Last weekend I rented a can and drove up to Canada. While there, I parked the car and was late to the meter on the way back, and I got a ticket. Since it was a rented car, can they catch up with me if I decide to not pay it?
I’ve known a few people who have got parking tickets on rental cars. In their cases, they didn’t pay the ticket, and it was eventually sent to the registered owner of the car: the rental car company. The rental car company paid the ticket, and passed the cost–plus a hefty “administration fee”–on to the renter, whose name was still on file with it.
End result? The cost of the ticket–and more–was still eventually paid by the renter.
When your credit card was taken by the rental car company, they took a ‘security hold’ of about 130% of the cost of the rental. This doesn’t show up as an actual charge on your card, but it lowers the available credit. This way, they ensure you have enough space on your credit card to cover the cost of the rental and any tickets of yourse they receive. They then charge something like a 15% administration fee.
The Mounties always get their man, but it sounds like the Rental companies have it covered.
This personally happened to me, and I had to pay it, as was explained above. I’m from California. I rented a car in Quebec and got a parking ticket in Ontario, which I didn’t pay. A few months later my credit card was charged by the rental agency for the ticket, plus some extra for their expenses. The agency was nice enough to send me a letter a few weeks beforehand telling me that this was going to happen.
Ed