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> the "vast majority" of cases "involve renters who were many weeks or even months overdue returning vehicles and who stopped communicating with (Hertz) well beyond the scheduled due date

Even if true, that does not address those not in that "vast majority". Truly effective corporate speak for "whatever".

I was in a hurry once while renting from Hertz, I verbally declined all of the extras, but the employee at the counter put it on my bill anyway. The contract they gave me was literally 10+ pages of fine print, so I didn't check it--I didn't expect to be scammed. Later I got a second charge to my credit card which doubled the price of my rental for services I didn't request or use. I called Hertz customer service and they were hostile in tone and basically told me to piss off, so I told my credit card company to decline the charge. Hertz sent me to collections, and I explained the issue to the collections company and they basically told me Hertz didn't have any ground to stand on and left me alone. Fuck Hertz.

Last time I rented a car from Hertz, it was totally touchless with no human interaction. Walk in, find your name on the screen which shows the parking spot your car is in, and go. Perhaps things have changed.

Yeah, I actually like hertz's process, quick and no hassle (assuming they don't report the car as stolen)

I travel a lot for work and after some setup I have found hertz to be the most efficient. When they’re not efficient, I want to blow a gasket at the line and lack of any urgency from the staff, and another time they canceled my reservation day of without telling me (because they were overbooked) leaving me stranded in an unfamiliar city.

But when it works it does work well. I have the board down to a science: shuttle to hertz, look for my name on board, walk to car directly as indicated by board, drive away with the only human interaction being the person scanning the car as I exit.

> When they’re not efficient, I want to blow a gasket at the line and lack of any urgency from the staff

As a customer, I completely get that feeling.

As someone who has worked in auto rental (although for Budget Truck), the reality is usually along the lines of rental clerks making slightly above minimum wage, the entire city getting drastically overbooked by corporate, and customers who were due to return (and counted on for availability) not doing so. They have no urgency because it happens on a regular basis and they're the ones getting screamed at all day because of it even though they have no control over it.

This is why I always try not to get angry. The employees interfacing with the customers are usually the ones who get paid the least and have no authority to make decisions.

I really don't understand how overbookings are legal. Does every contract just have some "we can cancel for no reason" clause?

The flip side is you can choose to extend your rental without giving them any advance notice. And you can cancel your reservation without penalty (at least before these new pay-in-advance deals). Hence they are never quite certiain they will have cars. I have had to wait around for someone to return a car before I could get my rental a few times before.

Also I believe one of them (Hertz or maybe Enterprise) told me if I did the pay-in-advance deal they would guarantee a car was there because they'd bring one in from the airport if needed. Some locations have very few cars and can be hit-or-miss.

Pretty much. Last time I rented from Hertz, with a corporate card, they wanted to run an "identity verification" on me, which I assume was basically some kind of credit pull. They then told me that because the details from that didn't match the card (billing address, ZIP, etc., I guess), they could not rent to me.

"When can I see a refund on my card?" I asked, as I pulled up Uber to go somewhere else (because I was not about to use my personal card, on principle with their behavior).

"Sorry, prepaid reservations are nonrefundable".

Uhh, no. You're not going to accept a reservation from me using a credit card, and then decide that my photo ID matching that credit card is insufficient, deny me a rental, and deny me a refund.

That got sorted out, but took more than one call to Corporate.

> but took more than one call to Corporate

Or one call to your CC chargeback department, which would bite them more

During the early pandemic Singapore Airlines canceled my flight and gave me a flight credit. I went in circles with them and Orbitz saying I wanted my money back, to no avail. So I filed a chargeback with Capital One. The airline responded to the dispute saying the ticket I bought was non-refundable. I replied pointing out that means it's not refundable if I cancel, not that the airline can refuse service I paid for and not refund me. I also attached a recent notice from the DoT saying that airlines must refund customers in my situation, and that the specific practice in question was illegal.

Capital One sided with the airline and closed my case. Guess you can't depend on chargebacks like I thought you could.

I guess you found out you can't rely on Capital One. Never had a problem with AMEX.

Yep. Some companies handled pandemic cancellations much better than others. Never forget(tm).

First time I was late paying AMEX they raised my interest rate north of 25%. They could legally do so, but they were the only card I had that did it so quickly; just one day late.

Discover was my favorite. They had a forgiveness policy and wouldn't raise your rate just because another card did. And their website was very friendly to use.

I guess that's how they make money and can afford great customer service, which is also something I'm fine with: I couldn't care less what their interest rate is since I'll never ever pay interest. If that's on the agenda, then I'd look somewhere else as you say.

Their app is blasted easy to use for payments & viewing account information as well. I despise the Chase app where my auto loan sits, as it never loads correctly on my iPhone, or takes drastically longer. Whereas the Discover app and pages load without problem.

That's what the small claims court is for.

That's why I (in Europe) pay with SEPA Direct Debit whenever possible. It has a legally mandated no question asked chargeback function.

(In fact it's automated and two clicks away).

Of course there are expensive consequences when that system is abused.

How does that work?

Is it more like a wire transfer, or a CC payment?

What are the expensive consequences you are talking about?

It's a type of wire transfer (in euros).

It's a pull from your bank account. You give the merchant your account details and sign* an authorization and they "pull" the money from your account. Afterward you can cancel the charge without giving a reason for a few weeks, or if the charge was unauthorized for up to 2 years. The only downside compared to chargebacks is that you are not protected in case of insolvency of the merchant.**

> What are the expensive consequences you are talking about?

The system offers no security for the merchant - in fact cancelled charges cost a fee, even if the charge was completely valid.

* yes - physical signature on paper, except when paying online

** this is a topic for a full comment on it's own, but here's the gist: Under German law you can't "take back" your money from an company that has filed for bankruptcy - in fact even payments made to you before the filing might be clawed back by the administrator - which means that you will receive (and customers from insolvent airlines have received) an angry letter demanding the money back. With chargebacks this is less likely to happen as the chargeback will be paid for by the merchant's bank, not the merchant directly, but the legal situation is unclear.

Technically it was not the airline refusing service, there was a force majeure, and many insurances have explicit exceptions for stuff like pandemics, wars, etc.

If I was tdeck, I would contact US Dept of Transportation.

There was specifically a special directive by US Dept of Transportation directing airlines to refund customers for any flights that were modified or canceled after pandemic restrictions started in Mar 2020.

https://www.transportation.gov/briefing-room/us-department-t...

https://www.transportation.gov/airconsumer/ticket-refunds

As of now, they even explicitly say non refundable tickets are refundable if airlines cancel:

https://www.transportation.gov/individuals/aviation-consumer...

> Non-refundable tickets - Passengers who purchase non-refundable tickets are not entitled to a refund unless the airline makes a promise to provide a refund or the airline cancels a flight or makes a significant schedule change.

I am also confused how Orbitz would be involved in tdeck’s situation. Either they paid Orbitz, or they paid Singapore Airlines, but either way only one of them would be able to refund them.

In fact this is how it got resolved, I filed a complaint with some agency (I can't recall which) and SQ coincidentally changed their policy and refunded me. The very notice you linked is the one I sent with my chargeback.

As for Orbitz, I used them to book the ticket, and SQ's customer service told me they couldn't refund me because they had a policy that only the agent could modify the reservation. When I tried to contact Orbitz they just told me I would need to talk to the airline.

The flight (to Japan) wasn't actually banned, it just became unprofitable to run that day. But flights are a time-sensitive thing! Imagine if you ordered a pizza and the restaurant called you back and said it wasn't convenient that night because of car trouble, but they'd keep your money and in a few months when it made more sense they'd deliver your pizza. That's ridiculous and you'd have a right to demand your money back.

> Capital One sided with the airline and closed my case. Guess you can't depend on chargebacks like I thought you could.

Yes people tend to have a slightly delusional view of how effective chargebacks can be based on limited experiences. If you're fighting with a small merchant like a local store or a non famous online merchant you're going to win basically every time.

If you're fighting with a rental car company, an airline, a hotel chain, a household name company, or similar, it's an entirely different story. The interaction has much more to do with who's more valuable to the card issuer than who's right.

CC companies rarely actually charge it back from the offending business though, they just reimburse you. It's largely a cost of doing business.

It’s probably the flip side to allowing late no-fee cancellations.

If it’s easy to book then not turn up, people will. Then if you know a significant percentage on average doesn’t turn up, it would be lost profit to not overbook.

Fully paid non-refundable services should, I agree, very conservative in overbooking.

Cars break down, people don't return their cars in time, some of the staff processing cars call out sick, there's a wide variety of reasons your inventory day of might be less than predicted. Either you need to have a lot of extra vehicles sitting idle to make up the deficit or you need to screw over your customers, and car rentals are too low margin for the former to be a viable option.

>When they’re not efficient, I want to blow a gasket

Can confirm that getting off the shuttle, looking up at the Hertz Gold board expecting to see either a parking space number or a section listed by your name, and instead seeing "See Agent" is absolutely rage inducing.

I mean if it works smoothly with no human interaction required (including both upselling and forced cheerfulness, maybe even an Expectation for tipping? I don't even know), where do I sign? As long as I get a written proof of renting and returning.

> It's probably an Access database running on some Windows 95 node. Or maybe Gentoo.

Why the dig on Gentoo? haven't used it for years but it's perfectly fine distro :)

We were just ripped of by Booking.com Transport Limited two weeks ago. Basically if anything goes wrong it's your fault and they will not give you a refund. I have to report them to the European Consumer Centers Network but since they're not registered in the EU they might get away with it. Other people had their deposits blocked for months before the rental companies released their funds after numerous complaints. Big companies like Hertz, Sixt etc are almost always the worst offenders. Sixt has five people at the reception desk but you were required to book online. They could have as well put a chimpanzee in charge of the whole reception desk.

Can't you charge back the deposit transaction if they don't return it?

I tried but bank sided with them, since they don't want to get into legal issues. Booking.com claims the reservation is a "non refundable time limited special offer" in order to rip you off. This is anti consumer behaviour that should just be illegal. Just avoid them at all costs. Neither Booking.com nor Sixt would resolve the issue. I called support, they just fed me social engineering mumbo jumbo.

Your bank sided with the merchant? Normally they would at least try to argue the case and maybe lose it if the merchant's bank has better arguments or evidence, but straight up refusing to try? I'd just drop the bank and get a one that knows what the hell they are doing.

> The only way a company responds like that is when they fully believe that they're a staple and CAN'T go out of business. We'll see about that...

Considering Hertz emerged from bankruptcy just 5 months ago I think they're pretty aware of their capability to go out of business...

Considering they were bankrupt and didn't go out of business I think they're pretty aware of their capability to get away with anything they want...

Or, au contraire, they messed it all up and nothing happened.

I assume shareholders took a serious haircut.

>Access database

Hertz has spent 500 million USD on Accenture to implement SAP and the project royally failed.

So you are perhaps right with MS Access.

Furthermore, Lidl has spent 600 million USD to implement SAP and failed.

> Renting cars has always been a bad experience. Terrible websites where you don't know what car you're going to get. You arrive and they try to upsell you on a car. The employee spends 10 minutes filling out forms...

Join their frequent renter programs (no need to be a frequent renter). Then you can generally just walk to the lot, pick a car and go.

I've used Hertz a lot in the past, and to avoid that sort of experience all you have to do is join the gold club (free), make your booking through that, then go to the special gold desk on arrival. Usually everything's ready for you and you just need to pick up the keys.

OTOH yes this story is worrying!

You forgot the whole "lets walk around this can and look for scratches and pretend we've never seen this car in our life" thing. And that's before you even exit the lot. Then you do the same god damn dance when you get back.

Enterprise does this and I just find it completely unfathomable.

You did a thorough cataloging of the car when you received it from the last renter. Just give me that fucking report instead of acting like an oblivious idiot.

But between you and the previous renter it may have been driven by an employee or transported across the country by truck, or just damaged in the lot by the person renting the car next to it five minutes earlier.

I found the walkaround off-putting initially (years ago). Especially when you get it wet from washing and this it hides all the minor damage. But they have pretty lax rules about what counts as damage.

The best though, is those airport lots with cameras that record the condition of the car as you drive out.

One time we did the walk-around and neither of us noticed a scratch. When I returned the car they did notice this scratch. The agent offered to look on the computer to see if it had been logged from a previous rental. Nothing in the computer, but since we were using paper forms I got them to grab the form from the last rental and it did log the scratch.

I try to avoid rentals because their business model seems to rely on billing the same scratch to as many customers as they can.

I always record a full HD video walk through of the car and save it until the payment clears my CC payment.

Not gonna let them charge me for something they missed, same with uhauls that have a ton of little cosmetic damages not on the papers.

I generally distrust UHaul, but I have to give them credit for the stickers they put on existing damage. It gives some reassurance that I won’t get into an argument over whether that scratch was there before.

Keep it longer than that. There have been cases of rental car companies coming back later for supposed damages.

Yeah it's a waste of time, and they should do it while you're doing the paperwork. But again, they're perpetually understaffed, so the same employee has to greet you, manage your place in line, do your paperwork, check your ID, ready the car, do the inspection, push the upsell to a higher-price model, do the insurance upsell, etc. etc.

I always film the car I’m about to rent, as well as the employee. I get them to state their name and the date, and all and any damage on the vehicle.

It makes them really uncomfortable, as they know that they won’t be able to charge me €4000 after the rental for whatever arbitrary damage they decide I caused - although it doesn’t stop them trying - I had sixt earlier this year claim that I had stolen the passenger side door. Fortunately I had filmed the car at the unmanned drop-off, along with an airport sign with the time and date - otherwise I would have been on the hook for an entire new car, as they said it was irreparable.

They only dropped the matter after I filed a complaint with the business regulator in the country they were operating in - and that came with a lifetime ban from renting from them. Good riddance.

Sixt is the absolute pits. They are structurally engaging in fraud and it absolutely disgusts me that this company is still in business. I've dealt with a lot of car rental company bs in my life but Sixt is on another level. For months after returning a rental van (which I'd used for an hour) they came up with other damage that I supposedly had caused. Good I kept pre and post images. If they were to be believed I had swapped out the alternator and done a whole pile of other hard to believe tricks to their vehicle. It also magically kept acquiring new dents, even days after returning the rental. What a joke that company is. Never, ever, use Sixt, even if is your last option, just don't, it isn't worth the hassle and the price they show you is never the price you will be paying.

I believe this is a European thing, as I haven't had such problems with renting cars in the US. Buchbinder was the worst, to the extent that everyone I know who is about to rent a car gets a lecture from me about them. It's worth it to have the full coverage insurance every time and just treat it as part of the rental cost. The alternative is lots of headaches to deal with the scammer companies.

Yep, had the same experience renting in Germany. With Sixt, Enterprise and Buchbinder. Always trying to sneak something up on you.

I like Enterprise cause they're affordable, but they really take it to the next level. I had a full insurance (0% OOP) and they still made me do the handover dance twice.

In Australia some are one way (eg. Europcar, which does the "bill every millimetre-long scuff" thing) and some are the other (eg. Avis, who don't seem to care as long as you return it with four wheels and a windscreen).

Funny you mention Europcar, I've had nothing but pleasure with them.

Including one time where I hit a kangaroo and damaged the left front quarter pannel, only charged me a few hundred dollars to repair said damages which was a lot less than I expected. Though I have been almost using Car Next Door exclusively for two years so perhaps things have changed.

The first (and only!) time I used Europcar, I'd been using Avis for years and was used to their way of doing business, to the point where I didn't even bother to do a cursory handover walk-around anymore, because I knew they weren't going to be hardasses. It is absolutely essential with Europcar though (and I think Hertz too), to do a very thorough documentation of every tiny pre-existing scuff, scratch and ding.

Car Next Door is the same, but I'm willing to put up with a bit of inconvenience there to get a service I can't get at a reasonable price from the big rentals (light commercial vehicle available close by and for short periods).

They did, but you weren't there. Do you really want to trust their honesty on that one, since if they forgot (intentionally or by mistake) to record previous damage, now you become liable for paying for it.