TRAVEL TROUBLESHOOTER CHRISTOPHER ELLIOTT CITES RENTAL CAR COMPANY INSURANCE SCAM AS ONE OF THE BIGGEST CONSUMER RIPOFFS

KLASSWAGEN DID IT TO ME AND I’M FIGHTING BACK

In August, I booked a small car from KlassWagen through Booking.com

The car was to be picked up at Lisbon airport for driving through Portugal.

The price was a very favorable $201.09 for the car and $119.81 for full coverage insurance protection (from a third-party provider, who notified KlassWagen that I had this coverage for the temporary use of their property.)

I did not sleep well the day before my trip, nor did I sleep  during the transcontinental flight. I also managed to lose my reading glasses in transit.

So I was sleep deprived, shaken and five time zones from my normal equilibrium when the shuttle took me to KlassWagen in dreadful darkness to the KlassWagen compound about 15 minutes from Lisbon’s airport.

I arrived at 6 a.m. Friday September 13. The representative, who said he was from New Jersey but spoke Portuguese, had fine English. I note this because KlassWagen cannot claim it was a language barrier issue.

The rep said, “do you want to keep the insurance you booked” and I said yes.

And he pulled out a paper for me to sign and initial.

I wanted to review it, but had lost my glasses.

I said, “this was the coverage pre-arranged and purchased from Booking.com, right?” and he nodded and made sure I signed/initialed.

In all fairness, the car performed well, it was clean at pick up, it had a gadget that made toll booths easy and the staff was polite when I returned it.

But when I reviewed my credit card bills from Portugal shortly after getting back to Miami – I saw the scam.

There was an extra $335.15 charge from KlassWagen. That is more than double the cost of an unlimited miles rental of a brand new car driven for 12 long days!

I sent an email for clarification and they said it was for their brand of full insurance coverage. I wrote back that I booked coverage in advance and that showed up on their paperwork a month before I arrived.

They wrote back that as I “benefitted from their coverage” during the rental, so there was no refund.

I wrote back that it was a fraud. 

That no one in his right mind would have pay for full coverage though a Booking.com subcontractor -- then pay double the rental amount to KlassWagen.

I got the form letter fake friendly “we care about you” reply, but a firm, too bad, so sad, “you’re not getting a penny back” reply. 

I again note that Travel Troubleshooter/Consumer Advocate Christopher Elliott writes frequently that secretive, devious, unneeded insurance charge scams are prevalent in the auto rental industry – to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars earned from cheated customers.

I messaged one more time that I am aware of the sneaky ways they tack on unwanted, horribly expensive insurance on weak, tired, bullied customers.

They restated that I will not be getting a refund.

After exhausting every way of politely, then firmly, then pointedly demanding a refund for the fraud perpetrated, I now am filling out forms, gathering receipts, printing out email trails and stating my case to Visa, my credit card company.

I have no doubt that KlassWagen will lie and produce the (tiny type) document that I signed without the benefit of reading glasses, at the urging of their employee who stated that it was no extra charge, it was confirming what I booked in advance (for a fraction of their markup.)

It is my duty to warn anyone headed to Portugal, or any other market KlassWagen operates in, to beware of its double, duplicative insurance fraud.

If by some miracle they finally turn honest and refund my money, I will post an update.

 

 

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY, HEIDI

YOU HAVE HAD MY BACK FOR MORE THAN A THIRD OF A CENTURY

Sometimes love is expressed with the good times – an amazing meal, a stroll through a beautiful European capital city, a shopping trip to splurge on rare luxury.

Other times, it is expressed through love, support, having your partner’s back in the most anguished and challenging of times.

I love my bride of 34 years, Heidi Johnson-Wright, for thousands of reasons.

During a recent solo lecture tour in Europe, she proved why she’s been my soulmate of more than a third of a century.

Unfortunately, it was for the latter expression of love and support.

I was hustling to change from the RER train for Charles de Gaulle Airport to the Metro M6 to reach my hotel on Place Italie.

A trio of men, all less than half my age, crash into me just as the subway doors are closing.

I bash my head on one the polls for standing riders to grasp and fall forward.

Even though I was blindsided and injured, my only thoughts were on the wallet I neglected to hide in my book bag. It was gone along with a lot of cash, all my credit cards and other key documents.

Waiting a few hours to get an English-speaking detective at a Paris Police station, I called my indefatigable wife back in Miami and she assisted with canceling credit cards and closing a now exposed bank account.

Heidi is the point person for all things under the Americans with Disabilities Act in Miami-Dade County and oversees several employees and assists dozens of ADA coordinators in myriad departments.

She is a very busy person, but took the day off to help me.

She wired Euros to a Western Union near my hotel.

She added me as a cardholder on one of her credit cards.

She reminded me to put her card on my phone’s wallet app, so I could pay without the confusion of lacking a physical credit card in hand.

She closed a compromised joint checking account and started a new one.

When I returned from working in Paris, Lyon and beyond – Heidi had one neat envelope full of fraud squad correspondence, new credit cards and other important documents such as a temporary medical ID card to replace the stolen one.

We celebrated our 34^th wedding anniversary yesterday.

Knowing after all these years, that Heidi has my back in a time of crises – makes me love her even more.

  

THE WORST PLACE TO EAT IN ALL OF NEW YORK

E.A.T. BY ELI ZABAR

This sewer hole is a pox on the Zabar family name.

I would rather eat a dirty hotdog that fell in the gutter and got kicked by a rat than give these swindlers my money.

Foul attitude, foul food -- avoid this like the plague.

Left the MET starving. Was on the way to Pastrami Queen. Wasn't sure if there would be a wait, saw a nice outdoor table (because it was drizzling and chilly) so I sat down here, lured by the Zabar name.

Big, big, huge mistake.

Waiter was rude and nasty -- not like hard edge New York it's part of the experience...no, just jackass.

I order hot pastrami on rye, mustard on side, nothing else on it.

Quite possibly the simplest order in the history of Manhattan lunch requests.

Well, this overwhelmed them and screwed me over.

Pastrami please? Waiter: In think we're out.

It's not even 1 p.m., how can you be out?

Waiter: I'll see what I can do.

Me, Dr. Brown's Diet Dark Cherry....Waiter: interrupts, no Dr. Brown, no anything but coke.

Coke Zero please. Waiter: We might have a Diet Coke left.

Food comes. It's maybe 2 ounces of pastrami. Maybe.

Both sides of bread drowned in mustard. I love mustard. This was drowned.

And easily 2 or more ounces of sauerkraut.

I loathe sauerkraut. Just do. Thus, my polite but emphatic order of meat on bread, deli mustard on the side please.

Maybe they put the ton of mustard and kraut to try to pretend to make it look like 4 or 5 ounces of something was in between the stale bread.

I should have walked off. Left a few sawbucks for the ounce of Diet Coke I'd swigged.

I ask about the mess on my plate -- the abundance of meal-ruining kraut and the ounce-plus of pastrami.

The waiter goes off on me, acting like I should give him a 40% tip for getting me the last of the pastrami (I do remember him taking great delight in telling the table next to me that I got the last of the pastrami).

I scraped off the kraut, leaving me with barely one ounce of meat. Oh, and the sandwich was north of 30 bucks. I could have had 10 times the amount of pastrami, brought the way I like it without sauerkraut -- and at about 20 bucks -- if I had walked a few more blocks to Pastrami Queen.

I ask for a pickle, to try to fill my belly. No pickle comes with it, it's like a few bucks up charge.

I really don't want to give these rip-off artists another penny, so I decline the add-on.

I finish, quickly, considering I got about 1/20th of what I paid for, and went to use the restroom. The other moron rude waiter inside gave me hell, acting like I wasn't a customer. Glad he did. Any modicum of professionalism would have given me a heart attack.

I went around the corner and spent more of my money (and half blew my diet) getting wonderful gelato for a fair price at Anita La Mamma del Gelato.

Between food + tip at E.A.T. (highway robbery) and food + tip at Anita (good deal considering the great product). I was out more than $50 USD.

Avoid this place. It exists only to rip off tourists in the vicinity of Museum Mile and locals that are 100 years old and have lost all use of taste buds.