sindjic

Hello fellow FTers,

Any ideas how to get this ticket paid. Anyone had any experiences? Is there an online way, with credit card...I would hate to get jack-hammered by Avis on top of the steep fine, because it was their rental car...

Roger

We need a bit more info.

Do you still have the car? If so, pay it - there ought to be instructions on the notice. If you don't pay it, Avis will pay it and charge you, adding a fee.

If you've finished the rental, I imagine Avis will pay and charge you adding their fee. In this case, best to check with Avis, I guess.

Edited to add: that is a general perspective. My brother-in-law had a speeding ticket in Sydney - they sent the penalty notice to him in Zurich with instructions to pay locally.

sindjic

NO car is back. Had it last week. Did not have time to discuss with Avis personal at the airport because I was late for my flight so i thought I can do it some other way...Thanks for the info...

sindjic

Here is an update...There is a website for online ticket payments but seems that it does not cover all offenses, just speeding tickets...

https://www.amendes.gouv.fr/

N9MD

My first question is "What is a steep fine? Hey, it was just a parking ticket. In New York City it might amount to $75 to $125 depending on the NYC area where the violation occurred. Since there is nothing you can really do about (without showing up at the Paris Municipal Court to "fight" the ticket), just let nature take its course. Consider it part of your travel expenses.

If the French municipality does not receive payment by the date stipulated on the citation, a follow-up "warning" will be sent directly to the registered owner of the vehicle, in this case AVIS/France (independent from U.S. AVIS). Avis will then automatically bill the amount of the citation plus an AVIS charge to the credit card you used for the rental.

I had a slightly different situation in Leipzig (Germany) last year where I went thru a traffic light as it was changing from amber to red ... triggering a flash from a traffic camera taking a picture of my vehicle ... and I recognized immediately that I had been "targeted". Frankly, there was nothing I could do but wait for AVIS to receive the summons. Eventually, I got a statement from AVIS noting their receipt of the citation and charging the fine along with a small penalty to my credit card. I think the whole episode cost me US$80 or so ... and I just chalked it up to a travel expense.

Don't perseverate over this incident. After all, you were in Paris ... the most fabulous city in the whole world!! Just knowing that you spent time in Paris should soothe the pain.

drewnyc

Forget about it - chances are it'll never catch up with you.

jredknapp11

Honestly... I'd just skip over it for now. Keep an eye on your CC bill to see if Avis hits you with the charge, however I honestly don't think they will do anything about it.

About a year ago, when visiting some friends in the NYC area I accidently went through the EZPass toll lane at the Lincoln Tunnel... I wound up doing it on three different occassions and was never billed for the toll or the fine. I hate to admit but I wound up doing it again, twice, at the Lincoln Tunnel a few months back and was never charged.

sdsearch

Or it could come many months later??

Not Avis, but when doing a car repair a couple years ago, I rented from a local Enterprise. This was well before December of that year.

After the start of the new year, I get a bill from the city next to mine, saying I owe for two parking tickets in December, that I got with car number such and such. A little research turns up its the car I rented from that Enterprise much earlier that year. (Enterprise, when asked who had had the car on those December dates, had apparently looked things up wrong and attributed all rentals in December to me, despite the fact that I had only rented that car once many months earlier.)

It took a bit of work (over about a month) to get that city to stop billing me. (It got to the point where they already added a "late payment" surcharge!) They not only wanted proof that I didn't have the car, they wanted proof of who did have the car. (Not that I could provide that, so obviously I had to get Enterprise to cooperate.)

I know at least one of the two parking tickets showed as "paid" a month of so later, without me paying it, while the other (at the point) still didn't. That implies that maybe the managed to track down who used the car then, and bill for that?

The point is, parking tickets on rentals may take many months to get tracked down, so you shouldn't assume that just because you haven't gotten charged now you won't sometime in the future. (How they handle parking tickets for out-of-the-country drivers, that's of course a separate question.)

And some jurisdictions don't accept "I didn't get the notice to pay" as reason to not charge "late payment" surcharges! They may claim you had the original parking notice, and should have proactively paid, and if you waited to see if they would bill you, that's your fault for incurring late payment surcharges.

N9MD

Quite the opposite. It will always catch up with you. Keep in mind that the license plate is registered to AVIS or a franchised AVIS facility ... so the follow-up billing from the ticketing entity goes directly to AVIS. Since AVIS isn't going to pay the fine, they will check their records and apply the amount of the fine to your credit card used for the original rental. If your credit card number is no longer active, they will hound you with a series of mailed statements.

This scenario applies to parking tickets as well as "camera" issued moving violations where your drivers license was not recorded by a law officer at the time of the infraction.

m44

French legal system in particular is very strict and does not permit fining the person who rented the car for parking violation that may have been caused by someone else. It is only in some countries that it is permissible to fine the car owner/renter, but in those same countries the courts do not permit such violation of the basic law rule.
So just forget it. If and when the credit card gets charged by Avis - just dispute it. Nobody asked you whether you parked the car there?

AllanJ

I suppose that the rental agency would cooperate quickly if you told them using words like "hold them civilly liable" for incorrectly naming you as the culprit.

Or maybe a heart to heart talk with the mayor of that city explaining that the city should be helping solve the problems of identity theft as opposed to being the problem.

Grace B

Well, that's very interesting.

A couple of years ago I was driving through France in a vehicle I had rented from Budget in Spain (with Spanish plates). I got zapped by a speed camera, and wondered what might happen.

Well, exactly nothing happened. I guess the French authorities couldn't be bothered in following up the matter with the Spanish.

So there you go.

Roger

Great for you.

Just to contrast, my Swiss brother-in-law got a demand in Switzerland for a speeding ticket on an Avis rental in Sydney, Australia. How far away is that?

He paid using the instructions in the demand.

stimpy

I never worry about these things. Sometimes they catch up to you, sometimes they don't. The worst was when I must have passed a speed camera in the Netherlands. I got some letters sent to me in Dutch that I also didn't bother with. Then, months later, I was flying out of AMS and the immigration guy pulled me into a back room and said I had to pay a fine. It was only €120, but it was a lesson!

OTOH, I have passed several speed cameras in the UK and France and saw the flash go off, but never heard a thing about it.

courcoison

Good Evening.
May I suggest you write a letter to the address shown on the ticket.
The letter should be addressed to "Monsieur le Prefet" with the ticket.
Please indicate your name and give your address.
Explain you were not familiar with the regulation and respectfully ask to be forgiven.
In French it would read as follow:

Monsieur le Prefet:

Lors de mon dernier passage en France j'ai recu une amende.

N'etant pas familier des faits je vous prie de bien vouloir m'excuser.

Veuillez recevoir, Monsieur le Prefet l'expression de mes salutations tres respectueuses.

"your signature"

Now I cannot garantee this will work but 10 years ago I parked place de La Madeleine and got a parking ticket.

I wrote that letter and the ticket was cleared.

Good luck.