Category Archives for car rental.
Hertz’s CEO finally admits they’ve been falsely reporting cars stolen, and getting customers sent to jail. But, they argue, it doesn’t happen that often. And, like a Hertz attorney argued in court back in January, it doesn’t happen anymore because of the so-called safeguards they’ve put in place.
Except, of course, it keeps happening.
There’s a class action lawsuit, with numerous reports of customers who were arrested for theft of vehicles they’d rented, and who wound up in jail while trying to clear matters up. I’ve even been contacted by readers trying to deal with the bureaucracy of Hertz over these issues.
Appearing on CNBC, Hertz’s new CEO acknowledges it happened, says it’s rare, and that it won’t happen again.
Federal prosecutors describe a “nationwide scheme that used stolen identities to fool ride-hailing and delivery service companies into hiring unqualified drivers.”
It’s become pretty clear that poor Hertz recordkeeping has been sending customers to jail for no reason. They report cars stolen that have been returned.
Usually, at least, the damage is limited to customers who have chosen to rent from Hertz.
Apparently your elite status will not protect you. A customer, currently sitting in jail, wasn’t even status matched or given status from a credit card. He’s spent $15,000 with Hertz during the pandemic.
While this isn’t a foolproof strategy, I’ve implored readers over and over renting from Hertz not to change vehicles or extend rentals. The problem certainly doesn’t happen every time but when it does it’s bad enough that each rental with Hertz seems like a risk to me.
You’d think that after Hertz realized they were mistakenly sending customers to jail, and facing a class action lawsuit, they would take steps to ensure they stop doing it if for no other reason that it would look bad in court to continue but also because post-bankruptcy incidents wouldn’t receive shielding by the bankruptcy court.
And yet I heard from a reader this morning about another incident that occurred this month alleging jail time during the Texas ice storm as a result of a false Hertz report.
Hertz seems to have a real problem sending customers to jail for no good reason. As best I have been able to tell, it seems that when a customer changes cars, or extends a rental, Hertz sometimes doesn’t record the transaction correctly in their system. They show the original car as overdue and unreturned, report it stolen, and the customer gets arrested.
But this is a rather unique twist on the Hertz saga. Colorado resident Drew Seaser: He was arrested for stealing a car from Hertz that was rented in Georgia – even though he’d never rented from Hertz… or been to Georgia.
According to attorneys for the plaintiffs in the case – which seeks $530 million in damages – there are over 180 people that have been falsely arrested based on Hertz errors. That number is rising, with 26 new victims identifying themselves in the past month. And this doesn’t seem to be just a past problem at Hertz, either, because 8 new victims “have come forward with proof of new false arrest incidents” that occurred this year.
Hertz is allowing current elite members to gift status to one person of their choosing, and that status will last through June 30, 2022. Current Five Star members can gift Five Star, and Presidents Circle members can gift Presidents Circle.
Rental car prices have in many cases become the biggest expense of a trip. Rental companies offloaded vehicle inventories during the pandemic, and didn’t place orders. The market for cars is tight. And travel has picked back up. So there’s more people looking for cars than there are cars. Prices are sky high.
Hertz went through bankruptcy. And now they’re refreshing their fleet with…100,000 Teslas. Wow.
Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel -- a topic he has covered since 2002.
Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »
