Rental car company claims customer drove 23,000 miles in 3 days, so they gave her a $6,000 bill

A car rental company charged a Canadian customer nearly $6,000 for renting a car for three days. The company, Avis, justified the charge by claiming that she drove for nearly 23,000 miles (36,000 km). But the circumference of Earth is 24,901 miles, and since it is physically impossible to drive that much, the driver, Giovanna Boniface appealed against the overcharge. She claimed that the car was driven for 185 miles at best and requested a refund. However, she was unexpectedly taken on a roller-coaster ride by the company, local news outlet North Shore News reported.

$6,000 for driving around the world

Speaking to North Shore, Boniface said that she rented a GMC Yukon Denali from the Toronto Pearson Airport. She took the car to help her daughter move to college and claimed that she only drove from the airport, downtown Toronto, to Kitchener, Ontario, where she visited her mother-in-law. Thus, she estimated that it could have been 186 miles (300km) at best. She then returned the car at the airport before checking in for a flight to Europe.

She told CTV news that she prepaid about $600 (1,000 Canadian Dollars) for the car. While waiting to board her flight, she checked her credit card statement to make sure that the payment went through. That was when she realized that the company had charged her over $6,000 (8,000 Canadian Dollars). She told the news outlet that the company charged her 25 cents per kilometers for about 36,482 kilometres.

"I could have driven to and from South Africa and still had several thousand kilometers to spare," she told The Daily Hive. She added that she doesn't drive her car that much in a year, let alone three days. Boniface shared that she immediately wanted to go back through security and check with the Avis counter. However, since the queue was extremely long, she decided to call the company instead.

A turn for the worse

Boniface and her husband tried calling Avis’s Pearson airport location for 90 minutes straight. However, nobody picked up and they had to leave a voicemail, she told North Shore. When she finally connected with a service agent, the response was unexpected. “They didn't really care. I asked to be put through to a supervisor because sometimes that's what you need to do and they just hung up on me," she told the news outlet. 

She added that there was no response from the company for days. She also tried to dispute the charge on her credit card but that didn't help her as well. She said that the payment should have been flagged as soon as it went through. 

Boniface told CTV News that she finally got a response from the company only after her story received media attention. She was informed that the extra charges would be soon refunded. In a statement to the news outlet, Avis said it had apologized to Boniface for the error and issued a refund. However, the cause of the error wasn't clarified.

Boniface expressed that while she understood that mistakes happen, she wasn't happy with the way her case was handled. Regarding renting cars in the future, she said that she would advise against the express drop-off option as the quick service may come at a hefty cost.

This article originally appeared 2 months ago.