Recently the South Island’s Queenstown Lakes District Council has publicly blamed vehicle hire companies lack of co-operation in collecting unpaid fines. While rental companies passed on customers’ details to council they are refusing to debit credit cards to help with fine collection. Queenstown Council is citing this for $2.4 million in unpaid parking fines from overseas rental car drivers.

NZ Rental car companies understandably do not want to be seen as the enforcer, claiming it is the role for government and not private companies to collect government infringements.

Queenstown Council are always looking for new enforcement methods to collect funds to help prop up their future cash short falls. Recently council started to charge children’s sporting clubs for the use of the district public sporting fields. Now Council is pressuring the Rental Vehicle Association to provide customer’s credit card details in order to pursue fines from overseas visitors.