We start this story with a question. Is it possible to drive 4,100 kilometres a day, for seven-straight days and only refuel twice the entire time? To put that into perspective that’s roughly the equivalent of driving from Montreal to Revelstoke B.C., which according to navigation apps, cannot be done in a 24-hour period.
But according to one Toronto man’s rental checkout bill, he did exactly that.
“I just said to myself, this can’t be right,” said Yuehao Huang, who reached out to Speakers Corner after failing to get the charges reversed.
On Sept. 11, Huang flew from Toronto to Montreal where he then picked up a rental vehicle he had prepaid for to embark on a seven-day road trip with visiting family members.
“We went to Montreal, Mount Tremblant, Ottawa and then back to Quebec. That’s it,” he said.
The trip itself was memorable and his iPhone tracked the entire amount of kilometres travelled.
“Which includes when I was hiking and not driving the car. It was 1,400 kilometres total,” he said. “But when I returned home to Toronto, I see a bizarre $5,900 charge from Avis and I couldn’t figure out why.”
That charge was in addition to the more than $1,000 he had already prepaid.
Avis responded, telling Huang he had exceeded the mileage he prepaid by a massive amount, wracking up 28,933 kilometres in seven days.
“The way I estimated it is that would be me driving 180 km/h, 24 hours, no stop, no gas, no sleep,” he said. “Also, if I really drove 28,000 kilometres, the vehicle would need oil change and maintenance.”
He immediately challenged the bill, sending in evidence. Avis had agreed to investigate but Huang said when he followed up weeks later and no refund was issued, he was told to resubmit his complaint.
He also challenged the charge with his credit card company, American Express. They also investigated and reached out to Avis.
The day before we spoke with him, that request was also a dead end.
“Just yesterday, I got the reply from Amex and Avis basically told them ‘charges are valid.’”
He then spoke with Speakers Corner. We reached out to Avis and within one day received a response.
“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.”
Happy with the outcome, Huang is now warning other renters. While he took a photo of the odometre when he returned the vehicle, he didn’t when he started the trip—something he says would’ve made this whole process easier.
“No matter how you trust your rental car company, based on previous experience, remember to take a photo before you start driving and after,” said Huang. “I just didn’t realize this was going to happen.”
