A cautionary tale for anyone renting a car

[Anonymous]

I rented a car and got charged for tolls I never used. They charged my card about a week after I returned the vehicle. I was not on those roads, or even in that town when the charges were incurred. The rental car company was not very helpful, told me to dispute with the State of Florida or call my bank to dispute charges. They told me the charges would not be removed unless I could prove with a receipt that I was in another location when the tolls were incurred. I realize there are a lot of people who would lie or not understand cashless toll roads. I grew up in that area and was absolutely certain I didn't use any tolls roads on the day and times they were telling me, which I explained to them repeatedly. I was at a family member's house in another town at the time.

After I spent hours on the phone between the rental company, Florida DOT and my own bank, the rental company finally realized their error. I told them from the first phone call that it was simply not possible and they must have mixed up their e-passes or tag numbers. I left messages for managers to call me back..they never did. I kept calling and was able to finally speak to a manager. He checked out the tag numbers and found out they had the wrong one listed for the car I rented. He agreed to issue a refund.

In the process, I had to cancel my card to dispute the claim. With all the auto-pay things attached to that card number, it is a giant hassle.

I recommend anyone renting a car make a notation of the plate number and keep all receipts from the trip. Customer service reps were unwilling to check on any of the details of my rental or even consider that it could be their mistake. I'm not naming the company because, after checking reviews online, it appears that they all do the same damn thing.

[Anonymous]

I have had a similar problem twice. I had gone through that toll but paid cash and never activitated the EZ pass but apparently it still recorded it. I gave up on that one but the toll ended up costing me $13 ($4 in cash, $4 on the ez pass, and the $5 fee to activate the EZ pass). The second time I got charged for a toll that occured AFTER I had returned the car. Took producing receipts and many calls to convince them of this. It burns me that I had to spend time on both of these for their mistake/faulty equipment. And I got the same attitude you got, which is I must be wrong.

[Anonymous]

Don't they have those GPS tracking devices on every car so they can track you if you go out of state? And some of them have those speed detectors so they know how fast you were going? They should know it wasn't you.

[Anonymous]

A little tangential but u shouldn't have to cancel your cc to dispute. Done this enough times without.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:A little tangential but u shouldn't have to cancel your cc to dispute. Done this enough times without.

I gave them a credit card at the beginning of the rental, but paid with a debit card when I returned the car.

[Anonymous]

We had a similar issue in Florida recently. We, like PP, paid cash through the toll booths to avoid paying the pass charges. When we saw the charges on our cc, we called the rental car company, and they removed them without any hassle at all.

I can't believe their system doesn't work better.

[Anonymous]

This happened to me on the way to new york. Luckily at the second toll booth i stopped at the lady refused my cash and told me that ezpsss had slready paid. I was like wtf are u talking about and the saw the expass thing mounted up near my rear view mirror. They left it open on purpose i suppose to trick all their customers now i know whenever i rent to close the ezpass thing. Had it not been for the booth attendant i would have paid double the whole trip. Watch out for this when renting from budget!