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avislogoSo for some reason I follow Avis on Facebook, and over the weekend my news feed popped up with the following official statement from Avis

 

On Friday, a customer seeking to rent a car from Avis Car Rental was not allowed to do so because he failed to provide the required documentation. Visitors to the U.S. From other countries must provide both a valid drivers license from their country of residence as well as a valid International Drivers License or passport in order to rent from Avis. We are aggressively investigating the customer’s allegations regarding the handling of this matter, as we do not tolerate any form of discrimination. So far, our ongoing investigation suggests that this customer is unfairly maligning us with unfounded accusations.

This was the first I had heard anything about it, so I googled for it, and found the following story, off of Observer.com

It appears that Dov Bergwerk, an Israeli national, tried to rent a car from Avis in New York City.  Despite the fact that Mr. Bergwerk has an Avis Wizard number and has rented multiple times from Avis over the course of the years, including renting a car from that same office two days earlier, the Avis agents would not rent him a car.  The reports I’ve seen cited various reasons, both from not accepting his Israeli driver’s license / passport or also due to Mr. Bergwerk’s attitude

At this point, I think it’s still unclear to me what exactly happened, though Avis’s response seems oddly worded

My experiences with Avis

Personally I haven’t had negative experiences with Avis branches (yet?), although of course I am not Jewish.  I did have a strange occurrence where Avis kept trying to change the price on me when I added my wizard number (I eventually got it figured out)

I’m an “Avis First” member, which I got for free

(SEE ALSO: Getting top rental car status (for free!))

which has been useful at least for skipping the lines at some airport locations

I’m interested to hear what actually happened at Avis in this case, though I doubt we ever will.  What about you?  Ever had any problems with Avis?


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