Hertz is installing AI inspection portals at its biggest U.S. airports this year. Atlanta was the first, but they expect to hit 100 airports before 2025 is over.
Now they scan cars as they’re being returned – vehicles drive through a camera‑and‑sensor tunnel and get an ‘MRI for vehicles’ to log damage in a way that rental staff never did before. It also finds hard to spot damage such as under the vehicle, uneven tire wear, hairline cracks in the windshield.
We’re seeing one inch scuffs on a rear wheel billed out at $440 ($250 repair cost, $125 “processing” and $65 “administrative fee”).
- That’s the kind of thing that would never have been noticed before.
- And it’s probably not actually even getting repaired.
They ask for payment right away or else you pay more, and if you challenge them it takes longer than the discount window to get a response. They go after you for more money if you question the charges.
- This isn’t about accuracy
- And it isn’t about convenience
- It’s a new way to squeeze customers who don’t expect it.
Hertz’s new system lets them go after 5 times as many customers as before. The rate at which they’re sending out bills is skyrocketing. Here’s the math:
For big U.S. airport car rental locations, between 0.3% and 1% of rentals close out with actual damage charged to the customer. Roughly one renter in every 100‑300 gets a bill for damage. The midpoint most estimate, then, is about 0.6% (or 6 claims per 1,000 rentals).
- About 10% of rental returns may have some fresh dents, scrapes, or glass chips. Most of these, historically, never turned into a customer bill. At high turnover airports the focus is on taking back the car, cleaning it and getting it to the next customer.
- Fewer than 1% of rentals historically have turned into damage claims, Meanwhile, 30% – 50% of those claims are ultimately written off.
In contrast, according to Hertz, “fewer than 3 percent of vehicles scanned by the A.I. system show any billable damage.” (Emphasis mine.)
That means Hertz’s new system is billing out damage at about 5 times the previous rate. And this destroys the value proposition of renting from them (assuming of course that there was one to start with).
Historically renting from Hertz (or Avis or National) at an airport location meant on-airport convenience and going straight to your car rather than standing in long lines, and that they didn’t nickel and dime you over minor nicks and scrapes.
You pay a ton of extra fees for airport rentals, and frequently higher rates than off-airport discounters, but you weren’t stressed or hassled. These businesses are high volume and high revenue and they didn’t hassle over minor damage the customer probably didn’t do to the vehicle themselves.
It’s always been advisable to take photos and videos of vehicles prior to renting, it usually didn’t matter when renting from major car rental companies at major airports. That’s clearly changing at Hertz and others will likely follow.
The implication, though, is that these companies will no longer be worth their premium. There was an implicit loss damage waiver being purchased even by customers not paying for extra coverage. By stripping that feature out, but charging the same price, the customer gets less and becomes incentived to book elsewere – the Fox, Payless or Advantages of the world.
There ought to be legislation to prevent this nonsense.
@ Gary. The series of articles about Hertz’s use of AI and the result has been very informative for me. Thank you, I will no longer rent from Hertz.
How to lose 90% of your business 101
Hertz has just become the Granddaddy of Poor Customer Relations and Scams…..I’ll do all I can to not ever rent from Hertz again.
Will NEVER rent from Hertz, Dollar, and Thrifty again. Customers need to be respected.
how about they scan when you leave too so there is a baseline scan copy you can have to prove nothing changed when you return it?
The airport rental return is such a circus I started using Lyft and Uber. In most cases I come out even money or better in larger cities. No buying gas or tipping hotel valet to park car for $30 or $50 a night. Add it all up. How much really is the rental before the $440 for a scuff mark on a tire?
Thanks for keeping us posted. I really hope Hertz feels the pain and I have been actively spreading the word with my travel peers. I have been more than loyal to them for 30+ years, but i am not going to walk into a scam that has no proof/process/fairness.
I protect myself using Certified Media to document the condition of the car before I drive off the lot. Takes two minutes with a mobile application named ProveIt-Now!
If you damage the car you rent you should pay for it unless you have full insurance. What’s wrong with that??. Makes good sense
The YouTube channel Leto’s Law has a lot of episodes about all the terrible things Hertz does. How are they in Business?
Bottom line is do not ever rent from Hertz. Finding new ways to destroy customer relations. From this to them reporting cars stolen as soon as you rent them leading to customers getting pulled over and even time in jail while the mixup gets sorted.
So what’s this new AI inspection return thing. I’m a little worried about that..
No worries boss.. You’re in luck. We offer our own scratch insurance for just $35/day so you may have a worry free vacation.
This is making a fantastic argument for actively avoiding renting from Hertz.
I rent on occasion, and have a flashlight and go over the whole car, taking pictures and videos making note of the date and time.
The checkout kiosk you drive by? I tell them my findings and have them documented.
I’m not paying for something I didn’t do.
Coming soon….Enterprise to buy Hertz in acquisition deal.
They’re already hurting as it is. There’s nothing like killing your business than doing this to your customer base especially when those items fall under what’s considered normal wear and tear.
Hertz always has been on my do not rent from them list lol. Top of the list because they do attempt to charge everyone just to try and get them to pay. If you simply dispute they usually drop it. Pathetic practice imo so I can’t rent from them in good conscience. And my wallet doesn’t want to either because they always try to charge for a ding here or cracked windshield there that was previous to my renting with them.
I bet they’re checking what credit card you have. If your credit card has CDW coverage they’ll target you much more. I rented with Hertz and they never hassled me until I switched to a card with CDW included (Amex Plat).
Hertz is dead to me now. The comparative prices they were showing were all “Prepaid” anyway. Rule #1, never ever prepay for a service. There’s a reason your boss doesn’t pay you in advance.
We used to rent from Hertz all the time, up to a month on some trips. Unfortunately, the only winners here are their competitors… We will no longer rent from Hertz, sounds like a shakedown to me….
I’ve avoided Hertz like the plague for the past several years, ever since (some of) their renters got arrested for “stealing” their cars when all they did was extend their rentals. Between that, their disastrous (i.e. huge financial beating) acquisition of a large fleet of Tesla EVs, and now their AI scammers/scanners, I don’t understand why anyone would choose to rent from Hertz when there are a dozen competitors to choose from.
Fortunately, I don’t rent cars that often, but Hertz is the one rental car company on my blacklist.
The real question is will the rest of the industry follow Hertz or will one of them see it as a new customer acquisition strategy and build on Hertz’s mistake. Delta, might want to find a better promo than President’s Circle for Diamond. I will be looking elsewhere for rental cars.
Hertz has always been crooked. One time when renting from them, I returned a car to the office in Louisville, KY, and was charged for a full tank of gas. At the time, I used them exclusively, charging the rentals on their credit card. I sent in the receipt for my gas fill-up from a gas station just 4 miles from the dropoff point. I filled more gas than I used. I received a corrected invoice, but without any notification, they cancelled my charge card—pure crooks. They make their money from charges they hope will not be disputed.
For those of you who are asking why is it a bad thing to be forced to pay for damages that you caused on a rental car? How about these scenarios. You’re on a road that is the only road you can take to get you where you need to go. You get behind a dump truck and the truck is spitting out tiny rocks. One of them are bigger than the others and chips the hood. Is that you’re fault? How about the same road scenario but the road was just painted by road crews and paint gets on the car? How about a parking lot and someone parked next to you puts a tiny ding on the rental? Are you able to sit by the car 24/7 to make sure no one dings the car? Of course not. Is it fair to force us to pay for damages that happen beyond our control? No. It will be impossible to return a perfect car. And this just sets people up for a who gets to pay lottery and more than likely, none of those damages will be fixed anyway. Takes too long and the company needs to send the car back out ASAP. This is a scam and Hertz will lose a lot of customers over this. As will any others who do the same AI return checks.
We had a very small scratch on our rear bumper. The person at LHR basically accused me of not knowing how to store luggage in a car (I bring back at least 300 lbs. in the cargo every trip from the UK for trade shows) because I am a woman (also a 2.8 million miler on UA) He asked for money to make it go away. I refused to sign the paperwork and got billed 440 GBP for the damages. Come to find out later, they are subcontractors in the return section AND they get a percentage of all the damage amounts they bring it! I did take a photo but they claimed it was a different car.
@Jo Williams — Regardless of the AI topic, what you described with the kickback/commission scheme for those subcontractors should be illegal. Hertz at that location clearly created an incentive to ‘screw’ customers, exaggerate and falsify claims, all so they can profit more. Not cool
Frankly, at this point this has been widely publicized. Everyone is duly warned. So anyone who runs from Hertz in USA really has no reason to complain. I imagine Hertz may wake up when they lose a big part of their customer base.
Even if you buy the LDW/CDW coverage offered the insurance company will not cover the processing, administrative (how are these different anyway) and or loss of use fees. $125, $65, and TBD…
So if you use a credit card with insurance coverage, how will the banks respond when all these bull claims start rolling in?
@Jim B. — Hopefully, those claims agents will honor their commitments to card members, and effectively push back on false claims by repeat bad actors/locations in the rental car industry… *holding my breath*
I’ve been a Presidents club level member for over 20 years- I’m done with Hertz. This greed is just out of control.
This is absolutely enough to get me to choose any other car rental company into the future.
But what do you want to bet that eventually it will be proven that the AI machines have different levels of scrutiny for vehicles: One that picks up fewer dings & scratches (when you’re leaving Hertz) and another one that picks up more… every little thing. And the latter will, of course, be at the time you drop off your vehicle.
Is there no such thing as “normal wear and tear”? And how can the customer be responsible for uneven tire wear–that is a routine maintenance issue that is the responsiblity of Hertz? Am I soon to be responsible for oil changes, because the car hit the “change oil mileage mark” during my rental?!
Hmmm, I’m booked with Hertz out of Barcelona for six weeks of driving holiday around Spain and Potugal. I have nearly always used Hertz and have had no problems other than never getting the car I book( 10 months in advance). I try to take great care and always pay extra for secure carparking etc
Whilst the article is refering to the USA, this is very worrying and I will be checking to see if Europe is following suit.. I may have to change my booking.. Hertz were no cheaper than any other company to begin with, its just loyalty and being satisfied with the service that has kept me there.
The AI thing is ridiculous and nothing more than a pseudo scam.. Hertz will be claiming depreciation and write downs all the way through the life of the car, yet will be charging for anything that looks like a mark or more, basically ensuring that only the milage is depreciating the car.
For a start, How do you see under a car when you are hiring or when you return and are rushing to meet a flight.
It’s the equivalent of a scam for sure.
This is FRAUD! PROVE I did the damage. This idea that I am responsible for damage by a shopper in a parking lots is STUPID!
The minor wear and damage is A FIXED COST of doing business! Suck it up HERTZ!
I WILL NEVER rent from ANY rental car company using this CRAP to simply OVERCHARGE a customer!
Send me a BILL AFTER the work is ACTUALLY DONE, AFTER you PROVE it was ME that did it! Off to court we go Hertz!
Use a CC that has a super small credit line so they CANNOT just charge you a ridiculous amount.
What is next? Charge us for OIL wear, tire wear, depreciation of the car to us? They are trying to GOUGE us!
A bank executive USED to customer FEES must have gotten a job at Hertz THINKING they can nickle and dime you to death…
Hertz had an overcharging for fuel habit that our company called them on. Our corporate rep from Hertz started an email discussion with their billing department and kept us in the loop by cc: ing us on the conversation. The billing department basically told their own corporate rep to piss up a rope and we were copied on it too.
That was the end of the line for us with Hertz. We went to National and never looked back. We had over 60,000 team members, many that travelled weekly with rental cars. That was around 15 years ago.