What’s this $1,357 change from National? Can you get my money back?

By Christopher Elliott Tour Troubleshooter Q I in recent days rented a car in Austin through National for days Since it was for a long period National split it into two reservations National charged me correctly for these and and I returned the car without event Two months later the company charged me another I contacted Enterprise which owns National and it agrees that I was overcharged But the local branch in Austin has been absolutely unresponsive and unhelpful in resolving this I have been an executive member for over years and never had this happen Please help me get a refund Glenn Roberts Copperas Cove Texas A National shouldn t have charged your credit card two months after you returned your car Instead it should have contacted you to let you know you had an outstanding balance and questioned for your permission to charge your credit card These types of late charges are fairly common in the trip industry The credit card companies allow them as long as you ve given the business your credit card number and authorized it to make a charge The greater part common late charges involve incidental expenses at hotels discovered after you check out like a minibar charge or a broken TV But car rental companies also do it often and in your event they did You did an excellent job of keeping a paper trail of the correspondence between you and National It s inevitably tempting to call the company to get things sorted out But then there s no evidence that you tried to resolve this or even that the company was trying to help And that can really complicate things In your situation you had written evidence from Enterprise that the Austin location had charged you an incorrect rate But Enterprise deferred to the location to resolve the billing error and it appears that after several attempts the Austin location refunded you a little more than half the amount I recommend applying gentle but steady pressure on the company to get this resolved A brief polite email to one of the National customer operation executives I list on my consumer advocacy site Elliott org might have given them the nudge they needed Could you have prevented this from happening No but National could have It split the reservation into two apparently because the system doesn t accept reservations longer than days on its site If I were a bettin man I d say that National had a system that then reconnected both of your reservations and then recalculated your rate as if you d made two separate reservations So the extra charge might have been a price differential But that s my assumption based on my conversations with National and you in addition to your paper trail Airlines do this kind of thing routinely when customers book illegal itineraries called hidden city tickets but that s a story for another time Next time maybe insist on having just one reservation That keeps things simple and avoids a achievable extra charge I contacted Enterprise on your behalf The company reviewed your file and refunded the balance of your Christopher Elliott is the founder of Elliott Advocacy a nonprofit organization that helps consumers solve their problems Email him at chris elliott org or get help by contacting him on his site