When Yuehao Huang returned his rental car to Avis after completing his tour of eastern Canada in September, he didn’t think much about the bill. He’d driven about 870 miles over the course of a week, but nothing excessive.
Avis thought differently. The rental car company claimed Huang haddriven over 18,000 miles more than the prepaid mileage allowance in his contract and billed him an additional $4,300.
But that claim is a bit of a stretch. Simple math puts the distance at 2,571 miles per day. That means he had driven the equivalent of atranscontinental U.S. road trip each day.
As if that weren’t impossible enough, he would have had to drive 107 miles per hour nonstop for the entirety of the trip, neglecting to stop for gas, food, sleep or even bio breaks.
Disappearing disputes
Huang disputed the charges with Avis. Having tracked his week of travel on his phone, he submitted that as evidence to the company. He was met with silence.
Weeks later, he submitted his dispute again, as advised by a company representative. But once again, there was no refund issued, and no response from Avis. That led him to dispute the charge through American Express, which told him the charge was valid.
Huang turned to the media to call attention to the billing issue.
Avis did not immediately reply to Moneywise’s request for comment on the matter, but the company did respond to City News, a Canadian media outlet.
“Following a thorough review, we confirmed that a data entry error resulted in the customer being incorrectly charged for excess mileage,” Avis said. “We sincerely apologize to the customer for the frustration and delay in resolving the matter. We are processing a refund for the mileage charges. We are also reinforcing our procedures with our teams to help prevent similar issues in the future.”
This is not a one-off for Avis either. As it turns out, the company has had similar brushes with incorrect charges in the past.
In 2022, the rental car company charged a customer an extra $6,000 fordriving more than 23,000 miles in three days. That would have meant an average continuous speed of more than 319 miles per hour. That’s about 50% faster than aFormula-1 driver averages when they’re on the track.
“No matter how much you trust your rental car company, based on previous experience, remember to take a photo before you start driving and after,” Huang told City News. “I just didn’t realize this was going to happen.”
Chris Morris is a US based veteran journalist with more than 35 years of experience at many of the biggest digital news outlets. In addition to his activities as a writer, reporter and editor, Chris is also a frequent moderator and speaker at major conferences, including CES and South by Southwest.
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