Both VISA and MasterCard rules do not allow rental car companies to submit a charge against the card until the car is returned. Also, rental car agencies are permitted to submit estimated authorizations against the card as the customer incurs rental charges.
Scenario:
My car is in the shop so I rent a car. I am given an estimate repair time of 1 week so the rental car performs an authorization for one week of charges.
At the end of the week my car is not done so I do not return the car. The rental car agency will run an additional authorization against my card for more time...and so on.
Once I finally return the car, MasterCard permits the rental car agency to submit a charge against the card for the total amount of the estimated authorizations. This could exceed the daily limit of the card and since the preauthorizations have long fallen off my account, I could have spent the money resulting in an overdraft.
To determine if the charge is legit, review the authorization history of the card to see if there are authorizations from the merchant going back several weeks/months.
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