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When Does a $5 Toll Cost $30? When You're Driving a Rental Car
By Justin Bachman August 29, 2014
With the rise of “cashless” turnpikes, where tolls are collected via a device such as EZ-Pass rather than at tollbooths, rental car companies have found two ways to pass those costs on to their customers, both unpopular: Customers can choose to rent a pass for as much as $20 a day, which they’ll pay whether or not they pass through a toll plaza, or they can pay the fines for going through the lanes without a pass, plus a hefty processing fee tacked on by the rental company.
Customers are ticked at what seems like yet another charge, like fees for checked baggage. After a Florida Dollar Rent a Car added $30 in administrative fees to a bill for $2.74 in tolls, Roxanna Usher of Redwood Valley, Calif., vented her spleen on the entire state. “I’m angry beyond belief and can’t even imagine coming back to your state,” she wrote in a Jan. 13 complaint to Florida’s attorney general. “Talk about a corrupt state! It’s disgusting what you’re doing to tourists—the mainstay of your economy.”
Florida’s attorney general has received nearly 100 similar complaints in the past 18 months from rental car customers regarding the toll violation fees. The office is investigating fee complaints from customers of Dollar Thrifty, Avis Budget Group( CAR), and Enterprise Holdings, according to spokesman Whitney Ray. The issue has also prompted consumer lawsuits by renters in Florida, New Jersey, New York, and Washington state. |
