If there’s a silver lining, at least it wasn’t Hertz for once, and no one was arrested?
In this post:
Avis flags car as stolen, tows it without a trace
OMAAT reader David shared a pretty wild experience he had renting a car from Avis. In late July, he started a month-long rental, for which he paid $1,146. He picked up the car in Scarsdale, New York, and planned to drop it off at JFK.
He and his family were spending the summer in South Fallsburg, in the Catskills. A little over halfway through this rental, he walked outside to get in his car in the morning, only to find that it was no longer there. He was obviously baffled.
His initial thought was that someone must have stolen the car, so he called the police. After speaking with the local sheriff and assuring him that he hadn’t parked illegally overnight, the sheriff told him that he’d make some calls to local towing companies, to see if they towed the vehicle.
In the meantime, David decided to call Avis’ roadside assistance, to see if they (or one of their local contractors) towed the vehicle, and/or if they could track down the car remotely, in the event of theft. The Avis representative asked for a contract number, which David said he couldn’t provide, since he thought he left the contract in the car’s glove compartment. He instead provided the license plate number.
After providing that, he was informed that the car with that license plate had actually been rented out to someone else. The representative said the vehicle was picked up at DFW, and is two weeks overdue. At this point David remembered that he had the contract in his bag, so he went to grab that, and read him the contract number.
The representative confirmed that the contract was valid, but not for the vehicle that had been in his possession. So he was then transfered to the Avis theft and security department, and after quite some time on hold, David was told that the car accidentally got double booked in the system
Essentially, the previous rental was never closed out properly by the DFW location, and he was the subsequent renter of the car. As a result, Avis had activated the anti-theft device for the vehicle, tracked it down, and towed it back to an Avis location.
Avis’ service recovery was surprisingly impressive
What happened from here? The Avis representative offered another car right away, but David declined, as he needed the same car, since it had car seats for his two children, his toll pass, an EpiPen, glasses, etc.
At this point, the agent put him in touch with the Avis supervisor for the region. While Avis promised he’d get a call soon, that didn’t quite happen, so he called back again a few hours later. Eventually he was connected through to the correct person who he had expected to hear from earlier.
That afternoon, the supervisor confirmed that the car had been towed to the Avis Poughkeepsie location, roughly a 90-minute drive away. She offered to either have him go there in an Uber and be reimbursed, or deliver the car to him the following day. He ultimately decided to get the car the same day. So he made it to the location, got the car, and drove back. They then agreed to be in touch the following day about how to make this situation right.
The supervisor initially offered $400 off the rental, for his trouble, which David felt was a ridiculous lowball offer after spending hours on the phone, waiting, his wife missing work, and possessions being stolen from him. So he requested a full reimbursement for the cost of the rental, a free week voucher for a future rental, reimbursement of all costs incurred, and his Avis elite status extended by five years.
She agreed to all of that, and told him to contact her after he returned the car at JFK, so that she could apply the refund after the fact. Sure enough, that’s how everything worked out.
Bottom line
An Avis customer woke up to find his car missing about halfway through his rental, in what can only be described as an incredibly frustrating situation. Initially he thought the car was stolen, but after getting in touch with Avis, it was determined that the car was repossessed, as Avis’ system showed the car as missing.
Avis does deserve credit for how it handled this situation, in my opinion. The car rental industry generally has horrid service, so I’m amazed this was resolved as smoothly as it was. And kudos to David for having specific suggestions for how the situation could be made right, as that paid off.
What do you make of this Avis car repossession situation?
Good negotiating skills on David’s part! And good on Avis for owning up and coming through.
He had better luck with AVIS that I did on a rental in Quebec City in June. The way AVIS handled the problem with thew vehicle was totally unacceptable and I’ll never use them again.
LOL. I had an Avis car in Florida two weeks ago. On my way to return it, i got hit from behind on I-4 rendering the vehicle inoperable. I called Avis, they came and towed the car. I fill ed out out the accident report online and have not heard back from Avis except for the daily texts telling me my car is X days overdue.
There seems to be room for improvement at Avis.
Does anyone here happen to have access to an executive customer service contact at Avis? Perhaps at the VP or C-Suite level? We had a similar horrible experience with an Avis rental a month ago, and their regular customer service and social media staff have been doing everything they can to avoid a resolution.
There is a website called ceo email addresses or similar. It's proved handy for me in the past.
Thank you Avis. Indeed you do try harder.
Haha didn't expect my hometown of Scarsdale to be mentioned on OMAAT!
The Avis car rental "office" in Scarsdale should barely be considered a car rental office as it's located at a Shell gas station and maybe has 2 rental cars available at most at the time.
Speaking as a software engineer for the last 30 years. There is a colossal difference between a company like Google to a service company like avis or Marriott or united in terms of tech. These non tech companies do not employ hundreds of skilled tech. They may employ 5 or 6 total for the entire company. The ceos will fill the other 100 positions with outsource and those 5 good tech employees (most who are...
Speaking as a software engineer for the last 30 years. There is a colossal difference between a company like Google to a service company like avis or Marriott or united in terms of tech. These non tech companies do not employ hundreds of skilled tech. They may employ 5 or 6 total for the entire company. The ceos will fill the other 100 positions with outsource and those 5 good tech employees (most who are just engineers and not managers) have to guide the 100 outsource. It's a giant S*it show. I've seen it many many many times. At banks, hospitals and most definitely service industry. Where you may think they have automated process in place it's more likely that they rely on one minimum wage employee emailing account updates via excel to another employee for MANUAL data entry. Again I have seen this level of
crap-tacular processes in place. That's why there are so many software issues in the world. If you're wondering why companies don't train more people it's because those people don't exist. They are not math minded or tech oriented and very likely will rage quit or fired within 12 months. Until our kids across the land are properly schooled in math and science that will continue to be the case. Sadly, it seems companies are done with people and opting now for full AI.
That's funny i was recently in a budget rental which is a subsidiary of a is. Im a fast break customer because I travel bi weekly for work. They had placed me in a dodge challenger with Tn plates on it.as I was traveling through Massachusetts on my way to Maine I was pulled over by a state trooper. No explanation for the original stop only told the vehicle had a suspended registration. The trooper...
That's funny i was recently in a budget rental which is a subsidiary of a is. Im a fast break customer because I travel bi weekly for work. They had placed me in a dodge challenger with Tn plates on it.as I was traveling through Massachusetts on my way to Maine I was pulled over by a state trooper. No explanation for the original stop only told the vehicle had a suspended registration. The trooper impounded the car. All tgos time I was on the phone with 4 different people trying to get the right person. Each person would get me so far and then say they needed to transfer me to another person. They were more worried about where the car was being impounded than they were with the fact that I was now stranded on an off ramp off the highway in the middle of a state I do not live in with noway to get to my destination. They told me they could not get a car to me and that I'd ha e to take an Uber to their. Closest open location (At2pm) which was Bradley Airport in Connecticut which was 45 minutes away and they would reimburse me up to ten dollars. Absurd is t it? They did not offer any type of compensation and wanted to keep grilling me for the location the vehicle was going etc. I had told them that seeing they showed such little concern with my situation and done so little to help me get into a new vehicle and not be inconveniencedany bit futher, that I had no interest in. Doing g their jobs for them. If they wanted their vehicle info so badly they could call the state police and get it from them. I was furious. It wasn't until I got to the airport and talked with the manager of the location that I was shown any bit of concern. The manager upgraded me to a genesis and took $100 off the bill. It was pretty pathetic but at least someone finally showed any form of remorse for the situation they had put me in. A 5 hour trip turned into a 9 hr ordeal.. Imagine having a state suspend the registration of one of the vehicles In their fleet and them not tracking its location and immediately removing it from. Service until it was rectified.. This happened a few months after my flight to key west being re routed to Miami due to weather and no cars being available there for me to rent so I had to take a 4 hr Uber to get to key west airport to pick up my rental so I could drive an hour back to marathon to where I was staying. After calling budget to inform them of my delayed arrival due to the flight re routing to ensure they kept my reservation and that I'd be arriving at 740pm, they assured me everything would be all set and my reservation would be waiting for me upon my arrival. Only to get there and find their counter closed at 7pm. (Again I remind you I am a fast break customer so I do not need to go to the counter for the usual paper work as its already done upon making the reservation.As a frequent customer, I just go out to the parking garage/lot and jump in the vehicle they have waiting for me in which ever spot its in. Upon arriving at the counter I found nobody attending no keys or paper work left for me at the counter and not one left in the parking area. And once again less than cooperative or helpful when I called the "customer service" dept.. i was told I could pick it up the following day. So I would have to pay an Uber for the hour ride to my house and then again to get back the next day afyer paying 400 dollars for the ride from miami? I cancelled and made a reservation with enterprise as they were the only ones open and had only 1 vehicle left which cost me $300 more than I had booked. My budget car for.. im not sure why I would keep renting from them, there are no rewards or incentives for doing so like you get for frequent flights with an airline or stays at a hotel.
Good thing it wasn’t a Hertz issue — the guy might’ve gotten arrested and charged with theft, spent a couple nights in jail, and told by Hertz that he should be ashamed of himself for expecting Hertz to rent out a car and uphold the contract without calling the police.
Ouch, that Hertz.
At least, it wasn’t Hertz haha. And if it were Hertz besides what Brian has said this guy would not have gotten any service recovery from Hertz let alone a sincere apology and acknowledgement of the mistake.
Technically, Avis didn't steal the car, because they are rightful owners of it. They wrongfully took it, but no theft.
Sure, if you want to get technical about the car itself - but what about all of David's personal belongings that were inside? His EpiPen, glasses, car seats, and toll pass didn't belong to Avis. When they towed the car with his property inside and he couldn't access it, that's absolutely theft of his belongings.
Plus, even if Avis owns the car, they had a binding contract to provide David with that specific vehicle for...
Sure, if you want to get technical about the car itself - but what about all of David's personal belongings that were inside? His EpiPen, glasses, car seats, and toll pass didn't belong to Avis. When they towed the car with his property inside and he couldn't access it, that's absolutely theft of his belongings.
Plus, even if Avis owns the car, they had a binding contract to provide David with that specific vehicle for the rental period he paid for. Taking it back mid-rental without cause is still a massive breach of contract that caused real harm.
The headline might be somewhat inaccurate, but let's not lose sight of the fact that Avis wrongfully deprived a customer of both the service he paid for AND his personal property. Whether you call it "theft," "wrongful repossession," or "epic screwup," the impact on David was the same - his stuff was gone and he was stranded. Sometimes being technically correct misses the forest for the trees.
That's why I no longer keep stuff in a rental car. Child seats are kind of big so maybe that would be the exception. An epi pen is not good to keep in a hot car.
I rented from Avis in Ohio and left a camera there. I immediately when back within 5 minutes. By then, the car was moved to a remote lot. They denied there was anything in the car. Pure theft.
Avis, if you are reading this, this makes me more likely to want to do business with you. Please work to ensure handling situations like this is the rule rather than the exception.
Agree. Resolution was solid without too much back-and-forth. Avis remains my go-to.
It is so nice to see one of these car rental horror stories turn out well for the customer.
I cannot even imagine what that poor guy had to deal with, stress wise, for the first several hours.
Good for Avis to make it right. Hertz I doubt would have done so.
I know S Fallsburg well. If he was staying at SYDA they have their own security so how did they tow it?
I'm surprised by the service recovery from Avis. I'm Avis PC and had a case where they gave me the car without a full tank of gas, later assured me to reimburse for filling it up and then never doing anything and ignoring subsequent requests.
Good job on David for making an aggressive but possible ask for the service recovery. I feel like many times when you hear these stories, people want the travel provider to do something they can't actually do or feel like they offer they first receive is the only possible offer.
Wait, so the car was towed to Avis who then stole all of his belongings? Or did the towing company? That's insane!
I assume all his belongings where still in the car, technically Avis stole them from him by towing the car with them inside.
Beyond everything else, now I’m interested as to how the car got from DFW to New York! Did the previous renter go on a cross country joyride instead of coming back to Dallas, and they just had a rogue return to that office in New York? Or was there also an additional rental in between. So many questions!
Probably the previous renter drove from DFW to Scarsdale and the fact that it was a such a long one-way rental to a small location caused an issue with getting it closed out in the system.
To add to my previous comment as SMC422 having grown up in Scarsdale and my parents using that Avis car rental office in Scarsdale once, it's very small and doesn't have a real official Avis car rental representative there IIRC.
I believe one of the Shell employees there does some of the Avis car rental tasks but is probably not trained properly resulting in this situation.
Kudos to Avis for doing the right thing and taking responsibility for their mistake. I once rented from Avis in Daytona Beach. On the app, I noticed that the keys I was given did not match the car in the app. I was upgraded due to PC status but the old car still showed in the app. I went back to the counter and the agent thanked me for catching that. Bottom line, regardless of company, always check the paperwork and if possible, the app or website.
Since when does Avis have an Executive Platinum status? Of course, if Avis could extend his AA EP status and he got OWE for five years, the whole ordeal might even have been worth it!
Still better than Hertz though, who probably would have tried to have him arrested as well...
What is "Avis Executive Platinum" status...? Never heard of it...
@ Voian -- Whoops, I think there might've been a name mixup there. Updated the post, sorry.