Tag Archives for hertz.
A Michigan man spent 5 years in jail for murder when all it would have taken to prove his innocence was a receipt from Hertz.
After numerous subpoenas and court orders, Hertz was ordered to appear in person and finally produced the receipt. The man’s conviction was overturned and he’s now free.
Hertz is in bankruptcy yet last year their stock was a favorite of Redditors on the Robinhood app. They’ve been sending customers to jail when they fail to mark rental agreements as extended, or fail to mark a car back into inventory and rent it again.
Now they’ve sent out a message seemingly at least as customer-friendly as everyone else: that they were pausing points expiration through December 31, 2021. But their fingers were crossed.
Hertz is accused of falsely reporting cars stolen on a number of customers – and the customers wind up in jail. This appears to have been going on for a couple of years at least. Hertz has been sued for the practice. And yet it seems to continue.
The stories have a common thread involving switching out of the originally-assigned vehicle, or extending a rental, where Hertz employees didn’t properly complete the paperwork for the transaction.
Hertz reportedly has a system glitch that has been reporting some cars stolen even though they’ve been properly rented out. The customers that have rented the cars? They’ve been getting arrested. In a few cases they’ve faced guns drawn by police. Several customers have gone to prison.
At the end of April Hertz was looking at a large payment on $17 billion in debt. Their loans are backed by their fleet of vehicles, but the plummeting value of used cars meant Hertz had to make up the difference in cash. Lenders didn’t want to force them into bankruptcy, though, believing debt would have a better shot getting paid if the rental company continued as a going concern.
Hertz has a deadline of May 22 to develop a financing plan – but the lack of financing is an own goal, since their CEO walked away from up to half a billion in cash back in March.
Airlines are offering travel credit for cancelled reservations. Hotels are letting customers with prepaid reservations cancel without penalty. It’s frequently not possible to travel, either because of a government ban or an employer’s policy. The events or activities you planned to go to may not be happening – all of the world’s Disney theme parks are closed, even. Yet Hertz is keeping your money from prepaid car rental reservations.
Fortunately there is a hack to save some money if Hertz won’t offer a refund.
Hertz has just announced that they’ve become the first ‘non-air affiliate’ of the SkyTeam airline alliance that includes Delta, Air France KLM, Korean Air and others.
While more marketing tie-ins can be better than fewer, a car rental company is a somewhat strange brand to launch with. Renting cars is so nine years ago. Hertz was once the rental company for business travelers. In this extended montage from Up in the Air when George Clooney is grounded in Omaha he wants to buy a Chrysler Sebring from Hertz.
Keith Alexander, whose Washington Post columns I generally quite like, this week reviews the recent history of customer activism and their successes in changing the policies of travel providers. Last week, numerous complaints prompted Hertz to back off a plan to introduce a $2.50 reservation fee on all of its vehicle rentals in the United States. …Hertz acted on the reservation fee after several large clients organized an e-mail campaign and other regular customers posted a “boycott Hertz” message on FlyerTalk.com, a popular Internet message board made up of some of the nation’s most frequent — and influential — travelers. …In 2002, Delta’s frequent fliers were outraged when the airline reduced mileage awards on steeply discounted tickets. They created a Web site called SaveSkyMiles.com and raised money to send a truck-mounted billboard protesting the change…
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 »
