Recently we had a horrible experience with Fox Car rental.

First off, having been myself in the car rental business when I was younger, I have "some" idea of how things are run.

Normally, car rental companies authorize or "put on hold" an amount, say, $300 when renting a car by credit card. Although no charge is actually put on the card, there is an authorization or amount held in the buffer of your credit card. The same applies when going to a gas station and paying at the pump. When you swipe the card, an amount, say, $75 is authorized. Once the transaction is complete, then the final amount is charged to your credit card. For example, if the actual expense or charge is $50 then $50 is what is processed by your credit card company. The hold amount is not shown anywhere and the only way you will know if you call your CC company or if you're near your max CC limit. The amount on hold disappears with 72 hours or so.

Fox Car rental has put a spin on this: Instead of "authorizing" the $300, they charge your credit card, I believe $125 as soon as you give them your credit card. That amount will appear on your cc account as an unbilled transaction if you go online to view your your transactions. Then, once you return your car, the actual charge is tallied up and the amount $125 less the rental (if applicable) as mentioned above is credited back to your credit card. The rental agreement is closed off.

This impacts foreigners big time because the banks use a different exchange rate when their customers buy something and another rate when they return or get a refund. If they put $100 onto your credit card and your credit company's exchange rate is $1.06, you will get dinged $106.00. If you cancel the reservation or they end up crediting you the full amount, $100, then the bank will use their buy rate, say, $1.00 for the refund. THen you will get back $100 from your charge card. You already lost $6.00 immediately. I don’t know if other car rental companies are billing this immediately. I believe this is not ethical and it's not disclosed.

Secondly. Our rental vehicle which as a 2010 Civic was pretty beat up. The battery died on the last day as we were getting ready to go the airport. We scrambled to get someone to jump start our vehicle. We were unsucessful in reaching Fox as we were disconnected three times when trying to call them. .We eventually took matters into our own hands and paid a third party to come and give us a jump. In Clark County, taxi’s can’t give jump starts. Nobody seems to carry cables any more.

And now, Fox is denying the jump start cost we incurred. Prior to this, we had another car which we returned and the tires were making loud noises when travelling above 40 mph. Tire gauge sensors showed everything was fine but the info panel showed to get the trac control serviced. The vehicle had some heavy vehicle damage and very dirty seats.

My recommendation: don’t rent from Fox no matter how cheap they are. There are Lots of complaints, especially via twitter @foxrentcar. do your research. Fox should be renamed Rent A Wreck because thats what their cars are. Their vehicles are poorly maintained and you put yourself at life’s risk every time you rent from them, at least at Las Vegas. And if you have any issues with your vehicle, you'r SOL. Fox in my opinion, seems to be the slimy car salesman of the rental car industry.