A man visiting his family home in New Jersey claims his rental car was repossessed by the agency that lent it to him with no warning or cause.
NorthJersey reports that Tarikh Campbell walked out of his house at 10:30 p.m. on the night of August 14 to discover that his rental car, a 2020 Toyota Camry, was missing. Unclear as to what had happened, all he knew was the car was taken from the driveway of his parents’ house with no warning.
Campbell called the police, who informed him that rental agencies sometimes have GPS trackers in their cars. So he called Avis, who rented him the car, but they said that the car didn’t have one and asked him to file a stolen vehicle report, which local police confirmed to northjersey.com he did.
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TRAVELER BEWARE! Have you ever had a rental car company steal their car back from you? Well this just happened to me. I’m not usually one to take to Twitter in this way. I’m barely ever here. But I feel this is my only option short of taking legal action. So here goes
— Tarikh Campbell (@tarikhcampbell) August 20, 2021
The next day, he took a $50 rideshare to the airport for his flight home and spoke with an Avis representative there, who told him he would be charged late fees and held liable for damages until the vehicle was returned, Campbell claimed in a Twitter thread.
When Campbell got back to Massachusetts, he decided to cancel his EZ pass transporter, which he had brought with him. That’s when it occurred to him that it might help explain what happened.
The transponder shows that the car got on the highway not far from his parents’ house, then got off it again 11 minutes later at the airport. Then, security footage from his aunt’s house, who lives down the street from his parents, showed a tow truck driving to where the car was, spending 12 minutes loading it, and then driving away.
My aunt has a home security system that’s constantly recording the area from her front door to the street. She zeroed in on the time window when the car must have been taken. Low and behold, a large red tow truck drives straight to where the car was parked….and stops. pic.twitter.com/SVOlKk8ObY
— Tarikh Campbell (@tarikhcampbell) August 20, 2021
He called Avis about it but they just agreed that it was strange. Shortly after the call, the car was marked returned but he was charged a late fee. Avis later bumped up the investigation on his case and refunded him the full price of the rental plus more for other costs he incurred in the ordeal.
The real reason he’s upset, though, isn’t really the money, it’s that Avis made his family home feel unsafe. Now, he says, a detective with the local police department has been assigned to the case to see if unlawful activities or operations were performed in this weird event.
I've asked him to reorient this investigation to whether unlawful activities or operations were performed by any agents of the company and additional collaborators, and whether there might be additional victims.
— Tarikh Campbell (@tarikhcampbell) August 23, 2021