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Jamieblamb

Over Queen's Birthday weekend I rented a car in Queenstown, and today I received an email from the rental company, Apex, that I had been caught by a speed camera traveling at 75kmph in a 70 zone, resulting in a $30 fine. The email states the following:

"New Zealand law obliges us to provide the Police with a statutory declaration disclosing your name and address details as supplied to us at the time you commenced your hire. We have now done this.

In accordance with our rental terms and conditions, we have charged an administration fee of $NZ50.00 to the credit card supplied as security on your hire."

I appreciate that this condition must have been buried amongst the screeds of small text that I agreed to, but is this standard industry practice? I find it hard to believe that providing the police with my name and address would require $50 worth of administrative time, and I believe it is wrong that they should be able to profit from this, especially at almost twice the cost of the fine itself.

Is there anything I can do about this?

Anon

Hi there,
There may not be a lot you can do, as you signed the agreement.
Here is the relevant portion found in the Apex terms and conditions.

16.2 In the event the Owner receives an infringement notice of a speeding, parking or other traffic infringement relating to the period the vehicle was on hire:
?(a) The Owner will notify and provide the Hirer details of the infringement notice as soon as is practical.
?(b) Provide the necessary information to the relevant authority for such notices to be directed to the Hirer.
?(c) An administration fee of $50 will be charged to the Hirer for transfer of liability for the notice to the Hirer.
?(d) The Hirer has the right to challenge, complain about, query or object to the alleged offence to the issuing enforcement authority.
?(e) The Hirer has the right to seek a court hearing within 56 days from the date of issue of the infringement notice or 28 days from the date of issue of the reminder notice.

However you could also consider lodging a complaint with the Commerce Commission as this may qualify as an example of “unfair terms” under the Fair Trading Act. If you do want to dispute the charge with Apex, you could also contact your credit card company telling them the charge is in dispute and see if they will offer a charge-back.