The reason for the extortion question was that they were leaving someone without transportation to a hotel at 11pm at night. I thought that she being an unaccompanied female it would fall under
(i) Do any other act which would not in itself substantially benefit him but which would harm substantially any other person with respect to that person’s health, safety, business, calling, career, financial condition, reputation, or personal relationships.
viz. the car rental company makes the money not the individual and that without transportation available as promised to her, health and or safety may be at risk. I don’t know if a distinction should be made about whether or not she could rent somewhere else. If that rental place was the only 24 hour rental would it make a difference? Is her safety at risk trying to hail a cab alone at the airport at 11pm?
I’m going to argue with the usage of trade for a second. Free refills are standard for coffee and as a price for a cup of coffee it says $3.49 but you just didn’t assume it. You ask two different people at two different times if you need to pay any more for a second cup (analogous to us asking if we needed any more paperwork when picking up the rental) and they said no extra charge. You try to get a second cup and they want to charge you $1 per refill. “Wait!” you say. “It doesn’t say that anywhere.” The manager tell you that they don’t have to write it down, that’s the policy. The manager tells you that you should have asked. How you knew you should have asked with nothing indicating an extra cost is left a mystery.
Here’s the kicker. You tell the manager that you did ask and was told there was no further cost for the refills and the manager says, “I don’t care. That’s the policy.” I can understand how Usage of Trade may apply to “common knowledge” (and I beg to differ that knowing you need insurance info paperwork is common knowlege) but Usage of Trade has got to be thrown out the window when it contradicts specific information you are told.
Update: The rental car company in question sent [del]us[/del] the hypothetical lady in question a form letter stating that according to the Terms and Conditions, we needed to call the branch before we got there to see if there were any further requirements. The CSR hand wrote that they noted we did twice and were given misinformation twice. Because of this, we got two $25 credit vouchers. You can be sure we will not be using them in SLC.