Maybe it was the dead insects fee that drove a Mount Kisco lawyer to sue a German car rental company over an extra $339 in charges.
Philip F. Menna accused Sixt Rent A Car of fraudulent acts and deceptive practices in a complaint filed July 2 in Westchester Supreme Court. He is demanding $3,173 for a four-day rental in Paris that he booked for $719.
“I know that most renters do not have the time and patience to challenge your unscrupulous practices,” Menna stated in a June 5 email to Sixt, “but I can assure you I am not that renter.”
Sixt, founded in Munich, Germany in 1912, describes itself as a leading global car rental company with about 2,200 locations in 105 countries.
Menna, according to his website, is a “premier matrimonial attorney” who also handles personal injury cases, real estate issues, and wills, trusts and estates.
On Feb. 13 he rented and paid for a Citroen DS7 or “similar automatic premium class” car, to be picked up on May 22 at the Gare Du Nord rail station in Paris.
The $719 rental included unlimited mileage, environmental fee, liability insurance, road tax and sales tax. Menna claims the rental also included a GPS navigation system, but the confirmed reservation he included as an exhibit shows the GPS under “additional fees to be paid locally, if required.”
On May 22, Menna arrived at the train station only to discover that Sixt does not have a rental office there. About an hour later, he located the office several blocks away.
Sixt did not have a Citroen, according to the complaint. Instead, Menna was offered a smaller Nissan X-Trail compact crossover SUV.
The car was at a garage several blocks away and there was no shuttle service, the complaint states, so Menna and three more adults in his party lugged their bags and carry-ons to the garage.
No attendant was on duty but he found the Nissan by using the remote key sensor. The car was parked so close to another car, he says, that he had enter on the passenger side and straddle the center console to get to the driver’s seat.
Then Menna discovered that the GPS system only operated in French, according to the complaint, and to navigate he had to continually and dangerously look at the GPS map while driving.
Menna says he drove the car without any incidents, obeyed the speed limits and paid all road tolls.
On May 26, he returned the car to Sixt. An attendant inspected the Nissan and confirmed that there was no damage, the complaint states. But the attendant said Menna could be charged $1 for every dead insect impacted on the front grille.
He thought it was a joke, because every car hits insects and the solution is a car wash. But perhaps it was not a joke, according to the complaint, because he later received an invoice charging an extra $303.
The invoice does not lists insect splats among the charges, but there is an environmental fee, as well as premium location fee, road tax, GPS guarantee, and 20% value added tax.
A second invoice charged a $36 administrative fee for a traffic violation.
Menna says he demanded more explanations and documentation to support the extra charges, and received no response.
He is demanding $1,057.56 — the full cost of the rental including the extra charges — for alleged fraud, and treble damages of $3,172.68 for alleged deceptive business practices.
“It will not cost me anything to do this,” Menna stated in the June 5 email to Sixt, “because I am an attorney. But it is going to cost you much more than all of the fraudulent charges you charged me for this rental.”
Sixt stated in an email that it cannot comment on specific customer rentals. “But we can assure you customer satisfaction and providing an excellent customer experience is our top priority at Sixt. … Our customer service team is already in contact with the customer to resolve this matter.”
