Hertz Charging a Tesla Renter for Gas Was Not an Isolated Incident

https://www.thedrive.com/news/hertz-charging-a-tesla-renter-for-gas-was-not-an-isolated-incident

by peutetre • 2 years ago

225 204 2 years ago

Half of the stories about billing for unused gas are clearly just theft. Why do consumers have no recourse against companies that steal from them? If I made charges to someone's card for services that weren't rendered, I'd probably go to jail.

janice1999• 2 years ago

It could be worse - Hertz falsely accused hundreds of people of stealing cars which lead to felonies, arrests and jail time.

https://www.npr.org/2022/12/06/1140998674/hertz-false-accusa...

psynister2• 2 years ago

Holy crap, that is seriously messed up.

prawn• 2 years ago

Something like this happened to me - I'd rented one of their cars with no return date because I hadn't fully planned out a multi-week trip in the eastern USA. The staff member said this was fine; they'd put in a return date of a week or two and then keep pushing it back.

Five weeks later I returned the car and flew back home to Australia. Found letters that had been posted saying that the car hadn't been returned and was considered stolen.

xvector2• 2 years ago

False accusations and convictions ruin people's lives. I'm not sure why these companies are not mandated to pay people's current income and expected income growth over the course of their working lives because it'll probably be hard for these people to ever find a job again.

For instance, if I make $500k today, the company should be obligated to pay me this amount every year plus additional compounding interest on that amount in order to account for inflation and expected salary growth over the remainder of my working life.

The company should be forced to put this money aside in a trust immediately so I do not have to worry about the company going bankrupt. Company resources and equity ought to be garnished, if necessary, in order to accomplish this.

It's frustrating and bizarre to me that people are allowed to ruin others' lives and then they do not have to bear the full consequences of their actions. Surely, if one is found to have ruined someone's life, the least our justice system can do is obligate them to repay in full?

mgerdts• 2 years ago

I rented a car from Hertz at SFO. After my trip I tried to file my expense report and found I didn’t have a charge on my credit card and it wasn’t listed in my Hertz account. Looking at the paperwork, I saw they rented it to someone else.

Thankfully I had no interactions with the police while driving that car.

ikekkdcjkfke• 2 years ago

e-sign

threeseed• 2 years ago

It's not theft. Rather just regular old big company incompetence.

You're dealing with broken automated systems and an out-sourced customer support agent.

Wait until LLMs arrive on the scene and further exacerbate the problem.

db48x2• 2 years ago

It is theft too. Theft caused by incompetence and out–sourced customer support is still theft.

chipgap98• 2 years ago

Incompetence is not a valid justification for theft

hn_throwaway_992• 2 years ago

While I generally agree with your premise, the problem is that when companies realize they can make more money through "old big company incompetence", at best it means they have no incentive to improve, and at worst in means they can maliciously overcharge and then just blame it on "incompetence".

I really think government needs to enact laws that make companies compensate people for their time when they have to deal with bureaucratic nightmares like this. Right now companies just get to externalize the costs of their fucks ups onto everyone else.

maxerickson• 2 years ago

Okay, fraudulent billing then.

schmookeeg• 2 years ago

I would bet that they displayed high competence at discovering under-charge or forgot-to-charge incidents and swiftly remedied them.

Nextgrid2• 2 years ago

Ignorance of the law isn't a valid excuse for individuals is it? So it shouldn't be for companies either.

Repulsion951313• 2 years ago

Big company incompetence exists because, paradoxically, it's more profitable.

The solution is making it less profitable, or better yet treating the business like you'd treat a human. Put a derogatory report on their credit and make sure they can't get any kind of credit (often even including pre-paid rent) for 7 years....

unstatusthequo2• 2 years ago

State Attorney General or Consumer Fraud Departments

laweijfmvo• 2 years ago

at what point does something like this garner class-action attention? most of the money ends up going to the lawyers, though…

wahnfrieden• 2 years ago

It can get extremely expensive before anything is done. And in fact the high price of it can keep it going, when it’s benefitting those with lobbying power

Just take a look at wage theft and federal police theft stats compared with all other forms of robbery in the US - it’s out of control but the only thing that seems to get actioned on is the small shoplifting issue, not the vastly worse forms of theft (per dollar value)

blackeyeblitzar4• 2 years ago

Class action is often prohibited through terms that force you to act solely and also they require arbitration. This sort of thing should be banned and made retroactive.

Repulsion951313• 2 years ago

When they've made approximately nine digits off of it. After all, they need to be able to keep some of their ill-gotten profits, the lawyers need at least 7 digits (more often 8), the class representatives need perhaps 5-6 digits, and everyone else (who was fleeced out of 3 digits) gets 1 digit.

TulliusCicero• 2 years ago

As a general rule, people stealing or otherwise breaking the law via companies get cut way more slack than random individuals.

Like, Wells Fargo set up millions of fraudulent accounts for its customers, and zero people went to jail.

Even if you accept the premise that upper level management somehow didn't know, a certain level of negligence should absolutely lead to prison time when the impact is this is large.

hnburnsy2• 2 years ago

No prison time but one was prosecuted and sentenced to home confinement and community service...

A former top Wells Fargo executive avoided prison time for her role in the bank’s sham accounts scandal, after a federal judge on Friday instead sentenced her to six months of home confinement and three years of probation. She was also ordered to pay a $100,000 fine and perform 120 hours of community service.

discordance• 2 years ago

Another classic example is from the 2007–2008 financial crisis, for which there were only two people who were actually charged for their wrong doing:

Kareem Serageldin got a 30 month sentence, and Lee Farkas got 30 years but only served 9 and was released because of his "susceptibility to COVID-19 while incarcerated at the Coleman low-security prison in Wildwood" [0][1].

Talk about a lack of culpability.

0: https://www.nationalmortgagenews.com/news/mortgage-fraudster...

1: https://www.mortgagefraudblog.com/lee-farkas-released-from-p...

IG_Semmelweiss• 2 years ago

This is small potatoes.

Hertz has been actually triggered false arrets of its own customers -some going to jail - due to poorly implemented software logic....[1]

And no one at hertz is going to jail [2]. They are settling as usual.

[1] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/hertz-claims-false-arrests/

[2] https://www.npr.org/2022/12/06/1140998674/hertz-false-accusa...

dylan6044• 2 years ago

With all of the pitch fork and torches being gathered, who is at fault to point the gather crowd to go after? Is it Hertz for accepting faulty software, or the software devs for designing such broken code and passing it off as production ready? Where was this program made? How many boats will be required to ferry the gathering crowd to the offshored lands?

Also, at what point do police stop accepting "stolen" car reports from Hertz? This is such a failure on so many levels, why is Hertz the only ones receiving the hate?

Aurornis• 2 years ago

Why do consumers have no recourse against companies that steal from them?

Stuff like this is easy to charge back with your credit card company.

But in this case, the article makes it clear that the people were able to get the charges reversed by talking to Hertz. It wasn't necessarily convenient, but the funds were returned when a human saw the mistake.

If I made charges to someone's card for services that weren't rendered, I'd probably go to jail.

If you entered into an agreement with someone to do business and then accidentally charged them the wrong amount, you would not go to jail. That's what happened here, as annoying as it is.

I know this is HN and we're supposed to get our pitchforks out any time a company makes a mistake, but your analogy doesn't hold. Legally, intentional theft is a higher bar than a mistake. You're right that you'd be in trouble if you just started charging random people's credit cards fraudulently, but you're not going to jail if you're doing business with someone and you occasionally make a mistake about the amount when it's time to bill them. (FYI: Billing mistakes happen all the time at scale)

If you could prove that someone in Hertz was diabolically masterminding a scheme to knowingly milk money from customers by charging EV drivers for gas, you could have a case. But if Hertz is just accidentally charging a couple people here and there for gas (as appears to be the case from the article) then that's not "stealing". It's just a mistake.

jononomo• 2 years ago

It wasn't a mistake. It was a pretend mistake.

sneak3• 2 years ago

Stuff like this is easy to charge back with your credit card company.

That's not actually true. This sort of "oh, you never have to pay for services not rendered" is mostly just a fiction. I've had multiple issues with major credit card issuers who refused to persist chargebacks when vendors screwed me.

The other issue is that, even if you successfully chargeback against a vendor, oftentimes that vendor is a monopoly or duopoloy, and they will terminate your account and ban any new accounts using the same name or card number, and you'll be screwed.

alvah• 2 years ago

"Stuff like this is easy to charge back with your credit card company."

That sounds like what someone who's never had to waste hours getting 'stuff like this' charged back, with varying levels of success, would say.

Repulsion951313• 2 years ago

Stuff like this is easy to charge back with your credit card company.

Hah. Your card company will accept the dispute, Hertz will provide them with the rental contract you signed and say "he agreed to pay it!", and your card company will close the dispute without ever even following up with you.

But in this case, the article makes it clear that the people were able to get the charges reversed by talking to Hertz. It wasn't necessarily convenient, but the funds were returned when a human saw the mistake.

Actually the article makes it clear that they had to go round and round in circles with bot-like support reps who probably haven't ever seen a Tesla in whatever slum they can afford.

If you entered into an agreement with someone to do business and then accidentally charged them the wrong amount, you would not go to jail.

It's not accidental when you keep doing it until the news gets involved. BTW, how can they even charge a fuel fee without a human being involved to... you know... fuel it? Shouldn't that human have noticed that there was no gas tank? Hmm... Almost like it wasn't accidental.

kevinob112• 2 years ago

I wonder about this constantly. Why is there such a legal power imbalance between people and companies, especially large companies? If a company wants to charge me extra they just do it, they don't have to provide proof of anything. If I want to resolve the issue I have to call them or my credit card company, neither is simple and has something like a 75% chance of being successful (IME) even if I'm completely right.

On two separate occasions a company has charged me for something and after I've made multiple calls and escalations (which of course can only happen during certain hours) they finally refunded me by saying "we'll make a one-time exception as a favor to you" even though they were literally stealing from me. In one case they only finally did it after I contacted the attorney general.

Honestly I don't even really care if it was a mistake (which are usually systemic issues) vs intentional, it is theft. In one example Comcast charged me a late fee even though I had autopay set up and they just missed running the charge. I wonder how many people just didn't notice.

I've long thought the only solution to these issues is to levy fines (or jail time if intentional theft) large enough to discourage the behavior. If it is still happening, keep raising the fines until it stops.

throwup238• 2 years ago

I've long thought the only solution to these issues is to levy fines (or jail time if intentional theft) large enough to discourage the behavior. If it is still happening, keep raising the fines until it stops.

We need a corporate death penalty and three strike laws - where three is scaled to the customer base or total monetary damages or whatever. Upon death, any and all assets (including shares of the company, in case of restructuring) go to employee salaries until the company can be wound down.

Nathanba• 2 years ago

The question shouldn't be "why" because the answer is obvious: Companies have more money and more people and more time and therefore more power than you as an individual. The solution also already exists: The government should be giving individuals free lawyers to go after companies who violate their rights. We have this system in my country where there is a people's lawyer that can choose to take up cases that seem deserving. Then we also have certain government sponsored union-like associations whose job it is to sue companies who commit wage theft and they are good at it. After all when some random person steals from you, you generally also don't have to sue them and hope a court decides in your favor. That is all the job of the government (=police). Private individuals should not have to waste their time in the legal system to defend laws that the government created.

mirsadm• 2 years ago

It goes beyond just stealing some money. They can ruin your credit rating by claiming you didn't pay your bills even when they are incorrect. I was wondering this same thing recently after being charged for something for an extra month after cancelling. Chasing them to get the money back was a lot of hassle but if the situation were reversed they can screw my life for years.

Galanwe2• 2 years ago

I think this boils down to the existence of megacorps. IMHO a state should just not allow corporations to grow beyond a certain marketcap level.

I see no real world benefit to allow such companies to exist, it creates "too big to fail" schemes, inefficient structures, and overall companies that are able to compete with literally small states or countries in terms of capital /legal / lobby power.

Beyond a certain marketcap, a company should not be allowed to grow anymore and just forced to split in multiple entities.

exclusiv• 2 years ago

IANA but I understand CLRA in California is very strong for this type of stuff.

Repulsion951313• 2 years ago

Welcome to the corporatocracy.

dinobones• 2 years ago

It’s surprising to me how large businesses can basically steal from people like this with impunity, under the guise of some “fee.”

Of course 10 years later there’s a class action lawsuit where everyone gets a check for $23 in the mail, but, at that point what’s the point?

zdragnar• 2 years ago

Why wait for the class action, especially when the claim is plenty small enough to fit into a small claims court?

They exist for a reason.

If enough people use them, it'll end up costing the company far more than a class action, and you'll get more back too because Lawyers won't suck up 50% of the payment.

blackeyeblitzar4• 2 years ago

I think you have to go to forced arbitration instead of small claims. That process usually starts with paying a roughly $1000 fee to open the arbitration.

vkou2• 2 years ago

Because overcharging someone isn't actually theft, and rarely rises to the level of fraud.

jen20• 2 years ago

Why is it not theft?

userbinator• 2 years ago

I wouldn't be surprised if other customers renting an ICE car got the EV charge, but obviously won't complain if it's cheaper.

grayhatter• 2 years ago

someone is overbilled... why is this hacker news?

ggm• 2 years ago

Because it's supported across years, decades even, by maldesigned software systems.

The mismatch should be detectable from basic BI. Nobody did because the failure was profitable.

Not unlike the UK post office ICT failure in that respect.

grugagag2• 2 years ago

Rented a Hertz and got charged $90 a day for easy pass service whether I drove the car or not (I was camping for a week) and had no way of fighting the charges, some fine print tricked me. For such scams I vowed to never give my business to Hertz again. Ever.

unstatusthequo2• 2 years ago

Small claims court. Just depends on your time value of money. Or willingness to screw with them for gigs.

grugagag2• 2 years ago

I was too busy to fight it off, initially called my CC and put stop on charges. Eventually they got my money.

Teever3• 2 years ago

I'd love to see a campaign to coordinate small claims court claims against abusive companies.

It could really fuck a company's day up if several hundred to thousand people across the world decides to seek redress from a small claims court on the same day.

Our_Benefactors• 2 years ago

Wow, that is highway robbery. It takes months to accrue $90 of EZ pass charges for most driving situations.

gnicholas• 2 years ago

IIRC this is a fee they charge you in order to have access to the vehicle's EZ pass, not for making actual trips across EZ pass bridges or the like. So if you're going to rent a car for a week and need to cross a bridge on one day, you have to enable the charge for the entire trip, or somehow prepay the charge via some website for the bridge. This is basically impossible for a tourist to figure out, of course, so they just profit from the complexity with an all-or-nothing system.

millzlane3• 2 years ago

Enterprise did the same thing to me, and I had my ez pass in the car. Not as much, though.

saligne• 2 years ago

avis does the same thing: they ask you if you want the ez pass to be activated and if you say yes, they put abbreviations in the fine print that indicate you agreed to their ridiculously priced "unlimited tolls" package, even though there are other cheaper ez pass related services, and because you sign the rental agreement in order to get the keys, you don't have a leg to stand on if you dispute it later. because the charge is abbreviated, it took 20 minutes between the invoice and their website to even decipher what the charges were for. if hertz and enterprise are doing it, must be an industry-wide scam.

fmobus• 2 years ago

I went to the US last year on business, and rented a car out of the airport.

Not only they could not tell me in advance how much it was going to cost, but also everything in the final invoice was abbreviated and laid out in a nonsensical way. I tried summing the values in every possible way, and it never got to the total they charged.

I'd be absolutely pissed if it was my money.

Funnily enough, rented from the same company in Germany, and the experience was completely different. Clear value, fees, easy to understand invoice.

Repulsion951313• 2 years ago

It has been for a long time. Back when I worked for a (moving truck) rental place they charged like $75 "for processing and billing" the tolls to you.

psynister2• 2 years ago

I have had nothing but bad experiences with Hertz. Unfortunately the corporate rate we get is very low so I'm stuck with them, but it seems like there is always something that goes wrong. I drove out of their facility, had a low tire pressure indicator on, brought it back and they wanted me to sign something saying I was responsible for damage to their tire.

charles_f• 2 years ago

This is a simple case where it's pretty easy to prove that they made a mistake, but I once got charged for skip the pump, despite a) i had filled in the tank, b) the tank was not even full when I picked the car. Lucky enough I always keep the pump receipts and they ended refunding me, but I'm left to wonder how many people get charged those fees and can't get them reversed

Yesman85• 2 years ago

Every single time I rent a car in Vegas. No matter what company, I get dinged for gas. Keep all my receipts and make a video showing the gauge while dropping off the car.

It's just an admin hassle each time.

hiddencost• 2 years ago

I've also heard people tell similarly bizarre stories (e.g., a non-smoker getting billed a smoking cleaning fee) about Hertz. Given their well publicized financial troubles, I kinda assume they're doing this systematically? I wonder what it would take for some AGs to get involved and send people to jail.

infecto• 2 years ago

Sadly I think most car rental companies are filled with fine print hell.

The one that has bitten me a few times is the minimum miles fee. Rent a car at the airport because it’s cheaper than an Uber. Drive to a friends house and the vehicle never is used until return. Since it is bellow some threshold, 30 miles or so, you get charged a $15-25 fee unless you had shown a receipt for gas.

CantPickAName• 2 years ago

Wow...didn't know this was a thing.

I got bit by the opposite where one of my rentals had a maximum miles limit. I use a corporate code that usually includes unlimited mileage but this location didn't offer that. They had a limit of 300km unless you paid extra and since I skip the counter and go directly to the garage to pick a car, I wasn't aware of that. It was only when they emailed me the receipt later that I saw the extra charges.

NelsonMinar• 2 years ago

I wonder if this depends on the Hertz franchise location? I've rented EVs from Hertz at the Fort Lauderdale airport twice and had a great experience with things costing just what I expected. It was a great way to learn about EVs: my new car is a Volvo C40 mostly because I had such a good experience with a Polestar from Hertz.

whoiscroberts• 2 years ago

Great question and point. I was be surprised if there was not an incentive for the manager at each individual location to push up incidental charges.

geraldwhen• 2 years ago

Of course there must be. Rental agencies do incur cost to missing gas, car damage, etc, and they must track incident cost accrued vs incidental cost billed to customer. If B < A, someone gets their ass chewed out. To avoid that, they commit fraud and spread the incidental cost on everyone.

kelnos4• 2 years ago

I don't think "twice" is enough to be considered data in support of any point when we're talking about millions of total rentals. Even if they screw this up (intentionally or otherwise) with 10% of all rentals, you're still unlikely to have a problem with only two experiences.

time0ut• 2 years ago

Aside from charging to put gas in an EV, the amounts they are charging seem really high. How could filling a sedan with gas cost $200 to $400? That’s like 10x what the actual gas costs retail at the pump.

kevingadd• 2 years ago

If you check what rental companies charge for gas when you pick up a car, they typically list something like $12/gallon here if you don't prepay, and something like $5-7/gallon if you "buy the tank". This vs maybe $3-4/gal at the nearest station.

kelnos4• 2 years ago

You're paying for convenience. The deal they make with you up front is that you get to not worry about the tank, but in return you pay a super inflated rate for the gas. Plus you pay for a full tank, even if you return it at 3/4 and it only takes a few gallons to fill it.

I get that some people just don't have the time (or executive function?) to deal with refilling before return on some trips, or they're so rich that they just don't care, but otherwise I just do not get why anyone would accept this option.

reaperman2• 2 years ago

A lot of car rentals go on a corporate tab. When high-impact employees are traveling, their time is very valuable. An extra 20 minutes for the employee to spend with the customer on the last day could easily be worth $150 to their employer. Some businesses are happy to pay inflated prices for gas just in case their employee needs that extra 20 minutes onsite before returning to the airport.

listenallyall6• 2 years ago

Actually the deal, typically, is that if you buy a full tank up front, the per-gallon price is at par or even a bit cheaper than local gas stations, so you save money and gain convenience (that's the pitch). By contrast, if you don't buy gas up front, and don't return the car full, that's when they charge you an enormous per-gallon price. That price is highly profitable and also makes the "up-front" option seem more appealing.

(Just take 10 minutes and return the car full, and don't worry about any of this)

m463• 2 years ago

Receipt later had a $100 "clean fee - interior ACCEPTED" after renting a car for two weeks. what?

I called customer service and they quickly removed it, but it left a bad taste in my mouth.

To be clear, there was rain so maybe a smudge of dirt near pedals, but car was kept clean throughout.

gessha• 2 years ago

If the Seinfeld episode about rental cars was made nowadays, it would be in a Hertz office (or tactically renamed version like Hearts or Hurts).

skykooler• 2 years ago

All my worst car rental experiences involved Herz.

hnburnsy2• 2 years ago

Hertz used to be the best, I think I heard that PE gutted it, not sure, I avoid it at all costs.

listenallyall6• 2 years ago

Not PE, it was mostly a former CEO.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/erikakelton/2019/05/02/hertz-ma...

kelnos4• 2 years ago

As much as services like Turo and Getaround have their own gotchas[0], this sort of thing is why I try to use them instead of the legacy car rental companies, when possible. I've had nothing but good experiences with Turo (15 or so rentals, ranging from a single day to a 2-week rental). With the legacy rental companies, the best experiences are barely mediocre.

[0] One big one is that credit cards that offer insurance for rental cars won't cover services like these.

rasz• 2 years ago

Turo is famous for scam fake vomit cleaning fees.

nicce2• 2 years ago

I just found the Turo first time, and the prices seems to be like 4 times more? At least if you rent longer durations.

RandallBrown• 2 years ago

That must be pretty location dependent. When I've used it the prices were usually dramatically lower, especially if you want something specific like AWD.

sf_rob• 2 years ago

The only EV I’ve rented from Turo was the opposite experience. They gave me the car at 75%, they capped charging at 90% in settings, then they charged me for bringing it back at 70% (which was just past their threshold but considering I could only charge it to 90% that should be the baseline).

brikym• 2 years ago

Missed opportunity to put 'gaslighting' in the title.

coleca• 2 years ago

Hadn’t rented from Hertz in many years until last week. Made sure to fill the tank back up as high as it would go just in case. Get thru security at the airport and already had a $26 charge for fuel. Still working on getting this fixed. Funny how they can charge within 5-7 minutes but they take 5-7 business days to process a refund.

jonhohle• 2 years ago

Good luck. I’m fighting them from the beginning of April because they failed to check the car in properly (I asked for a receipt and they said they couldn’t print one at the return, despite being in the receipt line). I got charged for the next renters days, late fees, recovery fees, and tolls accrued by them. They agreed to refund (which still hasn’t happened) and a few days later they charged me for not returning the car full (it was).

Fortunately for us it’s just a credit card charge that’s being disputed. For friends of ours they reported the car stolen and filed a police report.

This doesn’t seem like how a legitimate business operates, but more like a syndicate. While I understand individual locations are franchises, they have eerily similar catastrophic failures that seem to regularly occur.

gdudeman2• 2 years ago

I recommend disputing the charge with your credit card. My credit card refunded my Hertz bill in under five minutes of clicking online.

mendelmaleh• 2 years ago

If they did a chargeback, Hertz might dispute it, send you collection letters and terminate your account.

lolinder6• 2 years ago

This is probably important context to include when you make this recommendation (from your other comment):

Ultimately they sent me a bill for the cost of the rental minus the gas and threatened to take me to collections if I didn't pay it.

This is the always-necessary reminder that credit card chargebacks do not in fact relieve you of the duty to pay for services that you did receive. A chargeback may be necessary to get the merchant's attention, but you do need to be careful to actually pay them the correct amount in the end.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40412246

SoftTalker• 2 years ago

When people suggest owning an EV for daily use and renting a gas car for occasional long trips, this is exactly why that's not a attractive idea for most people. Even in the best case scenario, renting a car is a time-consuming hassle and you have to navigate high pressure tactics on buying upgrades, fuel, insurance, etc.

epcoa6• 2 years ago

Even in the best case scenario, renting a car is a time-consuming hassle

No that’s the worst case scenario.

you have to navigate high pressure tactics on buying upgrades, fuel, insurance, etc.

No you don’t. In the US, the major reputable companies allow you to register your DL and insurance, pick your default fuel preference. 20 minutes prior the reservation you get a list of available cars and proceed directly to the car. You then scan a QR code at the exit, maybe you show your DL to a guy at the gate, who is in no position to sell anything. This is for almost all airport locations and many corporate locations.

Even when you see an agent.. High pressure tactics? That’s impossible, they have no leverage. It’s not like buying a hot new car or something. The insurance is usually worthless to you so you aren’t losing anything by walking away. Just say no? A simple no always works. Carry a credit card with primary rental insurance. I have had a sales person try to give some bullshit song and dance even when I politely tell them I have primary insurance on my card. It’s a simple “no, not interested.” What are they going to do?

millzlane3• 2 years ago

Rented from enterprise last month. I booked a Sports Car Rental (Dodge Challenger or Similar). I got there and they only had a miata. Certainly a cool car. But it's too small for me. I needed a Dodge Challenger or similar. So I ended up with the slowest truck imaginable with no fuel in it. They wouldn't give me my company's corp. rate even though I had my work badge and this rental was for a work training in DC. Oh! and I brought my own EZ pass, but somehow the enterprise car somehow still charged me for tolls. But not without the extra convenience fee. Rental car companies here suck.

danans• 2 years ago

When people suggest owning an EV for daily use and renting a gas car for occasional long trips, this is exactly why that's not a attractive idea for most people.

Sounds like a plug-in hybrid might be a great car for you. I have one and it works pretty well.

xyst• 2 years ago

high pressure tactics

front desk: “want to add fuel protection”

me: “no”

front desk: “Okay, sign rental agreement and sign here to indicate you declined protection. Here’s your keys. “

I would say a majority of the time it’s just a script they are told to recite.

Dealerships on the other hand is a whole new beast. I wish very much that dealerships in the US go away.

Unnecessary middlemen used to extract as much profit with no added value.

Car sells for MSRP, but you want MSRP + $2000 in “market adjustment fee” and “document fees”

Fuck off.

brailsafe• 2 years ago

I don't own any car and exclusively rent from one of a few companies (probably all owned by Hertz). I've heard a lot of horror stories, but really haven't ever run into a problem, to such an extent that buying another car has not crossed my mind in any serious way in the last 6 years since my last one died. So anecdotally, I'd highly recommend this, because owning a car is a massive pain in the ass logistically and financially, and I'm happy to not have one. Sometimes (maybe one rare time every two years) I need a rental for the same short time on a weekend that everyone else does, and that's a bit inconvenient, but couldn't bother to care so much.

The only thing I'm relatively cautious with is suspiciously high deposits/credit authorizations.

When I run the numbers, it would literally take years for the amount I spend renting to surpass the amount I'd spend on just the sales tax or insurance for a hypothetical viable car. It turns out that owning a car is like owning a McMansion, such that you end up inflating your lifestyle to fill the space or depend on the car.

plorkyeran• 2 years ago

My typical car renting experience is that I pull out my phone, launch the app, walk to where it tells me the car is, and then get in the car and drive away. That’s for short term rentals that aren’t priced for multi-day things, but going up to ten minutes of overhead for a week rental is still only a minor annoyance. I have never encountered any sort of high pressure sales for rentals, and all of my negative car rental experiences have been at airports and not in scenarios where owning my own vehicle would have let me avoid the rental.

pquki4• 2 years ago

You are lucky if you can get a car in 10 minutes. Almost every time the agent would be helping other people and I would just wait for at least 10 min.

darepublic• 2 years ago

Wonder if these were due to software bugs

seanmcdirmid• 2 years ago

User and/or software errors are the likely cause. It could have been a bad UX that led to bad input, or staff that wasn't very trained/diligent, or a bug that added the gas charge anyways (and didn't prevent it on EVs).

sundvor• 2 years ago

Don't attribute to malice what can usually be explained by sheer incompetence, sure, but this pushes the case for both.

dawnerd• 2 years ago

I make sure the car is fully checked in when I drop off and I get a recipe and verify before I leave that all is good.

Last year they tried to charge me for a tiny chip in the window that I hadn’t seen before. They tried to force me to fill out a form admitting fault for insurance but refused. Nothing came of it and have rented since no problem.

s0rce2• 2 years ago

Hertz told me I would be charged if the car wasn't returned charged, I asked how much and they couldn't say. I was also confused because it wasn't clear how to charge at the airport and that was very inconvenient, I'd rather charge the night before near my hotel. No answer but they said its fine to return it 85% charged. I went out to get the car and the guy said I needed to return it 80% charged. I got in and it was less than 80% charged... wonderful experience.

constantlm• 2 years ago

I've seen enough negative Hertz-related discussions on HN over the past few months to entirely avoid them going forward.

gdudeman2• 2 years ago

I got a $80 bill from Hertz for returning a compact car without gas. I had returned the car with a full tank of gas though!

There is no way to resolve this on the phone, so I filled out their online form to dispute the charge.

After not hearing from Hertz for 2 days, I disputed the charge with my credit card. The credit card instantly refunded the entire cost of the rental.

Within 12 hours of the refund, I got an email from Hertz saying they were sorry about the accidental charge and that they'd give me a free one day rental.

Ultimately they sent me a bill for the cost of the rental minus the gas and threatened to take me to collections if I didn't pay it.

I never got my free rental.

msadowski• 2 years ago

One thing I learned really quickly renting in Europe is to take pictures of the rental before driving off. Last time I rented a car there was a huge scratch on the side that wasn’t included in their pickup form. When I returned the car they were ready to bill me for it until I showed the picture and their response was: “OK, no worries then, all is good”. From the reviews I’ve been reading people often get charged this way and I’m wondering how many people end up paying for the same damage.

YZF• 2 years ago

I just had this in Hawaii (Big Island). Dollar car rental dude checks my car when I return it and decided some scratch on the fender was new (I'm pretty sure it was not). I had full insurance and I told him he can figure it out with the insurance company, that I was in rush to catch my flight, and he can do whatever he wants. They didn't do anything. They're just looking for some sucker they can charge extra on some random thing.

I've had a lot of rental car experiences. Usually it's fine. Taking photos sounds like a good idea.

surfingdino• 2 years ago

Mercedes Benz will keep charging you for subscription to their GPS service after you sell the car, because "you signed up for the full length of the contract". How is that legal?

Hertz Charging a Tesla Renter for Gas Was Not an Isolated Incident

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