Car Rental Unauthorised Credit Card Charge

Obtained a car rental under insurance policy whilst my car is repaired.
Insurance paid out 5 days advanced car hire with view to extend up to 3 months as long as my car is needed for repair.

Car took 6 days, returned it and the rental company charged me 1 day rate to my Credit Card (which was only used for security purposes)?
Called back Rental Car Company and asked them to charge the insurance and refund me the 1 day rate - accepted.

4 weeks later I was sifting through my receipts in wallet and saw the receipt of payment of 1 day to my CC, I thought crap - they didnt refund me the 1 day.
I called up and complained, operator went on hold for 10mins, came back and said…umm sir we found out we refunded $500 instead of $50, please confirm?
Im like well if I new that would I be calling you?? Operator thought good question, they said send us your bank statement to prove otherwise, I said ok.

Checked my online transactions dating back 4 weeks and indeed it was 500, can't believe I missed it. I thought i'll get them the bank statement when I get time later next week.
They called back next day to follow up and missed the call.
Got busy and forgot about it for 1-2 weeks

Checked my online balance and they decided to pull up my Stored Credit Card (which I never agreed to be stored) and charged it 500 and credit 50.
They wrote me an email and said "thank you we placed a charge on your stored credit card and provided the correct refund"

Whilst i 100% agree the money must go back to them and dont intend to 'steal it' - at no point did I:

  • Authorise that transaction
  • Agree for my Card details to be stored 6 weeks+ (probably indefinitely).

There are other ways to claim this back, such as sending me a formal invoice….what do you guys think?

Poll Options expired

  • 65
    They did the right thing - nothing illegal
  • 2
    Wrong they shouldn't have stored your CC nor charged it

Comments

  • If the banks say it's ok to store the details then there's not much you can do. They're the ones taking the risk.

    • wasnt the bank that stored it - the rental car company did.

      At the time of filling the form they advised CC needed for security purposes only

      • +1

        Yes. Security of payment. Which you didn't sort out. So they envoked their right to charge you correctly.

        You're just pissed that you shot yourself in the foot with your complaint, that backfired.

        Karma. Learn from her.

  • +5

    You actually didn’t contact them for 1-2 weeks after you found out?

    • You actually didn’t contact them for 1-2 weeks after you found out?

      There was no direct number, when I called the 1300 they left it went to the customer menu for complaints/etc

  • +8

    Must be on good coin if you dont notice $500 difference to your account x.

    • It was to credit card - maybe OP is in so much debt the extra $500 reduction did go unnoticed.

      Let’s try not to judge at the best of times, let alone the current climate.

      • +3

        To confirm my understanding, which climate is it okay comment in?

      • maybe OP is in so much debt the extra $500 reduction did go unnoticed.

        sadly that's the truth…CC in big debt that +500 wouldnt have been noticeable hence why I called to get $50 back and they inadvertently investigated till they found the 500 I didn't notice

        • All the best with everything frostman

  • +1

    Car rental companies have to store your credit card to be able to charge toll road once reconciled and possibly if they receive penalty notices for parking etc…

  • +13

    Did you lose out in the end? No. Move on with your life.

  • +3

    You were going to pay it back anyway but it had skipped your mind for a few weeks. Now they took it back and you don't have to spend more time on it anymore, so all is good in the end unless you didn't want to pay it back…

    • Nah had to pay it back anyway…just hated the forced charge.
      If i knew about the +$500 and had ill intentions I would have had 4 weeks to cancel my card and let them go through legal but I didnt.

  • You haven't had time to make this post on ozb all this time. And out of sudden, once they rectified their mistake.. You even have the free time to make a forum post.
    LoL

  • +2

    The company did the right thing in trying to get in touch with you again you before making the charge to your credit card, not just going ahead with no warning at all as some car rental companies are notorious for doing. You then apparently "forgot about it" for a couple of weeks, so of course when they didn't hear back from you/couldn't get in contact with you, they went ahead and processed the transactions as you were giving an indication (from their perspective) that you possibly didn't intend to do anything about it. They didn't do anything wrong, as others have said, you didn't lose out and the issue is now sorted.

  • lol, bad luck op, karma.

  • Just think free CC points

    • hahaha didnt think about that?

  • I don't see the point of this post, OP. Once you gave the car rental company your CC details, were you given an option to specify how long they can retain such information? No!
    They still have your CC details on file. Posting this thread on OzBargain won't change it.

Login or Join to leave a comment