I rented a car through Carental.com that assigned me Locauto in Florence, Italy. Car was great, service was great. About nine months after returning the car I started getting e-mails from Locauto indicating that authorities issued a violation ticket for the car during my rental period and they are charging 48.80 euros ($65) service charge on my credit card for providing the authorities with my information and address. I never received a ticket, was never stopped by the police, never parked iligally, always paid more then required at parking meters. I started looking into the details, started a dispute with the credit card company, tried without success to contact Locauto. A couple of days later two more e-mails arrived with two different "tickets" and two more $65 charges. At this time I put Locauto on my spam list and cancelled my credit card so I don't know how many more of these "tickets" are coming. As of now, I have not received anything from the Italian authorities or police about these tickets.
Has anybody else ran into anything similar? Is this a scam by the rental company? Is $65 (at least 3 times) reasonable service charge for giving the info to authorities?
Appreciate any feedback
Thank you,
Paul
Posted by
Tresana, Highlands Ranch, CO, USA
23230 posts
Yep, it is common and not a scam. You probably agreed to it in the rental agreement. You may not think you violated any traffic rules but traffic cameras are everywhere. You have received a number of traffic tickets and each one gets submitted to the rental agency for a name and address . This is cheap compare to what is coming next. Check the old postings here. This is frequently discussed. It maybe very hard to win this one.
Posted by
Gettysburg PA
6006 posts
I'm curious- do they indicate where exactly you got this alleged traffic ticket? Or maybe i should ask where exactly where you driving? In Florence?
We'll be driving in Italy for the first time next month - mainly just in Tuscany- and I sure hope we don't mistakenly do something illegal!
Posted by
Minnesota 🎒
15778 posts
Italian traffic offenses can be captured on camera, and tickets issued by mail. This should be helpful:
http://www.bella-toscana.com/traffic_violations_italy.htm#.U9mHycawg4Y
My guess is that a camera snapped you speeding, parking in the wrong place, or illegally entering one or more (probably more) ZTLs. The last are zones which require a special, local permit to access, and which trip up a lot of tourists if they haven't prepped themselves to watch for the signs.
As you will read, yes, it can take a long time for tickets to be issued, and yes, the rental car company does charge a fee for providing your information to the authorities. We haven't had to deal with one of these tickets but I'm sure there's someone on the site who has. Do take note of the paragraph stating that canceling your card is not a solution.
Anyway, I hope someone with firsthand experience jumps in here but I'm pretty sure you're just being served, Italian style, with fines for traffic violations caught on camera, whether you were aware they had occurred or not.
Posted by
Tresana, Highlands Ranch, CO, USA
23230 posts
Duplicate question. He is running the same question with some responses under Transportation in Tips and Trip Report section. Might want to check the responses there before posting another response.