Hertz Charges Tesla Model 3 Renter $277 Fee for Gas | Hacker News Reader

Hertz Charges Tesla Model 3 Renter $277 Fee for Gas

thedrive.com

30 pointstromp36 comments

In the comment section, the customer (who has Hertz President's Circle status) provides even more baffling interactions with Hertz:

> Hey y’all! Josh here! To clarify, I did receive an email that the quote in the article was pulled from, but I also had three interactions over the phone with people who were most definitely human (and most definitely rude) who confirmed to me that yes actually, the charge is legitimate. Yes, it’s also my fault for asking them to fill it up if I didn’t want to get charged. And yes, really, that was the cost to fill up the Tesla with gas. No, really, sir; the Hertz teams on the ground know their cars. If they say a Tesla Model 3 standard range takes $277 gallons of gas to fill up, it must have taken $277 to fill up the tank. So… there ya have it! There must be a secret gas tank that only Hertz knows about that all the Tesla owners have yet to discover. Maybe it’s an Easter egg? ;)

Hertz has reported their own cars are stolen while they are in their parking lot or still rented to a customer. They've also illegally seized cars they used to own.

Do not even go near them.

It's really funny that Hertz survived their bankruptcy thanks to becoming a "meme stock" only to run themselves right into the ground with the Tesla deal and this kind of incompetence. We'll see how long they last.

Never underestimate management incompetence.

I learned that the car rental desks in a certain airport are split up with the 'good ones' on one side and Hertz, Dollar and friends on the other side.

One fateful evening I land for a work trip and the whole lobby is a zoo with probably 100-150 people waiting in lines, milling about, trying to figure out travel plans because the cars we all reserved with the 'wrong side' rental places had all been rented out to other people.

The companies on the other side had no cars either but at least promised that if I had reserved a car with them, it would actually be reserved for me. So that's where I go every time now

Which companies are the "good" ones?

Enterprise and National have always been top notch, I will die on this hill.

Hertz was good too... once. So Enterprise and National may not be good forever.

I'm not going to contradict your lived experience but Enterprise let me book a car online and then left me stranded in Yucca Valley when they didn't actually have the car I reserved. so they're only as good as their local branch is at computers.

its a tough game, customers bring back cars late, and empty time is expensive. keep one or two extras in case and hope for the best is the best way to make money

Jerry : I don't understand. Do you have my reservation?

Rental Car Agent : We have your reservation, we just ran out of cars.

Jerry : But the reservation keeps the car here. That's why you have the reservation.

Rental Car Agent : I think I know why we have reservations.

Jerry : I don't think you do. You see, you know how to take the reservation, you just don't know how to hold the reservation. And that's really the most important part of the reservation: the holding. Anybody can just take them.

Visiting family over the holidays last year, I picked Avis's cheapest grab-bag tier and they gave me a Chevy EUV. Was my first time driving an electric vehicle. The fact that I had to look up what a charging network is, find a charging port near me, download the app for it, enter in my CC information into it (which failed 3 separate times), hook it up to the charging port overnight (only for it not to work), and end up driving back to Avis on literal fumes was un-fucking-believable. This shit should have been as easy as, if not easier, than filling up a car with gasoline. The whole user experience was a complete and utter farce.

Thankfully Avis didn't charge me for fuel; the lady at the desk said when I brought it back "yeah no one knows how to fill them up". After being neutral on EVs, this permanently soured my opinion on them. I will never touch another one as long as I can fight it.

If you have your own garage, or even driveway with a charger, a Tesla is amazing. And their super charger network on highways is amazing, no logins, apps, credit cards, not even a screen on the device. Just pop it into the car, wait 10 or 15 minutes for 150 miles range then drive to the next one.

It's a shame the rental cars are giving EVs a bad name.

Why did you accept if you had no clue how to refil?

because of a totally reasonable expectation that if the company is renting you something, it actually works. don't blame the victim here, that's lazy thinking.

That's like renting a manual car thinking how hard can it be after only ever driving automatic.

Sure, it should be easier to charge things, rent a tesla and problem solved, does route planning and no hassle charging at superchargers. Rent a chevy bolt and... yeah... ask the renting company how to charge at least and where they recommend or choose something else.

I do really feel your frustration, but at the same time, the network and ease of use of gas refueling has just had so much more time to grow and become ingrained in society. You likely learned how to refuel a car before you could drive. There's been almost a century of gas station franchising and growth and regulations and laws written around them.

All that is shrunk enormously for electric fueling. So yeah it's gonna be inconvenient. I don't see how they can fast forward so many decades, but yeah they def could improve things.

I do really feel your frustration, but at the same time, the network and ease of use of gas refueling has just had so much more time to grow and become ingrained in society.

Irrelevant. If you're taking on the incumbent you better have done your homework and made the experience as frictionless as possible. There's no technological reason recharging an EV has to be as difficult as it is, but companies are completely addicted to building a walled garden around you and selling your data.

I agree that the need for companies to "capture" you as a user, with apps, sign ups, etc. is a lot of unnecessary friction.

But gas stations and gas refueling had the advantage of coming up in a world before that was possible. So BP, Exxon, etc. never built all that stuff and now that they have a product they sell without doing that, they can't wall everyone in. If gas refueling was invented now, they would.

I guess I'm just saying it's a nascent industry with less volume, less usage, and fewer companies and competition. No wonder it's not as smooth as a process with much larger and competitive economy of scale

I've long thought that there should a be a penalty when a business fails to deal in good faith. When a business fails to respond to a customer complaint, or responds in a way which is disingenuous, or automated, or does not take the time to actually understand and respond appropriately, there should be a cause of action.

In other words, the customer should be able to sue for bad faith dealing. The law should recognize that forcing a customer to fight to resolve a legitimate issue causes the customer harm, and the customer is entitled to collect damages over and above any other damages they have sustained (in this case, over and above the $277).

One or more class action lawsuits would help straighten this company out.

This one was a good start: https://www.npr.org/2022/12/06/1140998674/hertz-false-accusa...

The next step is for company executives to face personal liability for failing to deal with these issues.

I have a Hertz rental coming up, too late to cancel. What do I need to do to win if I have to chargeback on some made up fees like this?

I always take photos of a rental at the rental location before I leave. In this instance, don't request them to fill it up with gas, apparently it's just a button that automatically changes the card.

Take a picture of the fuel gauge showing you returned it full. Or easier yet, ask them to provide a receipt that they paid the fuel station x amount.

But how do you take a picture of the gas tank gauge for an electric car..?

I believe most electric cars have a battery level indicator—after all, that is basically your fuel, and it's very, very important to know how much you have left.

Oh, I'm sure they do. I'm questioning whether Hertz would accept that. This whole thing is very dumb.

In this case a photo wouldn't change anything. "According to the final receipt, the customer gave the Model 3 back to Hertz with the battery 96% full, the exact same state of charge it was picked up with."

I’ve had success canceling without fees by calling and talking to a human.

You file a small claims case. I had a similar experience with Hertz where the math on my invoice was clearly incorrect and everybody swore up and down it was right. Tried to contest it with my credit card (who I no longer use), they didn't help out even though they had the invoice where the math was clearly wrong. Filed a small claims case in my local county court, Hertz legal called me a few days later saying they'd pay for my court costs and the full amount I contested.

Thanks for all the advice everyone. In the end I wasn't charged anything over the sticker price. phew

Document everything and pay with a credit card, particularly an American Express or high end Chase Visa or similar. They will want to know why you want the chargeback, but will nearly always side with you if you have clear evidence.

File a police report for fraud?

Do rental Teslas get the supercharger plug-and-charge experience? Is this what he was charged for?

So we know Hertz is a total shitshow. What other company is good to rent from? I don't really trust Turo yet.

I’ve had consistently good experiences with Turo so far. Once it gets bigger it will probably go downhill, but currently the hosts remind me of AirBNB hosts from around 2013. Like normal people who are actually trying to do a good job. I haven’t had any issues though so not sure if they handle dispute resolution or damage well.

What would it take for you to trust them, or what was your bad experience? I had a bad experience with GetAround with their reservation time math code logic was bad and wouldn't let me rent a car a midnight despite the car being available.

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