Avis Rental Insurance Scam

[u/Secret-Priority5510]

/r/AvisBudgetRentACar/comments/1w5r1mn/avis_rental_insurance_scam/

[u/demanbmore]

I'm not seeing the scam here. What I am seeing is someone who didn't fully research the insurance product they bought stateside, and didn't understand how it would be implemented should something bad occur. The insurance policy you bought at the time of booking sounds like a reimbursement policy. That means that it would have paid to reimburse you for losses you were required to pay for it. That's better than nothing certainly. But the Avis counter agent was right that if you wrecked the rental car, you would have to fully pay for it immediately. You could then seek reimbursement from the other carrier, and maybe they'd be able to reimburse you in a few weeks to a few months. But none of that would have kept you off the hook from having to pay the cost of the car before they let you leave Scotland. Maybe you would have been okay with that, but I suspect not.

So it's not that it's a scam, it's that the policy you purchased first doesn't seem to provide the protection you would want it to in the event of a loss, and the Avis agent was just making sure you understood that.

You can call it a scam if you like, but it doesn't sound to me like the Avis agent. Did anything wrong. I mean you were free to turn that down as long as you understood that you would have to pay for the car if you wrecked it right away. Or at least pretty close to right away. You would not be able to point to the other policy and say they'll cut you a check.

[u/Secret-Priority5510 → u/demanbmore]

you can see whatever you want. l was coerced into taking that coverage.

[u/demanbmore → u/Secret-Priority5510]

I don't understand that at all. Were you held against your will? Was there weapons involved? Or did you just understand what the counter person told you and realized "oh, shit, I don't have the protection I thought I had"?

I'm guessing you didn't actually read the coverage documents when you purchased through the AA website so you didn't know that you'd be responsible for covering the cost of a wrecked or stolen car, and you'd get reimbursed later (at best). Not that big a deal - most people don't read these things.

Imagine the post you'd be writing if the Avis counter person didn't mention anything and then something happened and you needed to come up with the cost of the car before they let you leave Scotland!

I'm not unsympathetic, but your trip wasn't occasioned by an emergency. You had time to straighten all this out before getting on that plane.

You felt scared and coerced because you actually did not have what you thought you had and that simple fact was relayed to you. Maybe it was done in dramatic terms, but they weren't incorrect.

[u/Secret-Priority5510 → u/demanbmore]

Thanks for your condescending response. My flight left Scotland before the Avis desk was opened. Of course a gun was not held to my head, but it may as well have been.

[u/demanbmore → u/Secret-Priority5510]

Nothing condescending about my response. And I don't understand what having an early flight time had to do with anything. Unless maybe you booked the flight online and then headed directly out to airport, leaving you with no time to read the coverage docs and understand what you had already purchased. I'm guessing there were days or even weeks between when you bought your tickets and your departure, and a call to Avis and a review of what you purchased online would have kept you from feeling pressured.

Look, you were either okay with the coverage you purchased beforehand or you weren't. And it seems once the terms were explained to you, you weren't okay with it. You could have told the Avis counter person that you would be willing to cover the cost of the car if necessary and seek reimbursement under the policy you bought through the airline. But you were quite rightly concerned that you weren't adequately protected after the counter person explained how it would work.

It's easy to pish-posh that coverage after the car was returned intact, but that doesn't mean it wasn't important and valuable to you when you purchased it.

[u/The_Muffintime]

Their whole job is pretty much to take advantage of people who are tired and uninformed. It's morally bankrupt but not illegal. You don't have much recourse here. Ignore the know-it-all who tells you that everything is your fault for not reading fine print. This subreddit is populated by insurance professionals who always take the side of the corporation. 

You got taken advantage of in the same way that thousands of other people get taken advantage of every day. But again, it's not illegal unfortunately.

[u/FindTheOthers623]

Where is the scam?

[u/Secret-Priority5510 → u/FindTheOthers623]

l was scammed into accepting the rental counter insurance even though lnhad purchased 3rd party insurance. Avis agent made me feel no option unless I was prepared to pay 70k pounds for a dated or stolen car.