Avoid Avis Always

It is unfortunate that a nil star rating is not available. We have never hired a car from Avis in the past being very aware of their bad reputation. It appears AVIS are the only ones unaware of how they are perceived. Unfortunately, car failure whilst we were on holiday, necessitated us leaving our car at a local garage in Nelspruit and finding an alternative to drive ourselves back to JHB. The garage suggested AVIS at it was near close of business by the time we had towed the car back to Nelspruit and although we were resistant to the suggestion we felt we had little choice in the matter considering the time constraints. The car was collected for one day's hire in pouring rain and no pre-check was done. We returned the car to OR Tambo airport before 2pm only to be told by the check in clerk that the car was not leased under our name. We went directly to the AVIS counter to clarify same and closed the account, although it took almost an hour and we had to argue about the pre-lease damages to the car which were eventually found on record. We were assured that the reserve amount on our credit card and the bill would be finalised within 3 - 5 working days. This has been our experience with every other car hire company we have used and without complaint I wish to stress. The hire car was returned on the 21st July. It is now the 8th August. The reserve amount has not been reversed and we have been debited for 4 days car hire totaling almost R19 000 impacting our ability to fully use our credit card. In the interim we have been in constant contact with the AVIS dispute department and made three visits to the ORT branch, taking valuable time from our businesses, to demand that the account be corrected. In 40 years of hiring cars both locally and abroad we have never experienced this level of deliberate ineptitude. We have had our money *****ulently debited and treated with a level of disrespect that is unacceptable. AVIS should be ashamed of themselves for daring to advertise themselves as a premium car hire choice. Ashamed of themselves for shocking administration, shocking professionalism and shocking service. To treat anybody with this level of dismissal and abuse of rights is unacceptable but to treat older people so even more so.