then, after the transaction, where I drop the car off, Budget has someone drive it back to the gas station and then ‘top it off’ for the next person. Right? Thats what the fee is for. Thus, after they drive it to the gas station, top it off, and then drive it back, it has no more fuel in it than it had when I dropped it off originally. Therein lies the proof of fraud on the part of the car rental licensee.

Unless the licensee tops the tank RIGHT THERE in the yard, then, they are simply pocketing the money. By collecting a ‘top-off’ fee, unless they actually topping the vehicle off, its fraud. It is certainly obtaining money by false pretense. Such is illegal in Connecticut, and Georgia in the case of SAV.

I live in the Hartford area and am very familiar with Bradley Airport. There are at least three gas stations within one mile of the car rental drop off area. To claim that the tank needs to be topped off, once again, is a fallacy unless thy have gas right there at the drop area. You know what? NONE of them do – know why? EPA and Conn. DEP regulations on fuel storage tanks. Unless you use thousands of gallons of fuel every month, it is completely uneconomical to operate a fuel tank to squeeze 1/3 of gallon into every car. What do the rental companies do with cars that are NOT filled up? They drive to the gas station 1 mile away, fill the tank, and then rent the car to the next person – who – btw – DOES NOT HAVE A FULL TANK under their own rules.

This is ANOTHER class action lawsuit just waiting to happen. The fraud is obvious. The franchisor is part of the problem by hiding behind the claim that ‘its a fee the licensee charges, we have no control.’ THAT is a bunch of malarkey. Franchise agreements ultimately state that the franchisor has the FINAL say over EVERYTHING. The franchisor, in this case Dollar, knows the licensee is breaking the law and committing fraud and does nothing about it, which means they are just as liable for the fraud.

If you are interested in being a Connecticut class action claimant – please contact Chris – he knows how to get in touch with me.

At rate we are going, i’ll be able to retire in 5 years simply on travel industry class actions.