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I was horrified to find I received a bill for $76 yesterday for $1 of tolls assessed to my car during the one day I was driving a Dollar rental car during my recent trip to Florida. I made every attempt to pay tolls in cash during my recent trip. However, due to Florida's all electronic system, where in areas there is only an electronic charge, and those from out of town have no way to pay, and may not even be aware a charge is being assessed. I had charges of .25, .25, and .50, a total of $1 in fees. Dollar then proceeded to add $25 fee to each charge, sending me a bill for $76. (2900% of the charges that would be assessed by the state of Florida) When I talked to Dollar, they reduced the fee to $16, but this is still 600% of the costs that would have been assessed by the state of Florida. (Florida assesses a $2.50 per 30 day administrative fee for out of state drivers)
This practice seems highly unethical, fraudulent; since their total pure profit from this practice is more than the cost of renting the car, and I would appreciate your looking into ways this practice can be addressed.
Avoid Dollar, ...and be very careful about renting a car in Florida. Apparently you can buy transponders for the toll system in the supermarket, but I was not aware I needed one. Buyer, and DOLLAR former customer, beware!
The complaint has been investigated and resolved to the customer’s satisfaction.
I suffered the exact same treatment for driving a Dollar rental car on the Florida Turnpike, except my bill is $152. The citation date/times are only a few minutes a part - 1:52, 1:56, 1:57. Are these auto-tolls that close together? I know that I stopped and paid six tolls. I'm about to phone Dollar to complain and appreciate reading this post.
Neither the related rental car policies, nor the hidden collection posts are apparent. You would think that the desk staff would warn customers of this problem, as it is clearly a wide-spread issue. It seems to me that Dollar rather enjoys collecting $25 on a $ 0.25 toll.
I had exact the same problem. I rented from Dollar at the beginning of my trip and from Budget at the end. I had 2 completely different experiences.
The Dollar rep did not say one word about the toll issue in Florida. Being that I'm from another state this seems like a pretty important thing to mention. I was not offered a Sun Pass by the salesman. It may have been in the contract somewhere, but the salesmen never said a word. If I had know about the ridiculous fees I would have taken it. After I complained about additional charges Dollar waved 2 out of the 3 charges they hit me with. It still cost me $25. By the way, the Dollar cars all have SunPasses installed by default. The customer service rep I spoke to confirmed this. The violation fees are from Dollar, not the state.
I rented from Budget at the end of my trip. Budget had signs up everywhere warning about the toll issue. They also had the SunPasses installed in each car. The only exceptions were full-size vans. I remember this because everything was made very clear when I picked up my car. There was no SunPass rental fee either. They informed me that I would be billed for any tolls. That's exactly at they did about a week later.
Guess who I'm renting from next time I'm in Florida?
Ignore Stealth Pilot. He's obviously on the payroll. I never "blew through" any tolls. I stopped at every toll I encountered. These tolls were apparently collected in stealth mode without any notice. You can't pay tolls that are not marked. Desk staff at Miami International are well aware that most of their customers are going to drive on this highway. Obviously Dollar Rental Car (and partner Thrifty) are making money from this deal. They are also losing a lot of customers. Lesson learned, 'nuff said.
Stealth Pilot:
What is your deal?
You've responded to almost 5000 posts on this site. Looks like 90% of the time you're slamming the person with the issue or calling them stupid.
The people who post here have legitimate issues. They are looking for solutions.
Not much to do in Rosebud, SD huh?
The Dollar rep asked the question "Will you do much driving in Florida". "I suppose so" was my response. "OK we'll enable Sun Pass for you. Florida is now cashless so you need this". We asked the question "So we'll only be charged for what we use?" . "Yes, up to $40 max".
This all sounded reasonable. What he did not explain was that this is a daily/weekly charge regardless of the amount of tolls we use.
The Dollar rep was essentially just a dishonest salesman. He did not clearly explain the system. We avoided any penalties but on our whole trip the total Toll costs would not have exceeded $10 and we could have paid cash at the toll booths.
Clearly this is bad practice that they will get away with for a while until the loop is closed and they find another way to scam money from their customers.
I rented a car in July at LAX. Stayed in southern CA for the entire rental duration. I just received a message from my credit card company yesterday notifying me that I was charged $205.65 for rental car tolls. I went online at rentalcarticket.com and was able to get a copy of Dollar's Charge Notice. These charges were for supposedly tolls at Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco. Of course I called Dollar Traffic Violation to dispute - I am not sure whether this was Dollar or a third party company. I am confident that this will get sorted out eventually. But I am just outraged by what has happened. I wonder if this could be a systematic scheme. Is Dollar known for having this sort of practices?
I just received a bill for a $0.78 toll plus a $15.00 administrative fee for a rental during our vacation in June. Based on the time stamp of the violation, it was 12:38am the first day we arrived. Our flight was VERY delayed so we did arrive Orlando at this early morning hour, so I would not be surprised if we missed a toll booth because of how tired we were. All other tolls we paid in cash throughout the trip, and during the day, so we didn't miss any other booths. Our rental was through Expedia with Dollar and with the extra driver and basic insurance we elected, the final charge was more than double what Expedia quoted us, but I think that was because of the extras we added. Our $15.78 fee is minute compared to some of your other stories I'm reading here, but there's no way for me to prove I paid the toll that they say I didn't. Tough business and sad. I paid the fee because it won't break me but still frustrating! I can only imagine how those with tougher fines feel, especially when they know they are false accusations!