As mentioned in another thread, I just got back from a 9-day east coast trip.
I did a one-way car rental from Philadelphia to Boston.
When it comes to the gas situation, I always get gas myself near the airport and return the car full. Otherwise you totally get ripped off. If you pre-pay for a tank of gas, it is a terrible deal unless you return it near empty. If you return it less than full, it is also a terrible deal because they charge you near $6/gallon to refill it.
Anyway, Boston is a really confusing city for driving, so during my effort to find the airport, I totally forgot about the refueling. I got to the rental return place with a half tank of gas.
Rental car returning is now a very quick and automated system. A guy comes up to the car with a little electronic device, which automatically reads all of the car's information (mileage, fuel remaining, etc), bills you appropriately, and spits out a receipt.
I was shocked to see that they billed me for 14 gallons of gas.
I told the guy that 14 gallons was impossible, as I had half a tank left. The idiot tried to argue with me that it's possible a standard passenger car has a 28 gallon tank.
I finally told him I would just go inside and speak to a manager.
The manager was very nice about it and only charged me for 5 gallons (because of the error and my trouble of having to complain about it). Out of curiosity, I later looked up that model of car and saw that the tank was 19 gallons (I estimated 17), so I should have been charged for 9.5.
So how did the computer decide that I owed for 14 gallons?
I wonder if this was a trick used by the rental company to extract a little extra money from each rental, or if the computer just fucked up and misread the information.
Has anyone else had such a thing occur before?