A Melbourne man claims Thrifty car hire slapped him with a $90 late fee after he became stuck in Monday morning's West Gate Bridge traffic chaos.
Thrifty, however, disputes several of the man's claims.
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Huge delays for West Gate Bridge drivers
Traffic chaos after a motorcyclist died in a crash with a truck. Vision courtesy Seven Network.
Traffic on the West Gate Bridge was brought to a halt when a motorcyclist and truck collided just before 8am.
The motorcyclist died at the scene. Traffic was at a standstill for more than four hours while police examined the scene. There were also lengthy delays on detour roads.
A Doncaster man, who requested to be known only as Allen, told radio station 3AW he was in a Thrifty hire van when he became caught in the gridlock.
When he returned the van to the Thrifty depot at Blackburn, he was slugged a $90 late fee.
That was despite the fact Allen called ahead to say he was on his way and would likely return the van by lunchtime.
Speaking to The Age, Allen said Thrifty never told him when exactly he needed to have the van back by - only that he was to return it on Monday.
"When I finally got there, one of the girls said we're charging you an extra day's rental because it's late back," he said.
"I said it was out of my control because of what happened on the West Gate - that I was literally sitting in traffic for three and a half hours to be here."
Allen asked to speak to a manager, who called him later to inform him Thrifty was still going to charge the extra $90.
"It feels a bit unfair given the circumstances," Allen said.
"If I had slept in or whatever, I wouldn't have a problem. But I just think it's poor customer service. I definitely won't be using them again."
A spokesman for the NRMA, which owns Thrifty car rentals, Peter Khoury said: "Thrifty refutes claims made in the article that a customer called to give advance notice that the vehicle would be returned late.
"It was Thrifty staff who were forced to call the customer at 9.20am to get an idea of his whereabouts.
"Thrifty also refutes the claim that the customer was unaware of the return time as he initialled and signed the contract alongside the specified return date and time.
"As a result of this customer being over three hours late, another Thrifty customer who was waiting for the vehicle to be returned was left stranded for several hours. Thrifty then had to wear the cost of delivering the vehicle to the customer."
He said Thrifty was happy to be flexible over vehicle returns in unforeseen circumstances. For example, he said Thrifty New Zealand did not penalise people who were unable to return their vehicle after the recent earthquake.
All inbound lanes of the West Gate Bridge were re-opened to traffic about noon on Monday, much to the relief of motorists fearing a long commute home.
At its worst, the bridge crash saw inbound traffic backed up all the way to Williams Landing on the Princes Freeway.
By 2pm, traffic on and around the West Gate Bridge had returned to normal.
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