Car rental is expensive in Italy

I had to pay 120 euros extra for a rental car in Italy, one year after the actual rental. Just received another “administrative fee” from the Italian Europcar on my last summer, ie. Summer 2008 rental. The amount is for 60 euros! In the end of last year I got my first invoice for the same amount. They say that these fees are for contacts with the local authorities due to traffic violations while renting their car. I admit one traffic violation, because we did not pay the highway toll, could not figure out how to work the darn machine. So there is the violation that I know of. But the violations have happened within one hour on the route from Turin to Sestriere, on the highway there, I assume based on the time stamps of the supposed violations.

The funny thing is that I have not received any fines from the Italian police so far. Well, maybe it takes more than a year for them to collect the fines. Anyway, there will be more to pay, when and if the authorities send their invoices for fines for traffic violations. And the other violation I don’t even know what I’ve done wrong.

But Europcar has charged a stiff charge twice for providing my name and address to the Italian police.

So pay attention when driving in Italy. You may get fined without knowing what you have done. And the car rental company can charge large sums on your credit card, relating to the administrative costs for the notification of traffic violations.

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