Originally published at: Avis claims customer circled the globe in 3 days, charges her $8,079.76 - Boing Boing
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The receipt Avis gave Giovanna Boniface reads, “Odometer Out: 77224 Odometer In: 48170”
To start with, she didn’t drive 36482 km as the receipt claim, she clearly drove 29054 km in reverse. So, kudos to her. Also, she reduced the apparent mileage on the car, thus increasing its value. I think Avis owes her money.
But there’s this:
…they have not explained how they made the error.
Uh, the first digit was misrecorded as a 7 instead of a 4 on departure. Is this really that hard? I mean, that would give a trip mileage of 946, which is a LOT more than she claims but certainly within reason for a three day hire.
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Always, always, always take an odometer and fuel level photo at pickup and dropoff. If you have time, take a walkaround video at pickup and dropoff. You don’t even have to get closeups, just walk slowly and take a good overview, including wheels and roof/hood.
One rental, Europcar recorded that I brought in the car with only 1/2 tank of gas, and they charged me a convenience fee and exorbitant €/L rate. It ended up being close to 150€. After many calls and sending proof, they finally removed it. If you chargeback, there’s a good chance you’ll be banned, so use that as a last resort.
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Also, the hire was only 2 days and around 18 hours - from late afternoon on day 1 to late-morning on day 3, so @frauenfelder’s calculations re average speed are probably off. He also did notice that the receipt was in km (and converted the total distance back to mlles for USian readers) but failed to point out that the odometer readings he repeated were actually the km readings.
(Things like this are how spacecraft crash!)
TBH I would believe her mileage estimate. Even 946 km is nearly 600 miles, which seems unlikely for what is really in two days’ usage unless she was driving late into the nights and early hours. Equally likely, this was entered on a screen where numbers for two different vehicles were transposed. Someone else may also have a problem (or came out ahead).
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Beuller? … Beuller?
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Hertz has never let me down and always puts a spring in my step. Accept no substitute.
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Their software apparently stores the distance driven as a uint16, so negative numbers aren’t possible, and whatever code they’re using takes the modulus rather than bounding so -29054 got converted to 36482 when cast as a uint16 (2^16 - 29054 = 36482).
So if anyone wants to pay no mileage from this renter they should keep the vehicle until they’ve driven 65536 km and it will revert to 0 km driven on the receipt
edit: their/they’re tyop
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“The real danger is not that computers will begin to think like men, but that men will begin to think like computers.”
― Sydney J. Harris
“Evil begins when you begin to treat people as things.”
― Terry Pratchett, [I Shall Wear Midnight]
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If you feel you don’t have time, read this story and you’ll find the time. Always take the video and pictures. I’ve had it save me a few times when they pointed out dings and chips that I even noted on the pickup form but suddenly they felt they needed to charge me for.
It takes ~2 minutes, tops, to get a video of the car (inside and out) and a quick view of the milage and gas level.
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Why don’t I do this? I should do this. I am going to remember to do this.
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What makes this even more unlikely is that the vehicle was picked up at YYZ Pearson. With Toronto traffic, there’s no way that anyone could have racked up that many kilometers in that short a time.
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“And they didn’t really care. I asked to be put through to a supervisor, because sometimes that’s what you need to do and they just hung up on me. And I don’t know if they do that purposely, but I just kept getting hung up on,” she said.
Sadly, this is literally every customer service phone tree now. Actually, Avis sounds like kind of a stellar example by today’s standards because she was able to talk to an actual human at one point, and also was hung up on rather than put on hold for 25 minutes, then hung up on.
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Most likely the 48170 figure was in miles (= 77522 km)
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That’s why we should measure everything in Giant Pomeranians (Corgis if you must) so that everyone is forced to calculate it into their own system.
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How many Giant Pomeranians in a double-decker bus the size of Wales?
(Not a whale!)
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Good catch. If the odometer was switched from km to miles between the 2 readings without noticing the change in units, it would produce these readings. Not recording units for the odometer reading paired with the stupid software that took a -29k and turned it into +36k and there they are.
eta: now that the math puzzle is solved, I can take a step back and look at the much bigger issue of the sociopathically indifferent corporate approach to business
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It seems some computer program developers still haven’t heard of data sanity checking.
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Hey! There ain’t no Sanity Claus!
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Yes, this. I’ve long ago given up trying to get the people at the oil change place to print my reminder sticker in kilometers. Not because they can’t do it, but because it seriously confuses them. If I give them numbers, they can do an override and just enter whatever, but that honestly just makes it worse!
I change my display to imperial when I get in line for the oil change, let them do their thing, then change it back afterwards. Later I edit the sticker with a pen so I can get a number that actually makes sense!
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The usual “5 days for a refund” line.
Interesting how they can rip the money out of your account pretty much instantly, but when it’s a refund it takes days, maybe weeks, to refund it.
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