I will assign to Mordor US car rental companies and the competing websites trying to lure people to their pages chasing for the advertiser's favour with totally false promises...
Why can't they just say what is the real and final total cost?
Why can't they say what car are you getting in the end (how many people, how much luggage, what's the mileage)?
On site A they say you can rent a car at price X. They even give you a list of surcharges the price covers (like ten different ones) - but they don't tell you they have omitted the most costly ones...
Or on a site B they say X is the full cost you have to pay... but then there is the small print which says taxes b & c are not included and it's said nowhere how much they are (you need to find them out yourself).
In hopes of getting a possible six-seater Ford Escape with promised 28mpg on highway (to take Brinn with us to Geneva), you could end up with any random gas-devouring SUV (even less than 20mpg) with only five seats. And actually one search gave the mileage of Ford Escape as 22mpg! So who to believe? We'll be driving for 6000+ miles so the mileage is not an insignificant factor.
In hopes of getting a full-size car with comfort (like Chevy Impala) you either get a car with 28mpg or 21mpg; or you get a car with ample room to four big baggages or just for two... a premium car would have more or less assured extra-room for the luggage but the price would be accordingly high (at about 300$ more) - and the mileage would be accordingly bad... or how could you know?
Couldn't they get just real saying what they're selling to people?
PS: I'm "fourthing" the PC to Mordor!