Who ME

Hi everyone,

Does anyone have experience with www.rentalcarticket.com?

I noticed a charge on my AA MasterCard from this company for $30. After researching their site I noticed it was for a Hertz rental in April 2008. Apparently my toll tag did not read at the toll plaza and it was billed via my rental contract.

I contacted the toll authority to find out about this and they said no tolls were ever paid and the toll charged to Hertz was dismissed.

Has anyone been billed the $30 "administration" fee from this company?

Let me know...

Thanks!

stlgriff

I would definitely contest the administration fee.

I was billed in January for expired registration. I determined this because the origin of the ticket was Miami-Dade County Florida, for a rental car I had in Iowa (with Florida plates).

I contacted www.rentalcarticket.com and they eventually credited me back the entire amount ($18 ticket + $30 administration fee). They're not very good at followup communication, by the way.

I would contact Hertz customer support and get them involved. If you did all the legwork of contacting the toll company, you are entitled to at least some token compensation from Hertz.

Who ME

stlgriff,

Thanks for sharing your experience.

I have filed the paperwork with rentalcarticket.com and will contact Hertz as well.

From the communication with the billing agent at rentalcarticket dot com Hertz contracts with them to resolve issues with tolls, tickets, etc. Unfortunately, it seems that this is Hertz's way of washing its hands of dealing with any of those issues on their own.

The agent told me the information he received from Hertz shows I owe $25.75 to the tollway authority. In addition rentalcarticket charges the $30 administration fee. I was only billed the fee.

In my case, the tollway authority shows that the $ .70 toll, yes, 70-cents was dismissed against Hertz when Hertz did not respond to receiving the bill. NOTE that Hertz never contacted me about this or tried charging me the 70-cents.

The tollway authority shows the full $25.75 fee in the documentation they provided me and show the status of the violation as closed. They would not even charge me the 70 cents because they had no way of re-opening the file.

I wanted to let my fellow Flyertalk members know about this so they can take the appropriate action when renting from Hertz or when faced with a possible toll or citation they might want to evade. It took almost 10 months for this to appear on my credit card so eventually someone will catch it.

I took the right steps on my rental. I added the rental car to my toll tag account and it still bit me.

Driver beware!

Who ME

Without any notification from www.rentalcarticket.com I noticed that a $30 credit was posted to my credit card.

I will continue to monitor this to see if it is simply a temporary refund while they investigate or if it means that the matter is closed.

Who ME

Final update:

Received a call from www.rentalcarticket.com today and was informed that a credit would be posted to my account and thanking me for my patience.

Anthemflyer

I received a parking ticket in NH last July. It was the usual ticket on the windshield w/ an envelope. I paid the $15 ticket by check when I got home.

In Nov 08 I got a notice form ATS processing service, which "acts on behalf of Hertz" saying I owed them $30! After numerous emails and phone calls, I faxed a copy of my canceled check to a "supervisor" at ATS. I even recieved an email confirming they had received the documentaion.

Yesterday, April 15th, 2009, I received another notice for the same ticket! Again, demanding payment of $30. I had saved the original emails, including the one from the supervisor. I forwarded all of this to ATS. Today, I got an email, saying they lost all the previous documentation and could I resend it!!

Ironically, I had just received a letter from Hertz this week, congratulating me on achieving President's Circle! woohoo.

crabbing

only after they pay your $30 administration fee...

OHare

This company is a disaster and has very poor record-keeping processes. Their goal is to collect $30 from as many people as will pay--mostly business travelers. This has gone on since March 2008.

President's Circle Members are exempt from ATS processing fees. Don't let them charge you. They will sometimes lie about having improper records of your status hoping that you'll pay anyway.

They also do not respond to e-mails.

DJ_Iceman

That's the way I read this thread. They are hoping that a large number of people won't even notice the $30 charge, or will simply accept it. Then, by making it so onerous to get the charge reversed they hope more people will just give up. They hire minimal customer service staff, so their costs must be next to nothing. It doesn't take many $30 charges to turn a tidy profit...

houmanh

I am living in California. I got a ticket while in a trip in Canada, I used my Canadian credit card and US driver license, before coming back to US I canceled the Canadian credit card, now after 3 month ATS sent me a letter that they paid on behalf of me the ticket amount and request that they be reimbursed immediately.
since the credit card already is canceled and i am living in California, would be any consequences if I do not pay them? the ATS is an American registered company but since the violation occurred in Canada I doubt if there would be any judgment in US? right?

suzanneaustin

I had the identical thing happen to me on the Dallas Tollway, but why, I don't know. I was told by rentalticket.com that they had a photo of the license plate of the Hertz car that I was driving when I "ran through the tollbooth without paying." They also said that it was taken at 11 PM. I told them that I had picked the car up from DFW at 4:30 and was sound asleep in my hotel room in Denton at 11 PM, never having been in Dallas. I had to fax them the copy of my Hertz agreement, my plane ticket, and my hotel receipt. They still refused to dismiss it totally and said that they would have to charge me an "administrative fee" of $2.50. It wasn't worth further argument for $2.50, so I let it go at that point. What a ripoff.

By the way, I am President's Circle and it didn't save me from this travesty. If this happens again, I'm taking my 50+ rentals a year back to AVIS.

CouponSurfer

What's interesting is that rentalcarticket.com is part of American Traffic Solutions (ATS). ATS outsources photo speed and red light tickets and toll collection for many cities and highways. ATS also runs platepass.com. They provide the system AND collect the fines.

Mile High Club

Not to resurrect a dead horse, but my wife just got their $30 admin fee letter for allegedly running a red light in CA. I went on a personal quest to get to the bottom of this and here's what I found. ATS bills the $30 bucks, and processes/releases rental information for the driver to the issuing agency for the violation (which is --surprise the vendor that owns the cameras). Interestingly, the $30 fee is billed by ATS Processing Services, but the Hertz #1 Gold contract authorizes release of info by Hertz to "American Traffic Solutions". Not ATS Processing Services. Doesn't authorize re-release of the info either. So here's Hertz releasing our private info (credit card, license, etc) to god knows who.

Since ATS Processing Services is trying to collect a bill supposedly owed to Hertz, I've been told ATS is acting as a "debt collector" under the Federal Debt Collection Practices Act. FDCPA is a federal law to protect consumers against sledgehammer collection practices by third party collectors. Basically, every violation (and there are hundreds of them) carry a $1,000 ding and atty fees. So a collector can't send you a $30 fee for releasing info about you when you never authorized that collector to release the info to begin with. $1000 ding right there.
What makes this story so absurd is when I logged in to view the citation, it actually shows a video of the car and photos!! Wow, talk about big brotha. Well the driver is a clearly a guy and my wife is a... woman. Hmm, given the gender difference, how can she be responsible for another driver running a light?? And the fine is over $450... And it's issued to a PO box in Arizona and requires an appearance in Court in CA (we live in PA). So, lots of issues. But the bottom line is that ATS and the various municipalities have a nice racket where they bill $500 for an infraction to out of state customers and it's easier to pay than to battle for your rights.
But w/the FDCPA, you can fight them and most lawyers will actually take these cases b/c they get their fees right from the collector that was trying to screw you. Hope this helps someone else!!

Beckles

I got a red-light ticket in Chicago over a year ago and ATS sent me a bill for $30, I went ahead and paid it, not realizing at the time as a President's Club member I did not have to. I never bothered pursuing the matter even once I learned I shouldn't have had the fee as a President's Club member.

Yesterday I received a refund check for $30 from them, so apparently Hertz must have gotten on them about charging people who should have never been charged. I had no idea what the check was for until I Googled their name.

lial

I rented from Hertz in JFK this past November. I used my own transponder (EZPass NJ). The transponder didn't register going through one of the tunnels (Holland) on 11/5/10, although it did register everything else (NJ Turnpike/GSP).

I received a notice from ATS dated 12/13/10 alerting me of the violation along with the $30 admin fee.

I immediately contacted the administrators of the Holland Tunnel (Port Authority), who told me to send a check for the toll ($8) along with a letter requesting a courtesy waive for the $50 admin fee (because my transponder didn't registered).

I checked with Port Authority in the upcoming week, and they received my letter + check, and stated that they are not waiving the $50 administrative fee because I didn't pay the $8 toll within 15 days of the initial notice (to Hertz).

So now, I am being penalized for Hertz/ATS not working fast enough... or Hertz not paying the inital bill and then passing it on to me.

I'm being forced to pay $50 admin fee to Port Authority and a $30 admin fee to ATS.

Any thoughts or personal experience from anyone?

Because of this experience, I likely will avoid Hertz/Advantage/Avis/Budget in the future due to their contracts with ATS.