Tag Archives for hertz.
A readerr received an email receipt from Hertz even though he hadn’t picked up a rental car from them. It turns out that he made a booking at the Austin airport, but just didn’t use it. Nonetheless Hertz showed him picking up the car, driving 100 miles, and returning it the next evening. They billed him $91.77.
Some of the stories from this group are shocking (though admittedly no less shocking than stories we’ve already heard). Cars that had been reported stolen but were still in Hertz’s possession and being rented, handcuffed in front of their kids, and perhaps most shocking – a Hertz platinum member who was arrested four times.
Rent a car, steal the PlatePass toll tracking device, use it as an Uber driver on all your airport runs while the tolls get billed to whomever rents the car next. That seems like a dangerous ploy, since presumably there are photos of your vehicle going through the tolls and you could be easily tracked down. Or perhaps not…
The reason Hertz gives for refusing to drop charges against any of the victims, even after acknowledging filing false police reports that have led to customer arrests, is insane. According to Hertz they can’t tell police they made a mistake or else police won’t believe them in the future.
Hertz has become known for broken systems that don’t track their cars properly. It seems that just because a vehicle is returned, and gets re-rented, that doesn’t mean Hertz knows it ever came back. And though they claim otherwise, they seem to have a hair trigger for reporting cars stolen (or at least threatening customers that they will).
The rental giant argues that this is rare (a small percentage of total rentals) and a thing of the past (they’ve made process improvements). But it seems to keep happening. And though it may represent a small portion of transactions, readers of this blog keep reporting that it happens to them.
Hertz’s CEO admits mistakes and promises false arrests of customers won’t happen again yet it does seem to keep happening. It always seems, though, like ‘something that happens to other people’ rather than something we’d worry about. And Hertz often shows up being the cheapest!
Except it doesn’t just happen to other people, it seems, it happens to readers of this blog. And keeps happening to readers of this blog. At least one commenter on a post this week shares tht it just happened to them.
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.
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.
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 »
