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Comment by crazygringo | Hacker News Reader

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?

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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...

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.

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.

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.

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.

"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.

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.

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.

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

But not when the damage occurred

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