Motoring | Heikki Karhunen, who rented the car, had to wait weeks for 200 euros – OP: The reason is a certain type of cover reservation

When entrepreneur Heikki Karhunen was renting a car, he didn’t think that the store would have a cover charge that would remain as a memory for a long time.

He rented a car from the Avis Oulu airport office on August 12. Karhunen paid the car rental in advance, in addition to which Avis made a 200-euro deposit on Karhunen’s card in case the spending money was not returned properly.

Karhunen says that he returned the rental car the same day without any problems, but the cover reservation was not removed as expected. The reservation was finally released only on September 11, almost a month after renting the car.

Karhunen was in contact with Avis several times. The company’s representative states in the e-mail reply that it is a problem at the end of the payment intermediary. HS has seen the emails.

“It doesn’t sound believable. It is hard for me to believe that the Finnish banking system is such that it takes several weeks or even a month to return the money. Usually, the cover reservation is released the next day,” Karhunen reflects.

Cover reservation doing so is a standard procedure in the car rental business, states the CEO of Avis and the chairman of the Autovuokraamoliitto Ari Ilonen.

“It is taken in case of possible subsequent charges. Typically, for example, refueling is left undone.”

The duration of the recovery of the margin is specific to the bank, payment intermediary and card, Ilonen states. According to him, there are also country-specific practices that affect the recovery schedule.

“It is not in the hands of the rental companies. It may take less than a day, two days, a week or even longer for the order to pass through the systems of banks and payment intermediaries.”

Customers report a delay in recovery from time to time, Ilonen states.

“The customer should contact their own bank or card issuer. We can only check that the command has gone ahead of us.”

A bear is OP’s customer. The director responsible for OP’s card business Teemu Kortteen according to this, it is possible that the cover charge is canceled at the store, but the charge still does not leave the customer’s card.

According to the card, the customer can contact his bank if he considers the margin reservation to be unreasonable. However, such problems are rare, he states.

“Several million cover reservations are made with OP’s cards per day and they are categorically always removed, so it’s not a big problem.”

Car rental companies use a so-called estimated authorization in addition to the normal margin reservation, he says.

“It’s its own type of cover reservation, which is valid for a maximum of 30 calendar days. If by that time there has been no purchase transaction or cancellation from the seller, the margin reservation will be released automatically.”

The bear it just took 30 days for the cover charge to be released. However, the representative of Avis said in the e-mail sent by Karhusen that the cover reservation was released on August 13, i.e. the day after the rental.

Korte does not comment on the individual customer’s situation, but speaks on a general level. He does not believe that rental companies would benefit from extending open bookings.

According to him, the duration of the cover reservation depends on the car rental company.

“It often says on the websites of rental companies that demolition can take from one to four weeks. They usually have a slight delay. It depends on the car rental company’s processes how quickly they send the card issuer a message about the freed cover reservation.”