shirley and anthony hide

Apart from firebombimg the tolls......

MikeJ

Not quite sure why you think you are leaving a 'blank cheque'. You make out a credit card mandate to the CTT at the Car Hire Co and you will get a time and date stamped receipt from the card payment machine. When you return the car you ask them to do a Null or Void transaction with the machine - this will provide you with a date/time of the return. If any charges are made outside this provable time period then you will be covered by the credit card rules and get reimbursed by Visa or Mastercard who will attempt to recover the charges from the CTT. In effect it is exactly the same as setting up a temporary direct debit mandate as you would do if you had bought/rented your own transponder machine. The Hire Cos are being given 6 months to bring their systems up to date with modern payment card standards.
One warning - don't use a Hire Co which still uses the zip-zap machines!

shirley and anthony hide

The blank cheque comes from the fact that you do not know what your charges are until the paperwork has passed between the hire people and the toll people.Then the charge is made to your credit card If anyone thinks that this process is going to be without mistakes , good luck. Also Credit card companies under section 75 only reimburse on items over £100 if a PROVABLE mistake is made,or you do not receive goods you payed for.

Fredbargate

That is contrary to my experiences where incorrect charges have been made.

shirley and anthony hide

If you google money saving expert section 75 it will explain what you can claim for.

Fredbargate

I don't need to Google I have been reimbursed for services much less than £100

Sue F

If your credit card is charged incorrectly you can raise a dispute and you will be refunded under scheme chargeback rules. For low value disputes it is likely that the credit card company would simply refund your card as the cost of raising a chargeback would be greater than the value of the refund. Section 75 of the consumer credit act relates to disputes around quality of goods/services etc and does have a minimum value before it can be used.

shirley and anthony hide

Well presumably you had proof of the service you did not get.
What proof have you got that you used the tolls less times than billed??

Fredbargate

I was pointing out that the £100 scenario was incorrect.

However to answer your further query about proof then see:-

Post 197 plus also consider flight information

Jon-Bxl

HI

When Ive rented from car park 4 often they dont have machines, they rub the manual carbon copy credit card voucher, with the card underneath, with something - like a biro end. If they have machines its still not the electronic ones, but the old manual slide along machines... unless things have changed in the last few months.

There's been no electronic connection there - often its just a van you go to to pick up keys. Which means there is no internet there either .... if for example in the future there is a way to see online the last usage (mentioned before)

There's then obviously no way to have a time stamp on return.... which is why I want a copy contract with a stamp on it from the renter with a time CONFIRMED (as mentioned above). (Also a set of individual credit card charges, coded so that I can see each trip.)

But this still needs a hell of an Admin and IT system supporting it to ensure we are not billed incorrectly.

Jon

rafikiphoto

I agree Fred. It's important, as Sue F says, to distinguish between spurious charges that can be disputed and the 'insurance' aspect of CC purchases. If there is a toll charge outside one's hire period then dispute it. It will then be up to CTT to justify the charge, and let's face it, we're not talking about mountains of cash here.

MikeJ

Although you could be looking at a fine of Max 125Euros - Min 25 Euros if the system doesn't match you up with a payment mandate - which isn't trivial.

BTW Jon- the IT systems must all be in place already as this is by no means a novel application and there are examples of electronic tolling and automatic billing all over the world. The payment systems will all be based on standard card payment systems which again have been running with few errors for many years. I also believe that the Portuguese have some very competant IT engineers well capable of developing and managing such systems - I used to manage an IT support team based in Lisbon which provide IT support across the whole of Europe.
If you think about it it has to be a PAYG system and not one where you settle up at the end as any rental much longer than a week will have started accumulating automatic penalties from the early part of the rental period.
If you need an itemised record of your billing look at your credit card statement as each journey will be a separate item - although if you have a sterling credit card then your bank may well add £1.50 to each transaction
I'm beginning to sound like an evangelist for the system, which is far from the truth, but it's a whole lot better than all the rumours which were flying about last year

Carol&John

Hi,

Please see post #193. Isn't this happening at the moment with Portuguese rental cars? The "toll tax" is your season ticket (ie. 7 - 21 € per week) until the end of June?

After July 1st, however, I wouldn't be surprised if the toll tax continues to be applied by the car hire companies (plus the .60¢ daily charge for the transponder) whether or not you choose to use the A22.

Are we confusing CTT with Via Verde? I thought the contract from July onwards would be made with Via Verde. CTT and the PayShop chains are places where the payment for services can be made (also for mobile phone top ups etc.)

MikeJ

I don't think the concessionaire for the A22 is Via Verde (although their devices are accepted on the A22 and would have the advantage of being usable across the other Portuguese autoroutes). I'm not sure but think the concessionaire could be Brisa - it's suppose to be signed on the side of the road. VV, CTT, Payshops and certain Service Area operators are indeed places where you can pay - and you can pay online too. These are all acting as agents for the concessionaire.

DickieJarv

Wise words indeed...