Avis Rental Car Etoll Convenience Fee Ripoff Policy Nationwide

San Francisco's Golden Gate bridge must have recently ceased having any way to pay a cashier with cash or a credit card.  You must drive straight through the old toll-taking boothes.  I rented a car from Avis at the SFO airport for seven days.  On the last day I drove across the bridge on my way back to SFO.  I live in the midwest where we don't have toll collection systems like they do in California (and elsewhere), so I don't have a personal transponder that would bill me directly for any tolls.

I recieved an email from Avis today, six weeks after the rental, with the bill for the $7 toll for crossing the bridge.  That is fine, but what I discovered is that it is Avis Rental Car policy to layer on a "Convenience Fee" of $3.95 per day for every day of the rental, up to a maximum of $16.75.  That plus the $7 bridge toll made this charge $23.75, which is over 3 times the toll.   I called to complain - a process that took literally 45 minutes to complete because of their awful robot lady phone menu and customer service waiting times - and a representative agreed to charge me the convenience fee only for the day I crossed the bridge. The representative made it VERY clear she was giving me a one time good deal and in the future I would have to pay their daily convenience fees if I did not directly pay the toll myself.

Which was interesting news!  I didn't know you could do that.  When I rented the car no one told me about the Avis policy of charging customers up to $16.75 in fees.  Apparently it was in the endless small print contract so her attitude was it is my failure to understant the contract.  I was told to avoid this every day of the car rental up to $16.75 "convenience fee" in the future I could contact the state of California directly (since I don't have a personal transponder that I carry with me when I rent a car), pay the $7 toll, and it would then not be sent over to Avis for collection.  They apparently take pictures of license plates going through the toll booth.

To any rental car company managers out there please know this...if you refuse to burden your customers as Avis, and apparently other car rental agencies prefer to do with this illogical and unfair scheme...I will become a loyal customer.  If you charge me for the days I actually use an etoll (no option to pay locally in my case, remember?), or better yet just a reasonable flat fee, instead of racking up daily charges you are a fair-minded person grounded in logic.  As far as Avis.com goes...they probably lost me because of this policy.  And otherwise I was a pretty happy, if infrequent, renter.