Beyond spurious damage claims, a car rental company tried a new scam on me

It doesn’t matter how much of a rush I’m in – every car rental starts the same way. Videos all around. Photos all around. Close-ups of any scrapes, dents or stone chips … and that’s just the start.

I’m meticulous, and my experiences over the years have proven that’s a necessity.

Along with photos of the car’s panels, I also take clear shots of every window, and multiple images of the windscreen, including from the inside. A spurious claim that I’d chipped the windscreen on a day drive in Adelaide was quickly shut down when I could show that miniscule chip was present at the start.

But there’s far more to rental car scams and extra charges than the routine frivolous claims for physical damage. Fuel charges can be big money to car hire companies, so it pays for renters to stay one step ahead.

With every new rental, I photograph the dashboard too. This creates a clear record of the odometer – handy to avoid extra charges, when limited kilometres are included – and the fuel gauge. I do the same when I return the car.

This has been a habit for years, and as there hadn’t been any disputes, I’d started feeling like I was wasting my time. But hiring a car at Toronto Airport finally proved this effort to be worth it.

After an uneventful hire, I’d returned the car without issue. I was on time, hadn’t exceeded my driving allowance, the fuel tank was full, and I had a return slip to prove that everything was squared off. (Take a photo of that as well, in case the paper gets misplaced.)

But after returning to Australia, a random charge appeared on my credit card. The company says that due to an “administrative error”, I hadn’t been correctly billed for returning the vehicle without a full tank. As a “gesture of goodwill”, I’d received a “discounted” rate for their oversight.

I quickly checked my photos: the tank was full. The return slip also showed the car with “8/8” on the fuel gauge, as a backup. They were not offering a discount and certainly weren’t driving any goodwill – they were scamming me. But they’d picked the wrong victim.

I promptly demanded that the charge be substantiated or the amount refunded. For instance, where was the receipt for this refuelling expense? Surely they had one, and it was dated immediately after the vehicle’s return? No? Thanks for the refund.

I was not quite as lucky with road tolls, which I’d accidentally used once during the trip. While the toll itself was about $CAD1.49 ($1.52), the car hire company’s administration fee inflated this to more than $CAD36 on my credit card statement. Yikes …

It was a rip-off, but unlike