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The Haggler

A Car Renter’s Costly Detour to Collection Center Drive

Credit...Christoph Hitz

Maybe a day will come when Payless Car Rental stops pointlessly antagonizing its customers, but as far as the Haggler can tell, that day is far off. He has written twice about the company already in 2016, and the complaints keep flowing in.

This isn’t unusual. When any business appears in this highly uncoveted space, readers often pipe up with letters in the “That happened to me, too!” vein. The difference here is that new Payless letters describe behavior even more egregious than that previously described here, and that makes a return to the subject somewhat irresistible. You will note this letter goes on at a slightly greater than average length. That is because it contains a slightly greater than average amount of crazy.

Q. In April, when I made a Payless Car Rental reservation online, the estimate for seven days was $256. When I got to the Austin, Tex., airport, an employee at the Payless counter asked a few times if I wanted personal liability insurance. I declined it, over and over.

But when I returned the car a week later, my bill was $527. The reason? I’d been charged for that insurance and other add-ons that I had said I didn’t want. When I pointed this out to the woman behind the counter — the same woman who had rented me the car a week earlier — she said she lacked the authority to remove any charges.

Then she did something odd: She took the contract to a back office and never returned with it. Instead, she emerged with a phone number and suggested I call to complain.

I disputed the charge with American Express. On June 1, I was informed that the dispute was resolved in my favor and that $222 would be refunded. (Why that figure, and not more, I don’t know.) Payless was undeterred. A week later, I received a letter from the company with the words “Debit advice” written over and over. The address I was told to send money to was — and this is not a joke — 32961 Collection Center Drive, Chicago, Ill.

Worried about my credit rating, I sent the company a certified check. It was cashed.

Amazingly, a week later I received another letter, once again demanding that I send a check for $222. Or else.

“Your cooperation in this matter is important to continue uninterrupted service of your rental needs,” the letter stated. “If there is no response within 10 days we will have no alternative but to suspend your rental privileges.”

I called the contact person named on the letter, left a message and have heard nothing back.

Perhaps the Haggler could get to the bottom of this.

Barbara Bertucio
New Port Richey, Fla.

A. It’s hard to know where to begin.

Suspending your “rental privileges?” It seems to the Haggler that this threat would work only on consumers under the mistaken impression that Payless is the only car rental company in the United States.

“Collection Center Drive”? Google Maps can’t find it. The Haggler has to assume that the point of this address, along with “Debit advice” — a phrase that doesn’t make sense — is to imply that a customer is about to have a collection agency problem.

Payless, readers may recall, is owned by Avis Budget, which is based in Parsippany-Troy Hills, N.J. The company’s chief executive is Larry D. De Shon. Avis acquired Payless in 2013, for $50 million, which means that Mr. De Shon and his colleagues have had three years to bring Payless service up to Avis standards — which are high, in the Haggler’s personal experience.

The Haggler contacted Avis Budget’s public relations office and heard from Alice Pereira, a spokeswoman. She was forwarded a copy of the contract and copies of all the letters involved in this dispute. Two weeks later, the Haggler had heard nothing back. After a nudge, Ms. Pereira wrote this email, transcribed in its entirety: “We have worked directly with the customer to resolve the issue.”

The Haggler was amazed that Payless was not eager, at minimum, to fake some concern. He wrote to Ms. Pereira and urged her to be a bit more expansive. A few days later, she wrote that the company had been working to integrate Payless, efforts that include an upgrade to its fleet and “the implementation of more standard servicing requirements for those vehicles.”

Ms. Pereira also stated that Ms. Bertucio had initialed the part of the contract where personal liability insurance is requested. This is true. But Ms. Bertucio did that only after she’d explained that she didn’t want that insurance, and thought her initials merely confirmed that fact.

In other words, Ms. Bertucio thinks she was snookered. It seemed to the Haggler that it would behoove Avis Budget to look into the matter. Would Ms. Pereira and the company like to investigate and then send yet another statement?

“We pay close attention to input and feedback from our customers,” Ms. Pereira wrote two days later. “We will use this rental transaction as an opportunity to reinforce with our associates, at our Payless location in Austin and elsewhere, the importance of ensuring that our customers clearly understand which services and options they are selecting.”

To the Haggler’s ears, this is low on specifics and missing the sincere sense of regret and urgency that this column occasionally hears from companies that want to improve. But another pep talk followed by a another request for yet another statement seemed pointless. Because if Payless is still demanding that customers send money they don’t owe to a street called Collection Center Drive, it has problems that Avis Budget isn’t eager to solve.

EMAIL: haggler@nytimes.com or tweet to @TheHagglerNYT. Keep it family-friendly and under 250 words, include your hometown and go easy on the caps-lock key. Letters may be edited for clarity and length.

A version of this article appears in print on  , Section BU, Page 3 of the New York edition with the headline: A Car Renter’s Costly Detour to Collection Center Drive. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

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