I'd love some advice from the experts here on how to deal with an Avis rental headache we are in the middle of.

Earlier this week my mother picked up a rental at the Avis counter at PBI -- we made the reservation a few weeks out. The desk agent who checked her out made an error, and closed the rental a few minutes into the transaction (she hadn't left the desk, let alone received a car). A manager came out to apologize and said it would take a few minutes to fix the error. It turned out to be about 45 minutes while they "reinstated" the rental, during which time we received an email from Avis with a receipt for a completed rental that lasted 4 minutes, with a charge of almost $200! The manager promised to refund the mistaken charge $200 charge, and handed her a new rental agreement and provided a car, and she drove off.

That evening we realized the agreement that the manager had provided was for the 4-minute rental, so we reached out to Avis to get a copy of the contract (no current rental was showing on her Avis account). Customer service said the system had not been updated, and the new contract had not been issued, so he would have to reach out to the location and ask them to send us the new rental agreement. He did provide us a the rental agreement number of the second rental. He also said no refund had been requested on the 4-minute rental, but he could see that was an obvious mistake so he said he was processing that. While we don't have the refund showing on the credit card yet, we did get a confirming email from Avis customer service saying the refund was in process. So fingers crossed the financial part is handled.

But this morning we received an email from Avis with the second rental agreement, but this agreement -- like the first mistaken one -- is also showing as having lasted only four minutes on the day we picked up the car (Nov 3), and is listed as a completed rental. Simultaneously she has begun receiving texts from Avis that the rental is three days overdue, and needs to be returned. Despite the fact the Avis handed the keys to this new vehicle long after the time shown as the end of the rental.

We spent over an hour on the phone this morning with Avis (including the management desk, whatever that is) and while they are polite, they are useless. They say they need to speak with the PBI location, but Avis' systems are down so they are unable to reach their PBI office. "Our technicians are working around the clock but we have not been able to dial PBI." They said the vehicle has been reported as overdue, but seeing the mistake, they will try to elevate this to their vehicle retrieval team so that they get the word not to seize the vehicle, but this will take 3-4 business days! In the meantime they said the vehicle is at risk of being seized "with the owner's property inside". They acknowledge the mistake made by PBI but say they are powerless to fix it.

The final manager we spoke with said the only resolution is to drive to PBI to get them to fix the problem. I am annoyed that my mother needs to drive an hour to fix Avis' problem and waste time she is supposed to be enjoying in Florida. And my mother is afraid to drive the car because -- having seen news reports of this happening -- she is worried about pulled over on the way to PBI and arrested for having a "stolen" vehicle. Which is not crazy, given my experience with this company so far.

Is there any way to get Avis to correct their mistake, short of driving in a car that will show up as "stolen"? Twitter, a chat function, anything that might get them to wake up to their error and correct it? (Going to the media, even?) It's hard to believe a simple error by one desk agent cannot be fixed.