Parking Ticket in Firenze

As you say, whether intentional or not, you are at fault and owe the ticket. Sounds like you can still easily pay by check and mailing it in.

One thing you might find out from Hertz should you decide to ignore it, which many seem to do. Will Hertz pay the fine if the ticket is ultimately sent to them - then pass the cost to you by charging your CC? If so, then ingoring it could cost you a lot more in service and extra fees.

I've heard this type of story before. My advice would be to contact Hertz to pay the ticket. They will be fined if you don't pay then they will charge your cc not only the cost of the fines but all the additional fee's they had to pay in order to pay for this ticket. They will also charge you their own fee's because it will take them time to clear this matter up. Do is sooner rather than later to save yourself some money.

Donna

They will be relentless. Might as well pay and move on. Rental car companies will charge your CC when they are billed by the city or town involved. It is another travel tax.

Some bad advice is being presented here. Hertz will not pay for your ticket and charge your card. Hertz will provide your name to the police who will then attempt to get you to pay. They will not be relentless, but will give up after sending a dunning letter or two. Pay if you think it's the right thing to do and/or if you will enjoy peace of mind accordingly, but fear that they will "track you down" is not really a consideration because the French bill collectors presently do not possess that authority in the US.

Neil likes to give that advice but remember he has no dog in the fight. It is a tough situation. Not sure what a French bill collector has to do with a ticket in Italy but I am sure an Am bill collector would pick it up for a fee.

Actually, Hertz can track you down as they have all your information including your credit card information. They will pay the fine because it is on their car and then they will charge you the price of the ticket and all the fees they can slap on you for the trouble they have to go through to pay the fine and get the money from you. I've heard of small fines becoming hundreds of euros with all the fees added. My advice is to pay the fine as quickly as you can to avoid all those fees.

I rented from Hertz in France last month and the rental agreement authorized Hertz "to disclose any information required by a relevant authority to process any such (traffic) fines/penalties which are incurred during the rental period."

It also authorized Hertz to charge a "traffic fine administration fee" which they defined as "an amount levied by Hertz to administer any traffic fine(s)incurred by the Renter and/or Driver and/or Additional Driver whilst renting the vehicle."

So my understanding is that if you get a ticket, Hertz (or any other rental company) will give the authorities your contact information and charge you a fee for doing so, but I don't believe they'll charge your credit card for the actual fine. The European authorities will track you down, and you may not get the ticket until several weeks or even months have gone by.

Please correct me if I'm wrong!

The information Tom presented verifies what I stated, which is that Hertz will charge you for providing info to the police, an "administration" charge, but the language does not go so far as to say they will pay the fine and then charge you. If anybody has had ACTUAL experience in which a rental car company paid a traffic fine on their behalf, I have NEVER seen that. It seems to make sense that a rental car company would pay your fines and then charge you, but they DON'T. With all due respect to Frank who means well, one does not need a "dog in the fight" to tender advice. I have chosen not to pay ZTL tickets from Florence, three and a half years have gone by and the Florence bill collectors have apparently given up. I can't speak for tickets received in France, I was only speaking to tickets received in Florence as this is Jenny's specific issue. If anyone chooses to dig into this topic instead of just throwing assumptions out there, they would find that Europeans have a special disadvantage because of EU agreements concerning these fines and they can track you down in, say, England and make it very uncomfortable if you try not to pay. They don't have that luxury in the US and bill collectors will not pick up debts for which collection is not on a sound legal basis.

I might be wrong, but I don't think so.

Update: I would LIKE to get this all cleared up...but they are not making it very easy on me. I wish they had a larger window of opportunity to pay online with a credit card longer than 10 days!!! You have 60 days to contest the ticket, it would be nice if they gave you that long to PAY the ticket. I tried calling Hertz in Italy...they were not able to help me. The woman said that they pass everything on the police. I tried calling the police number that the Hertz woman gave me, but they don't speak English (which I don't blame them...it's not their responsibility to do so). I sent an email using Google Translator (a great tool) to an email address, which I don't even know is correct...saying, that I just want to pay my ticket, can they help me. We'll see what comes of that. What a pain!

Too bad it was a rental, if it had been a lease/purchase (which is for 17 days or longer) through a company like autoeurope or autofrance and the ticket was out of the renting country you could have just thrown it away. Tickets don't follow from country to country in Europe if it is on a lease purchase. I know because this has happened to me on several ocassions and I was told by the locals to ditch the ticket; did so and voila....

FINALLY!!! I was able to pay the ticket online. That mysterious email address that I somehow obtained along the way, led me to an agent who actually wrote me back in English (even though I had translated all of my text into Italian using Google Translate). She gave me a different URL to pay my ticket, on this site (which has an option to read in English), it says that you have 60 days to pay the ticket. The website listed on the ticket only gave me 10 days to pay ?!?! Anyhow, should anyone get a ticket in Florence (as I hear it happens frequently)...here's the URL to pay your ticket with a credit card and live with a clear conscious: http://multeweb.lineacomune.it/MulteWeb/Multe?codcom=d612. Now I can move on to making a photo book of my travels rather than trying to track down how/where to pay a suprise parking ticket!!! Thanks for everyone's contributions.