Car rental agencies generate a lot of profits from the supplemental  insurance coverage offered to customers. In some instances, this insurance is marketing aggressively — some would say too aggressively.

According to a recent New York Times story by Tara Siegel Bernard:  “The problem is that [several] customers [have] said they unwittingly signed for the coverage on an electronic tablet even though they had verbally declined it. As for Dollar, which was acquired by Hertz last year for $2.3 billion, a spokeswoman said that the company complied with all laws and denied allegations that it sold customers products they didn’t want. But at least a hundred customers, according to one consumer lawyer, contend that’s precisely what happened (mostly at Dollar, though a smattering said they had experienced the same thing at Thrifty, a sister rental company). The lawyer said he had heard from the consumers over the last year and a half. Four of them are at the center of two lawsuits against Dollar Thrifty seeking class-action status. One complaint, which was amended this week and filed in the Federal District Court in Northern California, alleges that the company engaged in unfair and deceptive business practices. A second separate complaint, filed in November with the Federal District Court in Colorado, is also still pending, according to  a consumer attorney in San Diego, who is working on that case and representing the plaintiffs in the California case. The spokeswoman for Dollar Thrifty said the company intended to defend the cases vigorously.”

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Photo by Mary DiBiase Blaich for the New York Times