longer.blue

My open letter to Brian Choi, CEO at Avis I filed this complaint with the MN Attorney General today and wanted to share it with you. This is how Avis lost a loyal customer: I rented a car at LAX on 9/24/2026 and drove to Santa Barbara where my wife and I vacationed for 6 days. I returned the vehicle at the scheduled time on 9/30/2026 and the agent who received the vehicle noted that the gas tank had been filled and there were no issues with the car. He promised an e-receipt within minutes. The receipt did not arrive in my inbox until the next day and everything seemed fine - no additional charges above the prepaid amount. A few days later I received an email notifying me of two separate toll charges, both for toll roads in Texas. I disputed the charges since my rental was in California and I had not left the State. It took 6 emails to get the charges reversed. I asked for an explanation but have not received either an explanation or an apology. On 10/23 I received a letter in the mail from Avis dated 10/9/2026 that stated I was being charged a $125 cleaning fee for the vehicle because there was some grass and sand on the floor mats. The customer service person I spoke with claimed there were photographs proving the claim but refused to share them with me. I asked to speak with a supervisor who made the same claim, but when I insisted he reverse the charges, he did not argue with me and provided me with a confirmation number for the reversal. I have been reading many consumer claims of fraudulent charges from Avis since my experience with this rental, including a man who was charged for going over his mileage allowance by 18,000 miles, a distance that would require an average speed of about 107 mph nonstop for the entire seven days, without stops for fuel, food, or sleep. That is not the only example I have found of excessive charges, including a slew of charges for "extras" that customers did not ask for. I suspect Avis is using AI to find additional revenue sources and using AI to manage the email communications which would explain why I kept getting the exact same response that I had not provided enough information for them to find my rental agreement in spite of the fact that I have been a Preferred member at Avis since 2009. Avis has my name, address, social security number, and credit card information on file. It is beyond reason that they couldn't find my LAX rental agreement unless there was no human involved. But even AI has to have its mission parameters, and it seems increasing revenue is the goal here, ethical business practices and customer service be damned. I want Avis investigated. I still remember when the Wells Fargo fake accounts scandal shocked the public. It seems Avis saw it as a template for revenue growth. And when the internal emails reveal that all of this is intentional, I want my piece of the very large and very painful settlement. John Pullis