The Police Seized My Rental Car Reported Stolen and Avis Won’t Refund Me

Dear Tripped Up,

In late May, I flew with my daughter from California to Kennedy International Airport in New York, where I rented a car from Avis and headed to Connecticut for a three-day family visit. On day two, I parked the car in Waveny Park in New Canaan and when I returned, it was gone. The local police told me they had impounded the rental because Avis had reported it stolen to the New York Police Department. I had planned to spend the last day of my trip with my 80-something mother, whom I had not seen for three years because of the pandemic, but had to waste precious hours on hold with Avis’s customer service department. They eventually offered me a new car but I was unable to coordinate picking it up, so we ended up relying on my sisters to get around. I was only able to spend a few hours with my mom and had to take a $100 Uber back to the airport. I asked Avis not to charge me for the rental, but they did, $653, and when I disputed the charge with Capital One, Avis fought me. I can’t believe Avis is renting out cars they have reported stolen, and then charging its clients. Can you help? Lorraine, El Dorado Hills, Calif.

Dear Lorraine,

It is very frustrating that Avis did not quickly issue you a refund or, even better, go out of its way to get you a new car. But my reporting shows that the real question is not whether Avis is “renting out cars they have reported stolen” — it’s whether they knew the previous renter had reported it stolen and still somehow gave it to you.

Through Edelman, a public relations firm, Avis sent me a statement from Beth Gibson, the company’s vice president for customer experience. In it, Ms. Gibson said Avis apologized to you and has now refunded the rental cost, and implied that the company had not known the rental was reported stolen.

“We regret that the refund did not occur more expeditiously. Avis only reports to authorities as a last resort and has comprehensive safeguards in place to prevent erroneous or premature theft notifications,” the statement continued, then it noted that the car rented to Lorraine “was reported stolen by a previous renter without our prior knowledge, which caused our customer’s rental car to be towed.”

What did the two police forces involved have to say? A statement I received from the New York Police Department at least partially backs up Avis’s story: On Friday, May 26, at 8:17 p.m., “a 42-year-old female” reported that she had earlier “parked her car in…