Woman Hit With $8,000 Charge After Company Alleged She Drove Almost The Earth's Circumference In Just Three Days

A Canadian rental car customer was shocked when she received an unexpected bill of $8,000 after being accused of driving over 20,000 miles in just three days.

That's quite a road trip - definitely enough to require a lot of snacks.

I'm sure Vancouver resident Giovanna Boniface would have made sure to stock up if she had really planned to drive 22,668 miles in just three days. 

But you probably don’t need me to tell you that’s not what actually happened.

This story starts when Boniface rented a GMC Yukon Denali from Avis for three days in August 2022. 

She planned to drive between downtown Toronto, the airport, and Kitchener, where she was visiting her mother-in-law.

CTV News Toronto

She drove about 300 kilometers (186 miles) during her trip, then returned the car to the airport before checking in for her flight to Paris.

Boniface had already prepaid $1,000 for the rental, so she was astonished when she saw a charge for thousands more while checking her online banking as she waited to board her flight.

"That's when I notice this charge for over $8,000 from Avis," she told CTV News Toronto.

Boniface realized she had been charged as if she had driven more than 100 times the distance she actually covered almost three times the Earth's circumference.

The receipt showed she was billed for driving 36,482 kilometers at a rate of 25 cents per kilometer.

To give you an idea, Boniface figured she would have needed to drive non-stop for 72 hours at around 500 km/h (300 mph) to reach that distance.

So, obviously, that wasn’t very likely.

Despite the clear mistake, Boniface said dealing with Avis was 'frustrating'.

"The first thing I wanted to do was actually go back through security and just walk to the counter," she said.

Giovanna Boniface would have had to hit the road at top speeds to cover the distance. Getty Stock Photo

"But I wouldn’t have had time to do that because the security lines were really long."

Instead, she chose to call Avis at the airport.

"It was just ringing and ringing and no one was answering," she recalled.

"It was really frustrating just trying to get to somebody."

She finally got through using the general number but mentioned that she was cut off twice while trying to talk to a manager. 

Ultimately, she had to board her flight with the $8,000 still missing from her account.

"They didn't seem to really get what my issue was and I really needed them to remove this $8,000 charge," she said.

After landing in France, Boniface tried to get Visa to help with the problem, but the company couldn’t do anything as the charge was still pending.

It wasn’t until two days later that Avis contacted Boniface, promising that the money would be refunded.

A spokesperson for Avis told CTV News Toronto that an apology and a refund had been issued, but the company did not explain what caused the error.