Complaints

This profile includes complaints for AutoSlash's headquarters and its corporate-owned locations. To view all corporate locations, see Find Local Branches.

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  AutoSlash

  405 Main Street Suite 9R New York, NY 10044-0339

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  AutoSlash

  370 Old Country Road Garden City, NY 11530

The complaint text that is displayed might not represent all complaints filed with BBB. Some consumers may elect to not publish the details of their complaints, some complaints may not meet BBB's standards for publication, or BBB may display a portion of complaints when a high volume is received for a particular business.

• Initial Complaint

  Date:02/26/2024

  Type:Sales and Advertising Issues
  Status:

  ResolvedMore info

  Complaint statuses

  Resolved:

  The complainant verified the issue was resolved to their satisfaction.

  Unresolved:

  The business responded to the dispute but failed to make a good faith effort to resolve it.

  Answered:

  The business addressed the issues within the complaint, but the consumer either a) did not accept the response, OR b) did not notify BBB as to their satisfaction.

  Unanswered:

  The business failed to respond to the dispute.

  Unpursuable:

  BBB is unable to locate the business.

  I charged a rental car through Autoslash on 12-13-23, using the pay now rate of $429.06. Autoslash promises to get you the best available rate for the car you are looking for. I was given a receipt for that amount. When I went to pick up the car from Fox Rental on 2-20-24 at the ********************, the agency that was contracted to me through Autoslash, I was told that I'd only paid them $354.71. As instructed by Autoslash, I called the Autoslash help line and they asked to see my voucher - A VOUCHER THAT I NEVER GIVEN!!! The attendant on the phone emailed me the voucher which shows I paid $383.09. WHAT WAS GOING ON? $429.06 or $354.71 or $383.09? I reached out to Autoslash asking for an explanation and got nothing. To make matters worse, when I attempted to reach out to the management to resolve the issue, I was met with silence. They answered with chatter that did not address my question and refused to give me an accounting of my payment. This was their final email to me (no phone number available)"I actually did explain already, but I'll try it in a different way. You paid $429.06 for your reservation. That was the cost of your reservation, the cheapest price we had available for you to book that reservation. Various amounts of that go to different things, such as employees, car maintenance, overhead, taxes and fees, cost of the car itself, etc. We don't have a full break down of that just like it it's not particularly easy to get a full break down of where your money goes when buy anything in a store.I understand you concerned there was a lower price available that you were not offered. That's simply not the case here, we always off the lowest possible prices. The money you paid 100% goes towards the rental cost of the reservation."

  Business Response

  Date: 02/26/2024

  Dear BBB:
  
  AutoSlash is a service operating in part as a travel agency affiliate that uses multiple different methods to help customers get the very best price on their rental cars. While many of the rates we find for customers involve confirming a reservation and paying for it at the rental counter, we also work with various suppliers to source highly discounted prepaid rates, where we (AutoSlash) collect payment up front from the customer, and the customer is then not responsible for any charges at the rental counter.
  Our mutual customer, ***************, chose to prepay for her rental car through our system for Fox Rent-A-Car under reservation #**********. This was the lowest rate we were able to find for her at the time of her booking; we did find other, more expensive rates, but she willingly opted to choose the prepaid rate for $429.06 instead of other rates, so she has no dispute that she got the best rate available.
  In this case, we obtained this rate from our supplier, *******, and were responsible for remitting payment to them for the reservation. The amount ******* invoiced us for this booking was $383.09, which we marked up by 12% to cover our costs of doing business (processing her credit card transaction, operating the booking platform, paying our support staff, etc.).
  Similarly, ******* obtained a rate for the product from the rental car company, Fox, and was responsible for remitting payment to Fox for the reservation. In this case, ******* paid Fox $354.71 for the rental car and marked up the cost of the booking by 10% (to $383.09, which is what they then charged us).
  In the case of a "pay at counter" rental car reservation, it is of course virtually always the case that the rate the rental car company charges the customer at the counter is the same price shown to the customer at the time of booking. (In that case, typically travel agents would receive commission payouts after the fact as compensation for the booking.) In the case of prepaid reservations, however, these are typically handled on a "net rate" basis, meaning that travel agents or tour operators purchase services at a discounted rate from suppliers and then sell them to their customers at a markup, and the markup is what the business uses as its profit margin from which to pay its cost of doing business. This is a very common arrangement in the travel industry especially, where discounted consolidators offer significantly discounted inventory of flight seats, hotel rooms, and (as in our case) rental cars and then mark the prices up when reselling that inventory to customers.
  It seems here that ********** discovered that the price that Fox was invoicing ******* was less than the cost that she paid us, and she is apparently unhappy about the difference. This is despite the fact that ********** fully received the product that she paid for at the price she willingly agreed to purchase it at. (********** did not incur any additional expenses at the Fox rental counter--she simply discovered the rate Fox was paid, not understanding how "net rate" booking services work, and is making a complaint about that process.) Typically, these net rate prices are opaque to the end user and the end user is not supposed to see the amounts that each supplier ultimately receives, but in this case, poor programming and staff training on ***** part led to ********** seeing this information, ultimately jumping to erroneous conclusions as a result of ***** error (which is exactly why these arrangements are typically not made public).
  The amount that Fox was ultimately paid is immaterial to **********, and her complaint lacks merit. If ********** is unhappy about the fact that we and ******* marked the rate up when selling it to her, then perhaps she should be equally unhappy with ******* for selling her a pound of bananas for 59 cents when ******* paid the wholesale supplier 40 cents and the banana-grower in ******* was only paid 10 cents per pound. Would ********** go to the BBB and complain that ******* was charging her too much for bananas and expecting ******* to refund her 49 cents per pound? Of course not--no reasonable consumer expects a grocery store to charge the same amount for produce that the grower is paid. ******* is fully entitled to earn a profit on the bananas it sells, and compelling a refund of 49 cents per pound would result in ******* actually incurring a *loss* to sell ********** those bananas. The same principle applies here: a markup--which we believe to be very reasonable (9% plus an additional 3% to cover processing her credit card charge)--is fair and expected.
  Thus, we must disagree with ************** claim in this case and state that her complaint does not have merit. We trust that the BBB understands how the travel industry works and will agree that nothing untoward occurred in this situation and will consider this complaint resolved. Thank you.

  Customer Answer

  Date: 03/03/2024

  Better Business Bureau:
  
  I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID# ********, and have determined that my complaint has NOT been resolved because:

  I totally understand a need for a company to make a profit; however, when I shop at ******* they don't ADD their profit margin on top of the advertised price.  ******* calculates their expenses, etc and THEN offers me a sales price.  Attached are sample ads from the Autoslash website and an email from them (the pay now or pay later is only an example of the offer I received.)  I was told that if I paid $429.06 now that would be my price. And I expected that money to be paid to the car rental agency.  How Autoslash made their profit was not my concern.  They should have worked that out BEFORE offering me a final price.  I WAS NOT advised that the money paid to Autoslash was MORE than I would pay the rental agency directly because I was responsible for Autoslash's profits.  I think Autoslash needs an explanation of truth in advertising.  I had to pay Fox an ADDITIONAL $116.79 on top of the $429.06 paid to Autoslash.  ($354 originally  received by Fox + $90.93 for a ssecond driver). If I went to the agency directly my total cost would have been $444.93 - NOT $545.85 that it actually cost because of Autoslash's deception.  

  Sincerely,

  ***************
  
  
  
  
   
  

  Business Response

  Date: 03/28/2024

  Dear BBB:

  I have now located the receipts that ********** provided and have reviewed them.

  The customer indicated that she expected to pay Fox $90.93 for an additional driver. The $90.93 amount consisted of 7 days of an additional driver fee of $12.99 per day ($12.99 x 7 = $90.93). However, please note that the $90.93 amount is also subjected to taxes, which of course are separate from the taxes that were paid and included as part of the prepaid booking.

  According to the rental agreement, the tax rate at *********** consists of the following:

  -an *****% airport concession recovery fee

  -then, that amount is subject to a sales tax of 15.6% (made up of a 5% vehicle license fee and a 10.6% ******* rental car tax)

  Therefore, the math is as follows:

  -The customer was charged a $90.93 additional driver fee, as expected

  -That $90.93 was subject to an *****% airport concession recovery fee ($90.93 x *****% = $10.10). Add this airport concession recovery fee to the additional driver fee, so $90.93 + $10.10 = $101.03

  -Take that subtotal and apply 15.6% sales tax ($101.03 x 15.6% = $15.76). Add this sales tax to the subtotal, so $101.03 + $15.76 = $116.79

  According to the Fox rental receipt (and what ********** reported), the customer was charged $116.79, which is an exact match with the expected amount of the additional driver fee plus the expected tax rate on that additional driver fee.

  Therefore, the conclusion is that *** ********;was charged exactly as expected and her complaint does not have a valid basis. The amount ********** contracted with AutoSlash to pay for the rental was honored, and the amount that she was charged for the additional driver that she agreed to is correct, and no unexplained additional charges are present. Therefore, we request this complaint be closed as properly addressed by the business. Thank you.

  Customer Answer

  Date: 03/30/2024

  Better Business Bureau:
  
  I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID ********, and find that this resolution is satisfactory to me and the matter has been resolved.
  
  Sincerely,
  
  ***************