What Happens When Hertz's AI Scanner Finds Damage on Your Rental | Hacker News Reader

What Happens When Hertz's AI Scanner Finds Damage on Your Rental

thedrive.com

If anything, this just makes much clearer and provable what damage occurred. It's clearly evident in the photo, and yes you need to pay for damage.

On the other hand, this does make me wonder if there ought to be a threshold for damage. A small scratch to a panel can result in a very expensive panel replacement, and the car is still totally driveable and most people renting won't notice or care.

It would be one thing if minor damage could just be "buffed out", but it can't. But when the only repair option is an entire expensive replacement of a component, is that really fair? Do people really need their rental cars to be perfectly pristine? Are they willing to pay these exorbitant damage fees in order to ensure that?

Isn't that a problem for insurance companies, ultimately?

Not when there's a deductible you have to pay. Or when you don't get insurance, and then you're charged for repairs that wouldn't have been made if you hadn't gotten insurance. And indeed, is there any proof that the repair even gets made?

Insurance doesn’t cover you when you drive outside your home country (USA).

You're right... Most companies no longer cover rentals outside of North America for US drivers.

That wasn't always the case and it's good to know.

No, because there is no reason to expect that they will just swallow the costs of the unreasonable replacements for the slightly scratched dashboards.

Even if we made them by law it would just be a stupid tax on insurance companies, proceeds from which would fund unreasonably pristine rental cars. This still sounds like a net negative for society to me.

I've never seen a perfectly pristine rental car. They all have minor damage and scratches.

It's this right here. They can charge $450 to 20 different people fix that one wheel before fixing it one time for $300.

Them asking you to pay $450 to have it repaired but not documenting that your $450 actually went to repairing it is nuts. That's not a repair fee, that's a penalty, and for something that might not even have been your fault to begin with.

"Damage" seems like a really generous interpretation of that scuff.

That's the entire point of my second and third paragraphs.

But you open with "yes you need to pay for damage".

I would not expect to have to pay for this sort of "damage", AI or otherwise.

Furthermore this assumes the rental company chooses to repair. I doubt they will do so for a scratch like this.

I just returned a rental car a couple of weeks ago and they were only interested in scratches and chips bigger than an inch. I was told if a quarter covers it up, that's normal wear and tear.

Chances are it probably won't be repaired though.

I'd bet that the scanner will catch all those damages and any deviation from showroom floor condition will be flagged. But then Hertz will just pocket the fees as profit without actually effecting repairs.

They already accepted little dings and scratches before as regular wear and tear on the vehicles. This just opens up an effectively effort free revenue stream.

This part of their business model, why would they get rid of it?! Seems particularly pervasive in Europe. I got burned twice, once in Germany and once in France (both with Hertz), where they “discovered” a tiny scratch on a door they are sure was not there when I rented it. They charge a massive repair fee AND a loss of use fee. Around $900 for each of them. And the most beautiful part…they get to repeat this with the next person who rents it as well.

I had this happen once with Avis in France. I actually did ding the side view mirror, and when I returned the van, I told them about the damage. Unfortunately when we picked up the van it already had two huge scratches running the whole length of the van, which I took pictures of, and so naturally they sent me an invoice for repainting the whole side of the van.

I tried with their customer service to work it out, but they just gave me the runaround, so I disputed the charge with my credit card and I never heard anything about it after that.

The question is, if you assume for just one moment that the rental firm is operating fairly… are you sure the scratch wasn’t there when you rented the car? I’ve never rented a car without the firm giving me a damage report to sign before I drive away, and giving me the opportunity to add anything missed. If I see the tiniest scratch, I add it to that form, photograph it and send them an email before I leave the lot. And I’ve never been scammed for damage that I didn’t cause myself.

The best experience I have ever had renting a car was in Italy from a small local company at Rome airport that had a full damage coverage included with every car and 0 excess, and they were very upfront about the fact that the cars are not going to be perfect but they also don't care if they aren't returned in perfect condition. And indeed, I got a brand new Mini Cooper(less than 5kkm) which was already covered in scratches on pretty much every panel and yep, pickup and drop off was super easy, they were like "yep it's scratched but you're not responsible for any damage anyway so we don't care". Would happily rent from them again. Honestly most stress-free rental experience ever, and if you've ever driven in Italy and especially in Rome you know it's close to impossible to not get your car damaged in some way, people will casually bump your car just when parking and it's no big deal. I imagine renting from somewhere like Hertz or Avis where they document and charge you for every single little thing must be a nightmare in a place like Rome.

Your points only make sense if rental agencies are fixing the damage. They're not. In this case they are charging someone for damage that they have no intention of remediating. Same goes for all the other scuffs and scratches that will come before and after with other renters of the vehicle.

If the next counter argument is that they're recovering the eventual loss in value because of the accumulation of minor damage, then that is kind of admitting it as 'normal wear and tear'. Anything they're not actually fixing, they shouldn't be trying to charge people for.

> In this case they are charging someone for damage that they have no intention of remediating.

That's a fantastic point, thank you!

In which case, surely there ought to be a consumer protection law against it? It feels like straight-up fraud. And this doesn't apply just to car damage, but with security deposits for apartments, etc. If you don't repair it, you don't get to charge for it.

I can partially understand if Hertz is considering it to be additional depreciation on the value of the car when they eventually sell it. But even in that case, the depreciation is nowhere near the value of repair, because a buyer won't perform the repairs either. So if Hertz can charge damages that are a proportion of total damages across many renters that can be justified as resulting in a lower resell price, then OK maybe. But that would be what per-renter -- like $10 or something?

So I think the point still stands then. How is this not outright fraud? Or at least some related concept that ought to be legislated?

Isn't the free market a perfect solution for this? Don't rent from companies that refuse to fix damage and eventually they will be forced to compete or will sink.

I personally only rent, when I have to, from companies to at least try to repair minor damage. It's clear that some put an effort in, while some (Hertz, Enterprise) do not.

That's kind of like saying, the free market is a perfect solution for fraud -- don't do business with companies that engage in fraud. The problem is, of course, that the person being defrauded generally doesn't know about it. That's why it's a crime. How are you supposed to know if Hertz is actually going to fix the damage it charged you for or not?

But my comment isn't about the companies not fixing the damage, it's about them charging for the damage and then not fixing it.

Can you specifically name a rental car company that actually performs cosmetic repairs?

I’d be curious on who I should consider since the major ones clearly do not, across my experience of dozens of rentals across the US and EU.

> And this doesn't apply just to car damage, but with security deposits for apartments, etc.

Friends of mine had to go to court to get back a security deposit for an apartment that they had been told was going to be completely gutted (and was) at the conclusion of their lease. The management company wanted to hold $2,000 of security for damage (which, to be clear, was there, though arguably not $2,000 worth) in things that they had demolished within 72 hours of the termination of the lease, and things that they had told them would be demolished.

Exactly. Damages should never be an opportunity to make money. I'm glad the court sided with your friend -- I'm actually curious what the legal basis was, and if there is some kind of principle in the law about this already. (Or if it was just a local renting regulation.)

I don't know whether it would have changed if not, but I think in their lease was some comment about the security deposit being for damages and the costs of repair or replacement. "Landlord did not repair or replace as a result of the damage, and had communicated no intention to do so."

This was also small claims.

I'm not going to rent from Hertz anymore if they do this.

If you've ever rented a car, most rental cars have a number of scratches like this one. If they're charging the customers to repair every little scratch, does that mean they're guaranteeing every car you rent from now on is going to be absolutely pristine, or are they just going to pocket the cash?

Anyhow I don't want to have to worry about whether Hertz is going to want to charge me a couple of thousand bucks to repaint a door if someone dings it with a shopping cart, so they're off the list. Luckily there are many other options.

I would never rent from Hertz again, myself. As a new migrant to the US, at one point I needed to rent a car from them. I prepaid, online, and the next morning took a taxi to the rental place.

They then ran my details through some "ID verification system" that "couldn't confirm my identity sufficiently" (though they were very vague about what that actually meant - I had a green card and in-state driver's license).

"We're not going to be able to rent to you today."

Me, already over it and figuring out the next nearest rental place: "Sure, fine. Just refund my rental fee and I'll be on my way."

"Sorry, prepaid rentals are non-refundable."

Excuse me? No.

It did get resolved, but not there. Required two or three calls to corporate, which is two or three more than it should.

>It would be one thing if minor damage could just be "buffed out",

No, it's not fair. What you owe them is deprecation of the vehicle value consequent to the damage, not cost to make it perfect again. For example, if I get in a car accident, my insurance looks at cost to repair and if it's too high, they "total" the car and pay the value of it.

There are also other complexities - a windshield crack because a dump truck kicked up a stone on the highway, someone keys your car or knocks into the door, or bumps your car while it sits parallel parked. Of course the rental agency can say "you rented it, it was under your watch, and it came back like this" which is a shady thing to say

When equity is gone and debt financing is onerous, loaning yourself revenue against a class action lawsuit you will definitely lose in a decade might still be a rational choice for a business to make.

These are the sounds a business makes as it is dying.

Yes, this smells like an attempt to get some kind of reflected glory from AI while not recognizing that consumers, who already hold car rental companies in low regard, are likely to assume that the move is hostile to them.

(Many other sources discuss this aspect of AI: the necessity of trust from the consumer. I think we'll see a lot more of this in the coming years, either because big tech simply ignores the problem and overrides the objections by volume, as in the case of online reviews, or because there'll be some high profile flameouts.)

Of course, this is the same Hertz that torched 2 billion dollars on an EV gamble that failed, and whose stock price has been on a slide ever since the pandemic. Back in 2020, Hertz was trading just above Avis. Five years later, and Avis is $176 and Hertz is $7.

[0] https://archive.is/iG4M1 (Bloomberg)

> the sounds a business makes as it is dying.

After already having been resurrected! With a “significantly deleveraged balance sheet and right-sized, efficient operations,” no less!

https://newsroom.hertz.com/press-releases/press-release-deta...

But not when the damage occurred

Hertz is simply a systemically terrible rental care company that should be avoided whenever possible.

Isn't Hertz that company that was getting innocent customers arrested and even jailed for stealing cars?

Yes, yes they are. https://www.npr.org/2022/12/06/1140998674/hertz-false-accusa...

Never do business with Hertz.

I don't understand how they survived this reporting as a company. Amazing how slowly and ineffectively information permeates the world.

It's almost like corporations face no penalty for what is an obviously criminal act

An obviously profitable criminal act which impresses shareholders. The stock is up 50% since April.

Same thing we're seeing with United Healthcare: shareholders see a horrifying, inhumane, murderous but profitable denial policy and clap with glee. The system is broken.

I wonder if Hertz can close the loop by using imprisoned customers as a cheap source of labor?

My guess it hat they have a sizeable income through business renting, so companies rent or pay the invoice. And they probably don't care about extra fees on the bill.

It's also an easy fact to remember - renting from Hertz, Hurts

It sounds like the real damage here was done by US law enforcement. Not to excuse Hertz

I mean… perhaps, but is it really the police’s job to scrutinize the company’s records substantiating its claims of theft?

“The big well-established company is straight-up lying to me about this supposed crime that happened, and fabricating the documentation that proves it” seems like a heuristic that would not normally be the right one…

I’ve personally had to pursue cases where somebody just took a fleet rental vehicle across the country and started driving Uber with it. It was basically written off as “shrug guess we lost it” (!) until the org got a recent speed camera ticket in the mail. Somehow I feel like the default case that makes it to the police turns out to be closer to that situation than to “the organization alwa was working with just fabricated this bizarre tale on a lark.” It’s so much easier to just write it off as a loss, or handle it without LE.

I feel like it’s not just the US system that’s ill-prepared for well-reputed large institutions to fabricate tales of victimhood and extensive paper trails to “back it up.” Well… “paper” trails from poorly-implemented computer systems, anyway…

The UK police (and also their courts) were similarly ill-prepared when the Post Office and Fujitsu straight-up lied about missing money in the Horizon scandal.

>> mean… perhaps, but is it really the police’s job to scrutinize the company’s records substantiating its claims of theft?

Not only it's not, keeping the car for longer than you rented it for isn't theft, it's a breach of contract and it's a civil not criminal matter. So indeed, Police shouldn't be involved at all.

I mean eventually it becomes theft, doesn’t it? There’s some kind of line where your behavior demonstrates you have no real intention to return it?

The guy who took the car across many states and started driving Uber with it—he’d been assigned the vehicle for 3 days, claimed to have brought it back to the yard, but actually was using it to make his living every day for 6 months by the time we heard about it… surely that’s a bit closer to “he took it” than “he messed up the return date,” isn’t it?

>>I mean eventually it becomes theft, doesn’t it?

Not legally, no. It's still a breach of contract and the company can sue you for damages and obviously for the value of the car, but it's not technically theft.

I agree that the UK also fucked this up royally. I don't think this excuses either jurisdiction. In both cases the legal system failed to robustly scrutinise the claims being made before depriving people of their liberty, and that is wholly unacceptable.

It’s terrible but widely available and on of the cheapest. Not everyone can afford to avoid it.

If the perspective of the company is that the official price is low, but they make it up by inflating the damage penalty and/or sometimes making up damage penalties, so that in the end the real price is not that low, then the real price for the customer is probably also not that low. It's the same money. Company has to make profit somehow.

Unless you as a customer have some advantage over the other customers allowing you to avoid the penalty more often than normal. But on average, it must be non-cheap.

Enterprise is affordable and widely available, and I have never had a bad experience across hundreds of rentals in the US and Europe.

So many are awful, though. I’ve had sixt bill me €2000 for a new door, despite me having a video of it showing no damage when I dropped it off at their (closed during what were supposed to be open hours) location, I’ve had europcar decide to close early, leaving me with no car after arriving at the airport on time, and I’ve had dollar give me a car that broke down before it even got out of the lot - and you’ll never guess who they decided was responsible.

I had this issue with Sixt, but fortunately they were very easy to deal with (i.e., they were not Hertz).

The scanner found some damage that simply was not possible for me to have incurred, and I just explained that in the webform they sent and the charges went away a few days later. Makes me wonder if this whole process is worth actually worth it to the rental companies.

I'm happy to hear this worked out for someone! My experience with a different company was being shown photos of hail damage, even though it was easy to show that the car could not have experienced a hail storm while I had it. It took me several years to fight before they dropped it. Turns out insurance companies are diligent about detailed records of all hail storms and this was useful in the fight.

Hertz used to be the best by a wide margin, but now it's a totally different company using the name and logo.

Hertz used to be a business, run by businessmen who wanted to build and run a business.

Hertz is now a financial instrument run by private equity and investment bankers.

Businessmen want money the same way you or I want money. They just want to run a business in order to make that money. The same way novelists want to write novels to pay the bills. The book has to be good, people have to like the book so that they buy the book and tell other people to buy the book. So goes business.

Financial instruments are disposable, to be squeezed and wrung of every available cent until it becomes untenable and then the owners drop it and move on. If they can cut, squeeze, and extract they will. If they cannot-- they will destroy the instrument and the trick is they never lose money doing the destruction. People who run financial instruments masquerading as business don't want money like you and I. They want money the way addicts want heroin.

Repeating what others have said in many of the comments. Never rent from Hertz. Many rental car companies brands are interchangeable and operated by the same owner, but Hertz is different and much worse. Hertz sucks. Hertz is the worst. Avoid Hertz at all costs. You're in for a world of hurt with Hertz.

Often when I've rented cars, the agent has shown me an evaluator they use to assess damage - like this https://www.core77.com/posts/111200/Damage-Evaluator-Templat...

Using that as a template, I would find it difficult to argue against a claim. e.g., the evaluator linked above permits any bumper scratches smaller than 6 inches, or a wheel scratch less than 2 inches. I feel like it permits reasonable wear and tear.

However, the example in the article was for 1-inch wheel damage, which would be permitted by the evaluator, so I guess the AI flags _any_ damage. I wonder how receptive these businesses will be to negotiation and pushback. Maybe they'll capitulate if you push hard enough, but it puts an unfair burden on the customer to argue against unreasonable claims (likely by design to maximise cash collection).

In the EU it is probably not allowed and won't happen but I would pay any amount to take them to court over this. Car rental companies are shite, especially the big chains, but they will have to relent when confronted with consumer rules. And rightly so: was told to pay many fines over non valid damages, paid 0.

EuropCar tried to hit my brother with a $275 charge for a missing parcel shelf from a hatchback he had rented, which, to his knowledge, had never _had_ a parcel shelf.

They insisted, but could provide no proof, that it did, and told him to prove that it didn't, but obviously he hadn't thought to document _missing, optional pieces he didn't know were equipped in a car he didn't own_.

It's a complete scam: they hit everyone for the missing parcel shelf and see who's stupid enough to pay up. He obviously didn't and told them to pound sand.

That being said, I just rented from Enterprise in Zurich and the car was < 300 km brand new, I was renter #2. Sure enough, the X3 had a parcel shelf, and you better believe I documented its presence upon its return.

>>In the EU it is probably not allowed and won't happen but I would pay any amount to take them to court over this.

I'm from EU and I don't see why this wouldn't be allowed? They have proof of what the wheel looked like when the car was rented out and they have proof of what it looked like when it was returned - if it's clearly damaged then why would they not be able to charge you for it?

A common way they operate in Europe is that they’ll leave their offices at airports unattended when they’re supposed to be open, forcing you to use the key drop. They then say in the fine print that customer submitted videos and photos aren’t accepted, so even if you film the car when you drop it off, you’re liable for any damage that occurs after you return it.

Worst I had was they ripped the door off a rental on a lamppost, and even though I had a video (one take) of the car being in good condition, their office being closed, and the clock behind their counter, they threatened me with court unless I paid them €2,000.

But I mean that's exactly why the device in the article exists, no? The office can be unmanned, the machine just automatically takes pictures from every angle on pick up and drop off, no humans necessary. Then you don't even need to take your own pictures. So in that sense it's a good thing?

This particular “damage” seems like normal wear. Hertz probably won’t even fix it. Most rental companies used to not care about anything less than a circle or deck of cards size. Like trunk wear, when getting luggage out. Are they going to charge for trunk wear scuffs now?

Wonder if you opt-in to the rental company’s insurance, if this wouldn’t apply

They need to get another really effective and popular spokesgoblin: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6z_VpVaPLWs

That's wear and tear and not down to negligence on the driver's part. It's abhorrent that a rental company would attempt to charge a customer to fix something like this.

They don't intend to fix it, they intend to make money from it.

It wasn't clear to me if the AI is automating the claim of damage, or just notifying employees of potential damage which they then inspect and file as they always would have done.

Hertz became bad in the last few years. I think they got bought by someone or merged with someone... it used to be that I would rent from them for more money but it would be hassle free. Now, it's just like any other scummy car company trying to upsale you at the counter.

My last trip to California- the guy at the counter told me to go wait at some area for a car to come in, in my class. I went and waited. I saw three foreign asian guys there too - they got in a car and drove off but 15 minutes they were back and got out of their car, I assume because it was the wrong class.

I realized then that this was bs - we had no info on what was an appropriate car for our class and that we were sent to this purgatory because we didn't buy the extra insurance or something.

So I looked up what cars were in my class and wandered the lot and found a very nice car in its class. Got inside and drove it to the exit. They checked my paperwork and the class, approved it, and let me go.

> because we didn't buy the extra insurance or something

Anchorage, similar story - arrive just before closing time after a long flight.

They try to pull some blatantly scammy shit, that "in order to decline our optional insurance, we need to actually open a claim on your insurance to verify your coverage". Me: "Here's their app, you can see that here." "We need to actually open a claim..." (How would that even work, a 'proactive claim') "... and we're about to close so we might not be able to finish processing your rental this evening."

Ate the fee for their insurance waivers, and vowed never to rent from Hertz again.

While a legitimate use case for computer vision... Defaulting to pay first, litigate against us later if you dare...

F THAT!

This is why companies like Hertz are shifting tasks like this to AI. Plausible deniability. Those billions we made overcharging our customers? Whoops, AI software error. Our bad.

Diffing two scans is now AI?

It's crazy what PR bullshit is done for investors.

Never rent from hertz

To be frank there's nothing in the article that seems outrageous. The AI thing is just burying the lede; the point is accesible and transparent before-and-after images so that damage claims are more transparent.

I agree. Regardless of what you think about Hertz or the dubious fees associated with the damage repair, the actual tech is doing something useful. I'd rather scan the vehicle as I leave the lot and have clear evidence of its state before and after the rental period, than have to argue with a random employee about the timing/source of damage.

They’re never going to use the technology to provide the customer something that will prevent them from paying. Its purpose is to soak customers for more fees. Using it before the rental to scan for existing damage is counterproductive and will not help Hertz make more money.

What the story was dancing around — and should have just got to the point about — was that the damage seems like very normal wear and tear and it seems unfair to charge people for it. It also sounded like they weren’t even gonna fix it, but just charge him for the pleasure of having detected it.

The pricing structure is not transparent.

For one, are fees "higher when renting vehicles from Hertz stores that use UVeye scanners, as opposed to those that don’t"?

Can a renter get "estimates of what different kinds of damage typically cost"?

(quotes from the article).

I'm pretty sure that want to use automated scanners for this because if they had human agent make the same claims, and charge $440 for that scuff, then there would be a blowup right away, and keeping employees willing to deal with that anger all the time is hard.

I'm pretty sure I've scuffed up a rental car like that, and didn't get dinged at all. It's a rental car, and normal wear-and-tear should be part of the regular depreciation.

The lack of including the before photo in the article says something. There was clearly real, albeit minor, damage done.

The fees seem high for such a small blemish. Automated rule enforcing systems are very frustrating to hit. They usually enforce good rules, but overly strictly and often trend into gotchas that are intentionally exploitive. (Eg, red light cameras that have reduced yellow light times.) I doubt the savings of those fees being put into renters who do leave damage marks will be passed on to those who don't.

Hertz is working to promote Uber.

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