The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission is taking Europcar to task over allegations of excessive payment surcharges imposed on customers.
The claims are made regarding 96 Europcar outlets owned and operated by the company outright, excluding the 30 franchisees operating in Australia.
The ACCC believes CLA Trading Pty Ltd, aka Europcar, charged excessive credit card payment surcharges from July to August last year.
Additional separate alleged fees were also forced on consumers using Visa or MasterCard debit cards from July to November last year, with fees as high as 1.43%.
The company was notified by its bank in July 2017 of the actual costs to accept card payments, however it’s alleged Europcar ignored the information and continued charging customers excessively.
Europcar has acknowledged in a statement that 22,602 customers were overcharged a total of $20,294, with amounts refunded ranging from one cent to $18.33 – an average of 89 cents per customer.
Europcar says it “unintentionally overcharged” customers and “fully refunded the difference in credit and debit card fees as soon as the data was available to identify and correct this issue”.
The car and truck rental giant says it has “fully co-operated with the ACCC since it commenced its investigation in October 2017”.
“We have sought to not only do the right thing by our customers but to also work openly, cooperatively and transparently with the ACCC to identify and correct this issue,” the company states.
ACCC chairman Rod Sims told the ABC it’s unacceptable to fix problems after the regulator begins investigating.
“If we never take action against companies that fix things up after we knock on their door, we become their compliance department,” Sims says.
“Businesses must not charge customers more than it costs them to process a card payment,” Sims says in a statement.
“The alleged conduct by Europcar in relation to its surcharge rates is particularly concerning, given we will allege that it was well aware of its own cost of acceptance from at least July 2017,” he explains.
“The ACCC’s action serves as a warning that the ACCC is paying close attention to those businesses who seek to overcharge customers making payments by credit or debit cards,” Sims concludes.
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