8443 Car hire and fuel charge warning

I think this is one that's probably happened to many of us. I know the score but sometimes its impossible to avoid - returning a hire car to Ciampino a couple of weeks ago, we arrived (at 5:10am) at the airport "24x7" self serve petrol station to find all the pumps closed. We had limited time, but, knowing the likely costs of NOT filling the tank, we persevered. Drove into Ciampino town and found another 24x7 self serve station. However this only took cash (no credit cards) and we only had one €50 and one €5 note. I knew that it would cost about €10 to fill the tank, so I opted for the €5 top up, expecting about €10 in extra charges from the hire company fuel top up. The actual charge was €32 - composed of a €20 fine for not returning it full and a €12 cost for the fuel. I guess the €20 was written into the smal print somewhere - it's certainly the first I've heard of it, and I've been surcharged for petrol several times in the past. Am going to protest the fine as it is unfair if there are no viable places within sensible travelling distance that are open to allow a full fuel top up. Meantime - Hertz renters beware the hidden fine.

We rented a car from SIXT at Ciampino last Sunday. We checked around the car for extra dents/scratches... etc, but we didn't check that the fuel tank was full. We only noticed it was half full when we had driven away from the airport and were on our journey. The paperwork said that it was a full tank. I know that there had been difficulty in getting fuel last week, but just a warning to check your fuel levels before you drive away and ask them to amend the paperwork if it isn't full.

I got caught out at Parma one time. The car was only 3/4 full so before setting off I went back to the desk and told them. 'No problem' was their reply, 'just bring it back with the same amount in'.

Did what they said but after getting home got a bill of 34 euros so I rang them up and told the guy what had happened and that I wasn't paying the extra. He was really nice about it and told us not to worry and for our troubles sent us a voucher for 50$ off our next hire car. Only thing wrong with that was we weren't off to America but hey? it was a nice thought.

Try complaining you never know, you just might get the same voucher!!

Lorraine

It is usually possible to buy a full tank of petrol in advance from the car hire company - I know you can with Herz. Whilst this is expensive, it is far cheaper than all the service and admin costs associated with not returning it full. However, you then want to make sure you return the car with an empty tank.

We have never done it as we only have a short journey and hardly use any petrol - and we are too mean. But we have thought about it when returning the car on a Sunday afternoon when often we can't find a petrol station open close enough to the airport to still arrive with a full tank. Have only once been caught out - but that was expensive!

May be worth doing for peace of mind.

[quote=Flyingpigs;79170] But we have thought about it when returning the car on a Sunday afternoon when often we can't find a petrol station open close enough to the airport to still arrive with a full tank.[/quote]

Not even near the airport??

[quote=Torchiarolan;79177].............If you fill the car ...........then you can fill up anywhere within about 40kms of an airport and it will still show full when you arrive.............[/quote]

I totally agree - have done it often.

.

[quote=alan haynes;79179]I totally agree - have done it often.
[/quote]

We always fill up at the last services on the autostrada before Pisa Centro. I have not checked the distance but it must be about 30km. The gauge always reads full on return.

Try a company called [url=http://www.cardelmar.com]Mietwagen - All-Inclusive – weltweit - CarDelMar[/url]. We recently had to stay four days longer in Italy than we had planned so had to re-book the car. Couldn't get hold of anyone on the phone numbers given and were terrified they would set the police on us for stealing their car! When we eventually got back to Rome there was no petrol to be had because of the lorry drivers' strike so we had to return the car only half full. To top it all (this was not the most stress-free trip I've ever had!) there was no-one on duty at the Europcar desk (cardelmar is an agency and uses Europcar mostly) so we left a hastily-scribbled note explaining what had happened.

Two weeks later we got an invoice from cardelmar and opened it with a real sense of dread. The total extra cost was something like £78 - for the hire and presumably the petrol as well. We couldn't believe it and waited for another bill but so far none has come and it's now nearly two months since it happened.

That was the first time we've used this company but we are using them again next time and they seem very efficient. It's a bit weird because it's a German-based company so you do get their e-magazine in German! But the prices are the best we've ever seen and from our experience last time they seem not (yet) to have the same views about alienating customers with massive extra costs! :smile:

Theres a lot of this going on - I am currently fighting for the return of a paymant to Auto europe back in October - we prepaid a hire car for 4 days for 100 euros - when the cc bill came in there were extra charges which we queried and the explanation was this -
Many thanks for contacting us.
Please find below the complete breakdown of the rental charges as follows:

4 days rental € 117,98
refuel service € 11,00
35 litres of missing fuel € 36,75
one way supplement € 26,00
local tax 20% € 14,75
total € 206,48

We had returned the car completely full having topped up and paid cash just outside Venice. They are asking now for petrol receipts to prove it. I have tallied asking them to prove it was empty. They have returned the €17.98 they had added to the hire charge - no explanation no apology. It was booked through Argus who now wash their hands of it as its auto eorope who have made the charge.
I'm now waiting for them to respond without much hope of getting our money back and mastercard say they are investigating - we had to pay the bill as otherwise we would have started to pay interest. Very annoying. I don't even mind paying the one way charge though 26 euros seems excessive (we were told it would prob be 'about' 10 euro) but I wont pay for petrol twice!
Last week we took a photo of the fuel guage when we left the car in the hope it won't happen again..
M

[quote=Marinaw;79850]Theres a lot of this going on - I am currently fighting for the return of a paymant to Auto europe back in October - we prepaid a hire car for 4 days for 100 euros - when the cc bill came in there were extra charges which we queried and the explanation was this -
Many thanks for contacting us.
Please find below the complete breakdown of the rental charges as follows:

4 days rental € 117,98
refuel service € 11,00
35 litres of missing fuel € 36,75
one way supplement € 26,00
local tax 20% € 14,75
total € 206,48

We had returned the car completely full having topped up and paid cash just outside Venice. They are asking now for petrol receipts to prove it. I have tallied asking them to prove it was empty. They have returned the €17.98 they had added to the hire charge - no explanation no apology. It was booked through Argus who now wash their hands of it as its auto eorope who have made the charge.
I'm now waiting for them to respond without much hope of getting our money back and mastercard say they are investigating - we had to pay the bill as otherwise we would have started to pay interest. Very annoying. I don't even mind paying the one way charge though 26 euros seems excessive (we were told it would prob be 'about' 10 euro) but I wont pay for petrol twice!
Last week we took a photo of the fuel guage when we left the car in the hope it won't happen again..
M[/quote]

What happens when you return a car?
Whenever we return a car(Eurocar/Hertz) a man comes out of the office checks around the car,checks the mileage and then checks the fuel gauge signs our form to say all is okay and that's it.

[quote=Marinaw;79850]
Last week we took a photo of the fuel guage when we left the car in the hope it won't happen again..
[/quote]

some hope! Too easy to photoshop the picture (or use the photo you took when you picked up the car with its tank full) so they'll never accept that.
Even if the mileometer on the car was visible in the same picture it could easily be 'doctored'. Showing a petrol receipt for a local station just before the return date/time would not really work either unless the car had been running on vapour when you pulled into the forecourt - as any volume of fuel less than the tanks nominal capacity doesn't prove whether that volume resulted in the tank being filled or not.

PAS55 is right - if you haven't paid up front for the full tank, the only way to prevent any possibility of them diddling you is for you to wait for them to do the vehicle return inspection before you leave. Unfortunately most companies don't have staff on hand to do this even during business hours; out of hours, you can forget it as you just do a key drop.

Too true Pigro - they were about to close and just looked at the car and said fine - we said it was full of fuel, they said ok and we left. I accept this was a mistake and we should have insisted on a signed form but equally none was offered.
Last week at ciampino there were big queues and as you have to get on a bus now to reach the terminal from the hire car car parks time was short - we just dropped the keys again.
Re the venice scam I think mastercard is our only hope for a refund now as we can't produce receipts. Still I have asked them to prove it was empty which they can't do obviously so we've reached an impasse. Just makes me mad to be so flagrantly ripped off.
Sigh the joys of travel eh.
M

[quote=Marinaw;79861]
Last week at ciampino there were big queues and as you have to get on a bus now to reach the terminal from the hire car car parks[/quote]

err - I know they relocated the hire car parking from adjacent to the terminal over to car park 8 (at least 6 months ago if not longer) ... but it's still no more than 5 minute (brisk) walk from the terminal? I believe that there [B]is[/B] a courtesy bus, but I'd never bother to wait for it - unless it was extremely bad weather & I had time to burn. In fact forget the extreme weather as I don't recall any real shelter in the car park while you wait!

if anyone told you you [B][I]have [/I][/B]to wait for a bus, just ignore them - unless they've moved the hire car parks yet again (what number did your car park have?)

It was car park no 8 and to be fair the bus left immediately with just us on it. It'd be ok to walk with trollies but its a bit of a long lug with heavy bags.
And I am dead lazy of course..
M

I returned from Italy on Tuesday and have a couple of issues I need to take up with Europcar/Auto Europe (seems they are the same company).

In May I was in Gaeta and got a parking ticket. Well I didn't get a ticket per se, just Europcar contacting me a couple of months later with a copy of the fine and them saying they had taken 40 Euros fine from my credit card. Fair enough. It was there in black and white even though I wasn't aware I had parked ilegally.

In December I heard from them again re the same conviction and again 40 Euros taken from my credit card. This deduction was confirmed in my late December visa card statement. So they charged me twice for the one 'crime'.

I booked a car hire with them for the Christmas period and purposely booked an economy car as opposed to a mini economy which suits me fine normally, because Ron and I would have four pieces of luggage with us. The Europcar desk was busy but we were given the key and sent to the car park. The car we were given was a Peugeout 107. Not only was it tiny but it hadn't been valetted outside or inisde, had no arerial and no water in the windscreen wash. The previous rentee's documents were still in the car indicating it didn;t have an aerial for them either. The desk was too busy to see to us and we needed to get on our way since it was Saturday 22 December and the road (Ciampino to A1) was going to be busy (took us 3.5 hours for a normal 1.25hours journey). The minute boot was big enough to hold my handbag and nothing else. Good job we didn't have another passenger because the four cases were piled high on the back seat. I was very nervous driving since there were cars diving in and out of the traffic jam and my vision was impaired.

Anyway, dropping off the car I had to take the car contract into the new office in park 8, a girl signed it, never spoke to me, and that was that. No checking the car, just took my word it was full of petrol and was OK. Normally they check it through. (Always fill up at the Autogrill petrol station just outside Ciampino). The little car was OK, very economical and nifty but not what I had booked.

So I will be contact Auto Europe/Europcar with these complaints. I just wonder how far I will get with them. Just hope they don't refund my duplicate parking fine in $!!!!
Maralyn

It may be best to talk to your credit card company and explain the situation that's what there for.

We now fly to and from Parma and there is a petrol station very near to the airport which accepts notes if the garage is shut which is quite handy when you fly back on a Sunday. Last Sunday we did our usual, pulled into the car park, inserted 50 euro note into machine, selected pump number and hey presto, Nothing!

The machine duly printed out a receipt for 50 euro and no litres of petrol which was a bit baffling. A lovely man pulled up in his car and between his bad English and my bad Italian he understood the situation and each car that pulled up he told them what had happened and they drove off.

We tried to find the owners of the garage as there were two cars there and the lights were on but no one would come to the door. Another really nice guy turned up and after explaining what had happened he went into his wallet and gave my husband a 50 euro note in exchange for the receipt saying he would come back another day.

What a wonderful gesture to make and we were really pleased that we had got our money back seeing as we were then going to have to return the car empty of petrol and therefore be stung by Hertz. I await their charges on my visa card next month.

Now wondering whether we will need to take out a mortgage to pay it ha ha!

Lorraine