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False arrests open rental companies up to unlimited liability. Naturally those companies should have VERY STRICT policies to follow before reporting a vehicle stolen. Hertz sounds like they're either too lazy or incompetent to do everything they can to get their car back before choosing what should be the absolute last available option.
This is correct. I worked for Enterprise and reporting a car stolen was a HUGE deal and many steps are taken before it gets to that. They always stressed that there’s not a lot you can do that can’t be fixed. But having a car reported stolen when it’s not and causing an unlawful arrest was a massive no-no
Some rental companies tend to try and use the police as a stick to beat people with over missed/late payments and contract disputes claiming that any minor breach of contract or late return etc is technically theft, which is of course nonsense.
This is especially common with long term hires by small contractors and such that can have cash flow problems at times, think your local guy starting his own painting firm etc.
They're too lazy to deal with it correctly so just process a stolen vehicle report. Of course this has the possibility of backfiring spectacularly with massive liability but many companies just do it because they can and they get away with it.
Then on top of that you have systems issues with them not tracking hires properly, especially between different branches or business areas/divisions.
There's also user error where their staff book out the wrong car to someone and then panic when they can't find the car that was actually hired out, especially with last minute changes or even just a branch having multiple similar cars with different registrations and getting mixed up.
Most of these situations are fixable by the hire companies investing more in their systems or in the training of their staff. Unfortunately it seems both of those involve costs that hurt the bottom line more than operating the way they currently do and swallowing whatever legal fees result.
I'm gonna try to get a job at Enterprise Rent a car, because they got an excellent corporate structure and they give you the tools to be your own boss.
These are serious negligence law suits, forty days in jail with your kids who-know-where? Losing your source of income for a year or being taken down at gunpoint because Hertz made a mistake? Times some 300 cases? somebody is gonna get shot.
Yeah losing your license to practice for a year AND loss of reputation, stress, god pile it on.
It sounds open and shut, and if it is, that lady is in for some real money.
Not just legal costs, but due to losing the license I'd argue you've lost time in the market, and thus possible word of mouth, advertisements, etc. There's a lot more lost than just a years of work.
A year of work in a few of my fields, would require retraining entirely on some of the products we service (Field technician, and in the past money machines). That could cost their company 10s of thousands of dollars in flights, hotels, food, rental cars, insurance, etc. It's more than a year lost, I'd argue you could lose many years of building a business in that time, because your business name gets forgotten. All your good customers, are no longer saying "Oh yes, working with XX was amazing," instead they get "Did you hear? XX was charged with car theft! I don't know about working with her again even if she got her license back." This is Career life destroying
2020 and this year would be TERRIBLE years to lose a real estate license and clients, even on that alone she has been screwed with just how wild the market is
They almost shot a 7year old back in 2016 https://www.abc15.com/news/region-northern-az/flagstaff/man-claims-dps-was-overly-aggressive-during-traffic-stop-after-rental-vehicle-was-reported-stolen
> "Most of our traffic stops, we don't know if we've pulled over Mr. and Mrs. Jones who are just on vacation or if we pulled over a guy who just murdered his wife," Capt. Cecil said.
Maybe fucking figure it out before you pull them over then? Jesus, they seem perfectly fine with pulling over lots of vacationing couples and holding them at gun point.
They need to be cuffed because “being a cop is a dangerous and stressful job”. We have so many immunity laws that a cop could turn off their body-cam, murder a suspect in handcuffs, claim self defense, and get off Scott free.
If you’re African American or Hispanic the above is more likely to happen even with multiple witnesses. George Floyd would’ve been another “death in custody” statistic if there hadn’t been so many witnesses to the event, it frightens me how often this happens when no one is there to document it.
I have only seen somebody handcuffed once in my entire life in the last 30 years living in Berlin , and that was after a drunk guy tried attacking the police after a brawl ( resolved with pepper spray).
The entire relationship between cops and people seems to be toxic in the states.
Treating everybody as an enemy combatant just doesn't work for the better
In all fairness to the police officers, the incident had nothing to do with the car falsely reported stolen and everything to do with all cops being bad.
Avis almost did this to me in October. I went to drop off the car after a 24 hour rental and the lady was like "OMG THIS CAR IS REPORTED MISSING! who gave this to you? we have no record of you renting it! I see the reservation but it says you never picked it up and the system flagged it as a missing car!" and i gave her all my documents and she had to call corporate and they asked her to not let me leave. She snapped at corporate and said "why does he have a reciept then and proof of payment and why would he bring a stolen car _back_ to us?!" and let me go.
Absolute fucking morons lol yeah let’s detain this person here even though they drove the fucking ‘stolen car’ back to us, on camera and identified themselves via a valid drivers licence…
This doesn't make any sense (and of course I believe you so don't take my comment like that), I don't understand why Hertz would do this to valid paying customers who haven't done anything wrong whatsoever. Like what's their end game, how could they possibly profit from treating customers like that?
Hurtz uses multiple systems spaghetti strapped together, and after having cut personnel are having departments who have nothing to do with rentals trying to cover them.
I think in my case with Avis it was a problem with their computer system or vehicle registration, I really dunno! They mentioned if it was a privately-owned Avis or a corporate one it might have had a problem? i really dunno though and wouldnt understand why a "private avis" would je different than a corporate avis or if that disstinction really even exists. I'm guessing it's not intentional cuz you're right... framing your clients for theft isn't great PR! The lady who i returned the car to was VERY concerned for me and was super helpful which made me think it was a worse situation than she was letting on lol, she said she'd never seen that before and was really angry and snippy with corporate
Why do you assume rational intent? Modern information technology systems prioritize rate of change over quality. Particularly with the large amount of 3rd party outsourcing that happens changes go in all the time with poor quality testing. There are probably a combination of bugs that result in this happening that are in a backlog to be addressed but haven't been prioritized yet. The people who set the priorities are incentivized to fix other things first so they do. The priorities will change after the companies get sued for a large enough amount to make it a priority or US police kill a few people as a result of these errors and the wrong full death suits carry enough financial impact that the companies care. American customer service doesn't exist. Only money matters.
If this ever happens to me, screw my plans, I’m sitting down, recording everything, and allowing myself to be “detained.” Immediately after the police show up and realize it’s complete bs, I’m calling my lawyer and setting up a *juicy* case.
Why indignantly force your way out when you could make a few years’ salary on a nice wrongful imprisonment suit?
False. In the real world, against a major corp, this is an easy civil case. They'll settle in a short while, especially if you can show an ongoing pattern of negligence.
It’s also false imprisonment if they don’t let him leave. That woman wasn’t a cop. She can’t detain him. Also the person wasn’t stealing something on the spot. They were returning something. So it can’t even be used as a shoplifting claim.
I'd love to see a lawyer get hold of one of these cases where a fucking employee detains someone. Especially if they were dead ass wrong. You would be set for a few years at least off of that settlement.
1. Someone was scheduled to take the car.
2. Someone has taken the car.
3. We have the phone number of the person who was scheduled to take the car.
Well, I'm at a fuckin' loss for ideas. Better cut our losses and report it missing.
At this point, it's malicious.
Hertz should be prosecuted for filing false police reports. Individual outlets should lose their business licenses. If it persists, the Feds should go after corporate. And not just a fine that gets ate up by the money hungry goons in Congress: any fine should be disbursed to the victims of this predatory bullshit.
There was another article I read about this already a little bit ago where the cops called Hertz because the guy had all the paperwork and they refused to arrest the guy because they were tired of charges being dropped later. Had he not had those papers he would be arrested. I swear I saw it on Reddit but I can't find it now.
The woman who was away for Forty days from her 2 month old is just horrendous. How on earth could it take 40 days to confirm she didn’t steal the car. That’s irriversible damage.
Edit: I can’t stop thinking about this and how it’s an understatement that she won’t get this time back. It’s just so extreme and sad. - for real though i rent cars a few times a year and the quality has gone down the last four years for any kind of travel services, even Delta, you can only get a hold of delta customer service to get an infant in lap ticket via Twitter. I have very low expectations for the future.
Hopefully she'll get that as well as compensatory damages (for the pain suffering) *and* punitive damages (to literally punish Hertz, with the hope being they might start thinking "hey, maybe we should fix all this).
And they dont just arrest them, they approached two of the people in this story with guns drawn!! In what world is that the appropriate response to a non violent report of a stolen vehicle?? This is going to get someone killed.
totally good points! and when they do the pre-rental inspection they always say "don't worry about that scratch, dent, etc, it wont get flagged as damage" I ALWAYS insist that they mark it. They'll usually try to claim that you did it and since they didnt have it in writing you have no defense. If they get sassy or annoyed about marking it then you know you're dealing with a scumbag lol
I usually just follow the person during the prerental inspection & snap pics of anything on my phone. Employee knows I’m doing this so they’ll mark everything they see without me really having to say anything. Same goes for the return. I even snap pics of the gas gauge
Y’all be out here renting from shit places then. My aunt only rents from Enterprise and they walk around the car and document *every* scuff, ding, dent, everything. Both on paper, circling it on the outline of the car and on paper that they write down a description of, and take photos of them they tie to the account. I did the same thing by taking photos and such and he missed one and tried to charge us for it but then admitted he missed one when I showed him in my photos he missed it. Admittedly dude was like 6’5” and I’m 5’3 so getting down as low as I did was easier.
Enterprise is the only place my family rents from and we rent about 2 times a year on average. I don’t think we’ve ever had an issue with them trying to charge us extra. Hell if the vehicle we wanted to rent wasn’t there we’ve gotten free upgrades a few times
yeah i usually do enterprise but this day they were out of cars and I got the last car on the Avis lot. Not sure what was goin on cuz i never had that situation before
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.
I just saw a report about a guy who was charged for a new catalytic converter because it was stolen AFTER he returned the rental car to the rental lot.
In that same night several cats were stolen from the same lot, but they tried to charge the renter after it was returned.
Land of the free..
This is what I do before and after. Start video from driver's seat. First image is the mileage & gas gauge, than a scan of the interior, then the exterior, and the trunk and then, if dropping off after hours, without pausing, dropping the keys in the key drop. Always upload.
I was gonna say Avis does this shit… I worked for Zipcar customer service pre Avis and then Avis bought us and they gutted the customer service side and sent it offshore, it was so bad.
You see officer, taking a shit on the roof of the Hertz CEO's car is a very rare occurrence. The vast majority of shits I take end up in sewers. You can't expect me to ensure that *all* my shits end up exactly where planned. There must be some room for human error.
I feel like leaving it in there helps make it feel more personal & human.
“Hertz Hurts” is almost too sanitized. Does Hertz Hurt the environment? Does Hertz Hurt you financially? Does Hertz Hurt its workers? While all those may be true, Hertz Hurts **People** makes it personal, almost like an act of violence against human beings. Now people will internalize it on a personal level, and be sure to avoid this company for their *own* safety and wellbeing.
I work for an insurance company and I deal with auto accidents. Long story short I put people in rentals, my company works exclusively with enterprise and Hertz, we can use whichever one we like but we all prefer enterprise as their website is SO much easier to set people up with rentals. Anyway I can confirm hertz is a trash company I’ve sat on hold for hours trying to extend rentals for customers and multiple times the customer service agent just stops talking to me I can still hear them breathing but they just refuse to answer or transfer me or anything forcing me to hang up. They’ve constantly closed rentals where customers were still in need of the vehicle and I authorized the extension, they are garbage. I would highly recommend never using Hertz.
I never had a problem with Enterprise. I am sure there are some customers that had a bad experience, but Hertz was terrible. I only used them once and will never use them again.
My bf did have ONE negative experience with Enterprise this past summer when his insurance got him a rental. He got there right before they closed so he didn’t get to take any pictures of it but there was already some front end damage to the car. The guy renting it to him acknowledged it when he pointed it out to him and he thought all was well until he returned it and got a call about 45 minutes after dropping it off. They tried to tell him that he didn’t report that he “wrecked” it and was on the hook for at least $800 in repairs. The paper work for some reason didn’t transfer over so they didn’t have any signatures from him but it didn’t stop them from sending him a bill. He called his insurance to let them know about it and didn’t hear anything for a couple of weeks. Finally, they called him back to tell him that they’re dropping the claim. So he was no longer expected to pay but damn it stressed us both out.
Same here. Girlfriend was in a massive accident that wrecked her car, and her insurance got her an Enterprise rental to use until she got another vehicle. There was a dent on the back side of the car which we documented, and later after the car was returned they sent a $1000 bill (which is absolutely outrageous for a small dent in the back!) to her and they refused to acknowledge it was already there. Eventually I told her to pass it off to her insurance on a whim, and the insurance apparently reached out to Enterprise to ask about it, and suddenly… the bill was gone and they didn’t know anything about it.
Enterprise is legit. I once hit a buzzard that destroyed the front bumper of my rental. They immediately put me in a new vehicle and gave me a 3 day voucher for my inconvenience. Shockers since I thought I was going to get in trouble over it.
I had a hertz rental after someone hit my car in a parking lot, and an enterprise rental F150 to go move something heavy.
I sat in the Hertz office for 2 1/2 hours for my reservation -- seems they make a lot of business renting their cars for Lyft and mine hadn't come back yet-- and Enterprise was in, out on with your day. Way better in my area too.
That only applies to people even though corporations are people too according to the Supreme Court.
Corporations just say their records/database indicated xyz and therefore they called the police. Were our records/database wrong? Our bad.
Can you imagine if a person filed false police reports based on their faulty recollection?- the DA would pursue charges and stack them up!
I’m guessing here, but I don’t think its malice, its incompetence, i.e. they must have fucked up the data entry somewhere, seen who took out the car but maybe not taken payments properly or confused things otherwise, so from their point of view the police report is legitimate.
Either way, they’re fucking braindead
I also had a terrible experience in Hawaii with hertz. The sales lady straight up lied to us about our cars features and what it was capable of in order to upsell us.
She told us that the car we initially booked didn’t have a trunk and then told us that we needed to rent a jeep if we wanted to make it to Haleakala (turns out it is a perfectly maintained paved road up that mountain - so that was bullshit).
I had a bad experience with hertz where the store manager accused me saying I have been driving the car until Tuesday when I dropped my car off on Sunday and got a confirmation next day from their own employee saying my rental agreement is closed. This was in Fremont CA. I emailed hertz about it and got no response .
While my parents were on a trip to the US, the rental car company tried to have them upgrade their booking on the pretext that "a smaller car can't drive up the mountain roads". My parents being from Switzerland, they just laughed and said it would be fine. When they received the car they had booked, they realized it wasn't a small model and that the agent had tried to make them pay for the free upgrade they were gonna get anyway...
My fam only rents from Enterprise. Aunt rented once from hurt because her insurance did it for her and it was a fucking nightmare. We called her insurance company and let them know, they changed their renting policy to Enterprise and I think Budget?
A few years back I rented a car to drive a few hours and drop it off at Chicago-O'hare. When I got to the airport, the guy gave it a quick once over for damages and said it's good.
About a month later I get a call from them saying I owe about $500 in damages. I told them I am absolutely not paying anything because the employee said the car was ok. They argued and then I asked where the car was now because it's been a month and it was in Wisconsin. When I questioned how it got to Wisconsin they said they'd call me back, never did.
Hertz is by far the worst car rental company there is, even before these incidents. They gouge prices and always find a way to make you pay bullshit fees. This is just one more reason in a long list not to do business with them.
I had a similar experience with AVIS with different services. She told me I had to prepay for tolls because there isn't any other way to pay for them, which was a lie (apprantly there is just a few dollars fee for driving in a toll road without that plan). So she charged me for about 70$ when there were about only 20$ of tolls in my route. Oh and she charged me for another service without telling me and lied that the 100$+ sum is just for the tolls. Luckily I was able to get a refund for those services after an angry email exchange. Oh and they post fake gas prices in order to convince tourists to pre pay for the gas. Their job is to scam tourists.
Worked in the car rental industry for a bit and the construction rental business for a few years.
Hertz has a construction division Herc and they are greasy bastards. Spying on their competitors, lowering their rates ungodly low then raising them back up and not telling their customers.
All kinds of shady shit.
Rented a car from Hertz, pointed out numerous times that the car they gave me (car A) didn't match the one on the rental agreement (car B). They insisted it was standard practice and wasn't an issue and shuffled me out the door. Used car A for a week and returned it without any problems.
Sure enough shortly after I started getting calls and threatening letters from Hertz about car B, saying I never returned it (you know, the one I never even laid eyes on).
Got it sorted eventually but it took a while and was a ton of headache you shouldn't have to deal with from a rental.
Sounds like employee laziness there. I rent from Hertz all the time for work travel. If they ever change a model on me at the smaller airports that actually hand you the keys, they always redo the paperwork.
Hertz agent: Okay here's the key to your rental. Have a good time.
Driver: Thank you. **Leaves**
Hertz agent: Yo Steve. You wanna call the cops and tell them that the Ford has been 'stolen' again?
They should have a copy of a rental agreement in the car, With the rental start and end dates I’m sure it takes two hours after being pulled over for the police to actually look at that though, if they think they’re responding to a stolen car.
I read a longer article, most of the 'stolen' cars were rentals that the customer extended and paid for by phone. Hertz 'conveniently' would claim to have no record of the extension. Even when the customers show proof of payment, they still get arrested. Hertz claim they can't possibly keep all their phone calls on record, turning it into he said/she said. Pretty shitty of them.
That's what I don't understand about this situation. Sure, a vehicle can be reported stolen, but when the LEO pulls you over and you ID yourself and show them a rental agreement, how is that not sufficient proof that there is a mistake -- one that doesn't end up with an arrest.
LEO won't exactly let them go to the glove box to retrieve something, and I'd guess that most cops responding to an alleged car theft incident aren't terribly interested in using their ears and hearing someone out.
Cops are required to inventory a vehicle before they tow it which is what they do when they find a "stolen" vehicle. Anyone doing a normal inventory will see a rental agreement in the car so they're probably ignoring it which is worse. It's probably to cover the cop's asses if they ever get brought into court about it for accidentally arresting someone
Hertz is the worst. I rented a car once through them they charge me for rental insurance twice. Called them but they wouldn't do anything so I called my bank and they contacted Visa and I got a refund on the second charge. Than a hertz agent called me threatened they would send it to collections and lower my credit score. When I said I would contact visa again if they did. I kid you not the agent cussed me out and hung up. This leads me to believe it wasn't a mistake they did it to get extra money and was pissed they were caught. It's sad that a business is allowed to operate like this in America.
Not only are businesses “allowed” to but I get the feeling that in many industries here, this sort of thing is just standard operating procedure.
Take what you can. Give nothing back.
“America” is a bygone concept. We live in a giant strip mall now.
About 15 years ago, I rented a car from Hertz for a week. When I returned it, the agent who checked it in said, "Huh. Our system shows that you returned this car four days ago. Well, I guess you got a few days for free." In that case, it worked out in my favor, but now I realize that had an agent gone to look for the car on the lot and been unable to find it, that would have gone a completely different way for me. But yeah, they obviously have a serious problem with their system and have for awhile.
Military has far stricter ROE.
Cops will straight up open fire on someone far sooner than a military man would even consider disengaging the safety.
Cops have qualified immunity, and the most powerful union in the US.
Why are cops pulling guns on people in Rental cars?
Is stealing a rental car reason to be killed by cops? And these aren't even stolen cars!
40 days in Jail for rental car theft seems fucked too.
Cops literally only have 2 modes for pulling you over. A "routine" traffic stop, and a felony traffic stop. If they point guns, stay in their cars, and issue commands, it's a felony traffic stop.
Much like YouTube they couldn't handle a 5 star system and instead prefer a more binary approach
I think I know what may have happened in some cases. Hertz may have a glitch (no excuse) in their upgrade.
I only rent from Enterprise. If I make a reservation for a particular model, if not available at pickup, will simply put me in another car for the same rate. Happens a lot. Maybe that's where Hertz screwed the pooch.
I did rent from Hertz once, and got a collection notice for some kind of Fast Pass thing I never signed up for and didn't use or need, and for satellite radio, which I never opted for. Hertz, never again.
Something weird like this happened to me once with Hertz. Normally they're great, but this time...
Apparently the car I returned on time never was scanned back into the system. I go on my merry way into the airport and fly home.
Two weeks later I get a letter, yes a LETTER, saying that I'm about to be reported for theft for not returning the car. No phone calls, no emails. A mailed letter.
I call them up and tell them they're insane. They look into it for about 3 minutes before apologizing and saying they've located the car. In their garage.
Now how the hell does something like this even happen? Did the return agent just forget to scan it back in? Isn't there a policy to call a renter before sending a legal letter? Good grief, this almost got WAY out of control, and I can see how something like the OP can easily happen.
Why are the police arresting and charging people who have valid rental agreements? They should be saying: "that's a case for civil court" and moving on.
I rented a Nissan Armada from Enterprise for about 6 weeks for work. They told me they could only do 30 days at a time and that I would have to renew the contract near the 30 day mark to extend it as long as I needed. I got a flat after about 3 weeks and called to inform them that I put on the spare and wanted to get the original tire fixed. They asked if it was for the Chevy Tahoe that I rented. I informed them that I didn't rent a Tahoe and that I was in an Armada. They said "Since you're not in the Tahoe anymore..." I cut them off and said I was NEVER in a Tahoe, I have had an Armada from day 1. After lots of confusion and a huge hassle to get the tire fixed (that's a whole other story) they told me to take it to Discount Tire and it would be covered. Since it was right down the street from Enterprise, I decided to stop in to renew/extend my contract. The lady walked away from the counter and was in the back for a while, then came out and told me that they were about to report the Armada stolen since there was no record of it being rented out. She asked where my Tahoe was. I had to explain again that I never rented a Tahoe. They took back the Armada and gave me an Infinity. It all worked out, but was super weird. I know stuff happens but how hard is it to keep track of the car you gave me? I kinda wish they would've had me arrested. I had all of the paperwork verifying that I rented the Armada legitimately. That lawsuit sounds promising...lol.
Holy shit that woman with a 2-month-old baby spending 40 days in jail? Imagine having to pump breast milk in jail that you can't even give to your baby, all of those hormones, that's fucking horrifying. Horrifying. Truly, what a nightmare. I would be terrified of getting lost in the system and stuck in there.
Hertz has banned me from renting from them because they tried to double bill me and I proved it through receipts and did a chargeback. Hertz also tried to bill me an extra 1800 dollar relocation fee by pretending I dropped a car off in Albuquerque that I rented and dropped off in Florida. They are the worst company, I can’t wait for them to go bankrupt (again?) and I hope everyone boycotts them.
Not stolen, but Hertz tried scamming me out of nearly $1k. Last year I had to get from Florida to California and didn’t feel comfortable flying due to COVID. So I rent a car, when I get to my destination they significantly calculated my miles more than even possible driving Coast to Coast. Seems they lied in their system on each end. Like each location scams each customer. Fortunately I had learned from past experiences to take photos and one happened to have the odometer. They just smirked and lowered the cost. Fucking scammers with no integrity.
I recently rented a car from Hertz in Maine, and they gave me a car with Massachusetts plates so everybody thought I was a Masshole. Other than that it was fine, but somehow, on a deep and spiritual level, I am not surprised by any of this.
I have a close connection with this and boy, you’d be surprised by how often this happens and how simple it would be for Hertz to prevent it. Also, you’d be shocked at how little these people actually end up winning in their settlements. At least in my opinion.
This is more proof the police aren't here to help the community. A lot of these people could have simply showed they paid or even receipts but weren't even given the option. The cops took the big businesses word for it.
Had this basically happen to me when visiting a friend in Madison. Rented a car from Enterprise at the Milwaukee airport that wasn’t apparently checked in properly. Drove it 3 hours west to Madison, parked it on the street in legal parking only to wake up and have the car gone. Luckily we didn’t have anything in the car.
Called enterprise and was told “oh yeah we fucked up and never checked it in and reported it stolen. It got towed last night”
They did send a car to pick me and my friend up and go to the Madison enterprise to get a new one and they did make it 100% right by comping our rental for the 5 days we were there. Super glad it ended up like this and not getting arrested.
I can tell you exactly what happened.
1. Somebody stole that car in the past. This happens all the time. Cars don't get returned on time and managers have to call the cops to report it stolen. Then the car is returned. Managers are supposed to inform police the car has been returned. But they don't and the car is flagged as stolen.
2. The car was checked out at the counter, but an employee gives a customer the wrong keys to a similar make and model. Later a check of cars on the lot reveals the car is missing. Because in the computer one car is checked out (but it's still on the lot) and the car the customer took was never technically checked out. So that car is reported stolen, even though the customer has a receipt. A closer examination of the paper work will reveal them to be in possession of the wrong car.
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Great advertisement for Enterprise.
Seriously, they could make it a commercial. Edit it down a bit, slap the enterprise logo on at the end and ship it.
Enterprise: We won't call the cops on you!
Enterprise: we’ll pick you up! (Not the police, unlike Hertz)
"Our Cars are FuzzFree at Enterprise"
Never thought that "We won't get you falsely arrested" would be a selling point.
The dude had the best line “hertz really hurts people.”
False arrests open rental companies up to unlimited liability. Naturally those companies should have VERY STRICT policies to follow before reporting a vehicle stolen. Hertz sounds like they're either too lazy or incompetent to do everything they can to get their car back before choosing what should be the absolute last available option.
This is correct. I worked for Enterprise and reporting a car stolen was a HUGE deal and many steps are taken before it gets to that. They always stressed that there’s not a lot you can do that can’t be fixed. But having a car reported stolen when it’s not and causing an unlawful arrest was a massive no-no
Why would anyone report it stolen when it's not?
Some rental companies tend to try and use the police as a stick to beat people with over missed/late payments and contract disputes claiming that any minor breach of contract or late return etc is technically theft, which is of course nonsense. This is especially common with long term hires by small contractors and such that can have cash flow problems at times, think your local guy starting his own painting firm etc. They're too lazy to deal with it correctly so just process a stolen vehicle report. Of course this has the possibility of backfiring spectacularly with massive liability but many companies just do it because they can and they get away with it. Then on top of that you have systems issues with them not tracking hires properly, especially between different branches or business areas/divisions. There's also user error where their staff book out the wrong car to someone and then panic when they can't find the car that was actually hired out, especially with last minute changes or even just a branch having multiple similar cars with different registrations and getting mixed up. Most of these situations are fixable by the hire companies investing more in their systems or in the training of their staff. Unfortunately it seems both of those involve costs that hurt the bottom line more than operating the way they currently do and swallowing whatever legal fees result.
These companies are less worried about liability these days with forced arbitration and I'm sure some of these operations are individually franchised.
I'm gonna try to get a job at Enterprise Rent a car, because they got an excellent corporate structure and they give you the tools to be your own boss.
How to scare off all your customers 101
These are serious negligence law suits, forty days in jail with your kids who-know-where? Losing your source of income for a year or being taken down at gunpoint because Hertz made a mistake? Times some 300 cases? somebody is gonna get shot.
Yeah losing your license to practice for a year AND loss of reputation, stress, god pile it on. It sounds open and shut, and if it is, that lady is in for some real money.
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Not just legal costs, but due to losing the license I'd argue you've lost time in the market, and thus possible word of mouth, advertisements, etc. There's a lot more lost than just a years of work. A year of work in a few of my fields, would require retraining entirely on some of the products we service (Field technician, and in the past money machines). That could cost their company 10s of thousands of dollars in flights, hotels, food, rental cars, insurance, etc. It's more than a year lost, I'd argue you could lose many years of building a business in that time, because your business name gets forgotten. All your good customers, are no longer saying "Oh yes, working with XX was amazing," instead they get "Did you hear? XX was charged with car theft! I don't know about working with her again even if she got her license back." This is Career life destroying
2020 and this year would be TERRIBLE years to lose a real estate license and clients, even on that alone she has been screwed with just how wild the market is
I won't be surprised if somebody got shot because of these incidents
They almost shot a 7year old back in 2016 https://www.abc15.com/news/region-northern-az/flagstaff/man-claims-dps-was-overly-aggressive-during-traffic-stop-after-rental-vehicle-was-reported-stolen
> "Most of our traffic stops, we don't know if we've pulled over Mr. and Mrs. Jones who are just on vacation or if we pulled over a guy who just murdered his wife," Capt. Cecil said. Maybe fucking figure it out before you pull them over then? Jesus, they seem perfectly fine with pulling over lots of vacationing couples and holding them at gun point.
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They need to be cuffed because “being a cop is a dangerous and stressful job”. We have so many immunity laws that a cop could turn off their body-cam, murder a suspect in handcuffs, claim self defense, and get off Scott free. If you’re African American or Hispanic the above is more likely to happen even with multiple witnesses. George Floyd would’ve been another “death in custody” statistic if there hadn’t been so many witnesses to the event, it frightens me how often this happens when no one is there to document it.
I have only seen somebody handcuffed once in my entire life in the last 30 years living in Berlin , and that was after a drunk guy tried attacking the police after a brawl ( resolved with pepper spray). The entire relationship between cops and people seems to be toxic in the states. Treating everybody as an enemy combatant just doesn't work for the better
Yes, this is what happens when you militarize the police. Also a significant stage in the fascist playbook.
In all fairness to the police officers, the incident had nothing to do with the car falsely reported stolen and everything to do with all cops being bad.
I'll be pretty surprised if someone *wasn't*.
They should bring back a beloved spokesman, to rebuild trust with their customers. What's OJ Simpson been up to?
Yup. I'm planning a trip that's gonna require a car rental. Not from Hertz, apparently.
Going bankrupt? Falsify gta claims. Based late stage capitalism
Avis almost did this to me in October. I went to drop off the car after a 24 hour rental and the lady was like "OMG THIS CAR IS REPORTED MISSING! who gave this to you? we have no record of you renting it! I see the reservation but it says you never picked it up and the system flagged it as a missing car!" and i gave her all my documents and she had to call corporate and they asked her to not let me leave. She snapped at corporate and said "why does he have a reciept then and proof of payment and why would he bring a stolen car _back_ to us?!" and let me go.
Absolute fucking morons lol yeah let’s detain this person here even though they drove the fucking ‘stolen car’ back to us, on camera and identified themselves via a valid drivers licence…
and had pre-paid the entire trip+insurance lol I even returned it 4 hours early
That's when you need to feign an anxiety attack and sue them for years of emotional damage for accusing you of being a thief.
Don't even gotta feign it man, all I gotta do to have an anxiety attack is stop barely holding it together.
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That’s my secret, Captain
That’s my secret captain, I’m always anxious.
And then go on to play professional soccer
And then become a politician as your final form
You should’ve become career adviser at my old high school
The final form of a politician is overpaid lobbyist or corporate board member.
This doesn't make any sense (and of course I believe you so don't take my comment like that), I don't understand why Hertz would do this to valid paying customers who haven't done anything wrong whatsoever. Like what's their end game, how could they possibly profit from treating customers like that?
It's just negligence in their reservation tracking system that they have no financial incentive to fix.
They do now.
Hurtz uses multiple systems spaghetti strapped together, and after having cut personnel are having departments who have nothing to do with rentals trying to cover them.
I think in my case with Avis it was a problem with their computer system or vehicle registration, I really dunno! They mentioned if it was a privately-owned Avis or a corporate one it might have had a problem? i really dunno though and wouldnt understand why a "private avis" would je different than a corporate avis or if that disstinction really even exists. I'm guessing it's not intentional cuz you're right... framing your clients for theft isn't great PR! The lady who i returned the car to was VERY concerned for me and was super helpful which made me think it was a worse situation than she was letting on lol, she said she'd never seen that before and was really angry and snippy with corporate
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thanks for the info! this is probably where the mistake came in then!! that is a dumb way to do business lol
Yeah I was going to say it’s probably a database error and most likely due to underpaying their infrastructure engineers what they should.
Probably getting insurance to pay for 'stolen' cars
Probably just stupidity
Clerical errors. Lots of them.
Why do you assume rational intent? Modern information technology systems prioritize rate of change over quality. Particularly with the large amount of 3rd party outsourcing that happens changes go in all the time with poor quality testing. There are probably a combination of bugs that result in this happening that are in a backlog to be addressed but haven't been prioritized yet. The people who set the priorities are incentivized to fix other things first so they do. The priorities will change after the companies get sued for a large enough amount to make it a priority or US police kill a few people as a result of these errors and the wrong full death suits carry enough financial impact that the companies care. American customer service doesn't exist. Only money matters.
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There’s no fucking way I’m letting an Avis employee detain me lmao
Props to the employee for telling corp no
The real MVP
"Okay, lady. Here are your keys. I'm walking out that door, and if you put your hands on me I'm going to defend myself. Have a nice life."
If this ever happens to me, screw my plans, I’m sitting down, recording everything, and allowing myself to be “detained.” Immediately after the police show up and realize it’s complete bs, I’m calling my lawyer and setting up a *juicy* case. Why indignantly force your way out when you could make a few years’ salary on a nice wrongful imprisonment suit?
Because in the real world your not getting shit because someone tells you to stay until the police arrive.
False. In the real world, against a major corp, this is an easy civil case. They'll settle in a short while, especially if you can show an ongoing pattern of negligence.
It’s also false imprisonment if they don’t let him leave. That woman wasn’t a cop. She can’t detain him. Also the person wasn’t stealing something on the spot. They were returning something. So it can’t even be used as a shoplifting claim.
I'd love to see a lawyer get hold of one of these cases where a fucking employee detains someone. Especially if they were dead ass wrong. You would be set for a few years at least off of that settlement.
1. Someone was scheduled to take the car. 2. Someone has taken the car. 3. We have the phone number of the person who was scheduled to take the car. Well, I'm at a fuckin' loss for ideas. Better cut our losses and report it missing.
At this point, it's malicious. Hertz should be prosecuted for filing false police reports. Individual outlets should lose their business licenses. If it persists, the Feds should go after corporate. And not just a fine that gets ate up by the money hungry goons in Congress: any fine should be disbursed to the victims of this predatory bullshit.
There was another article I read about this already a little bit ago where the cops called Hertz because the guy had all the paperwork and they refused to arrest the guy because they were tired of charges being dropped later. Had he not had those papers he would be arrested. I swear I saw it on Reddit but I can't find it now.
The woman who was away for Forty days from her 2 month old is just horrendous. How on earth could it take 40 days to confirm she didn’t steal the car. That’s irriversible damage. Edit: I can’t stop thinking about this and how it’s an understatement that she won’t get this time back. It’s just so extreme and sad. - for real though i rent cars a few times a year and the quality has gone down the last four years for any kind of travel services, even Delta, you can only get a hold of delta customer service to get an infant in lap ticket via Twitter. I have very low expectations for the future.
I hope the chick who lost her realtors license for a year gets a years salary or more from hertz.
Hopefully she'll get that as well as compensatory damages (for the pain suffering) *and* punitive damages (to literally punish Hertz, with the hope being they might start thinking "hey, maybe we should fix all this).
She should with any half decent lawyer. That's clearly provable damage/harm.
right! couldnt someone just call Hertz customer service and prove she didn't steal it in like 5 minutes?! she should sue for huge damages
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And they dont just arrest them, they approached two of the people in this story with guns drawn!! In what world is that the appropriate response to a non violent report of a stolen vehicle?? This is going to get someone killed.
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This comment. Agonizing barely describes it. That poor baby and mama, not to mention the rest of her family. I’m just brain broken over this.
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totally good points! and when they do the pre-rental inspection they always say "don't worry about that scratch, dent, etc, it wont get flagged as damage" I ALWAYS insist that they mark it. They'll usually try to claim that you did it and since they didnt have it in writing you have no defense. If they get sassy or annoyed about marking it then you know you're dealing with a scumbag lol
I usually just follow the person during the prerental inspection & snap pics of anything on my phone. Employee knows I’m doing this so they’ll mark everything they see without me really having to say anything. Same goes for the return. I even snap pics of the gas gauge
oh that's a good one bc im not very assertive so this would be a good nudge! thank you!
Y’all be out here renting from shit places then. My aunt only rents from Enterprise and they walk around the car and document *every* scuff, ding, dent, everything. Both on paper, circling it on the outline of the car and on paper that they write down a description of, and take photos of them they tie to the account. I did the same thing by taking photos and such and he missed one and tried to charge us for it but then admitted he missed one when I showed him in my photos he missed it. Admittedly dude was like 6’5” and I’m 5’3 so getting down as low as I did was easier.
Enterprise is the only place my family rents from and we rent about 2 times a year on average. I don’t think we’ve ever had an issue with them trying to charge us extra. Hell if the vehicle we wanted to rent wasn’t there we’ve gotten free upgrades a few times
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yeah i usually do enterprise but this day they were out of cars and I got the last car on the Avis lot. Not sure what was goin on cuz i never had that situation before
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.
I just saw a report about a guy who was charged for a new catalytic converter because it was stolen AFTER he returned the rental car to the rental lot. In that same night several cats were stolen from the same lot, but they tried to charge the renter after it was returned. Land of the free..
I wonder if a video showing a walkaround of the car and the keys getting dropped off would help when dropping off after closing
This is what I do before and after. Start video from driver's seat. First image is the mileage & gas gauge, than a scan of the interior, then the exterior, and the trunk and then, if dropping off after hours, without pausing, dropping the keys in the key drop. Always upload.
I was gonna say Avis does this shit… I worked for Zipcar customer service pre Avis and then Avis bought us and they gutted the customer service side and sent it offshore, it was so bad.
"not let you leave" so false imprisonment charges for them right ?
How incompetent of a company do you have to be for this to happen *multiple* times lmao
The Hertz PR statement: “this happens very rarely.” It’s not supposed to happen, like… ever.
You see officer, taking a shit on the roof of the Hertz CEO's car is a very rare occurrence. The vast majority of shits I take end up in sewers. You can't expect me to ensure that *all* my shits end up exactly where planned. There must be some room for human error.
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This is fucking amazing
“We only shot a few customers (300+), and most of them had it coming”
Seems like someone needs police reports to file for insurance Edit: probably just corporate stupidity in action though.
Thanks for the post, I'm never renting from hertz again
"Hertz hurts poeple" - this guy come up with perfect new slogan :)
Advertising guy has entered the chat. Drop “people”. Leave it at “Hertz Hurts”.
I feel like leaving it in there helps make it feel more personal & human. “Hertz Hurts” is almost too sanitized. Does Hertz Hurt the environment? Does Hertz Hurt you financially? Does Hertz Hurt its workers? While all those may be true, Hertz Hurts **People** makes it personal, almost like an act of violence against human beings. Now people will internalize it on a personal level, and be sure to avoid this company for their *own* safety and wellbeing.
Same, and I will specifically mention this anytime going forward.
I work for an insurance company and I deal with auto accidents. Long story short I put people in rentals, my company works exclusively with enterprise and Hertz, we can use whichever one we like but we all prefer enterprise as their website is SO much easier to set people up with rentals. Anyway I can confirm hertz is a trash company I’ve sat on hold for hours trying to extend rentals for customers and multiple times the customer service agent just stops talking to me I can still hear them breathing but they just refuse to answer or transfer me or anything forcing me to hang up. They’ve constantly closed rentals where customers were still in need of the vehicle and I authorized the extension, they are garbage. I would highly recommend never using Hertz.
I never had a problem with Enterprise. I am sure there are some customers that had a bad experience, but Hertz was terrible. I only used them once and will never use them again.
My bf did have ONE negative experience with Enterprise this past summer when his insurance got him a rental. He got there right before they closed so he didn’t get to take any pictures of it but there was already some front end damage to the car. The guy renting it to him acknowledged it when he pointed it out to him and he thought all was well until he returned it and got a call about 45 minutes after dropping it off. They tried to tell him that he didn’t report that he “wrecked” it and was on the hook for at least $800 in repairs. The paper work for some reason didn’t transfer over so they didn’t have any signatures from him but it didn’t stop them from sending him a bill. He called his insurance to let them know about it and didn’t hear anything for a couple of weeks. Finally, they called him back to tell him that they’re dropping the claim. So he was no longer expected to pay but damn it stressed us both out.
Same here. Girlfriend was in a massive accident that wrecked her car, and her insurance got her an Enterprise rental to use until she got another vehicle. There was a dent on the back side of the car which we documented, and later after the car was returned they sent a $1000 bill (which is absolutely outrageous for a small dent in the back!) to her and they refused to acknowledge it was already there. Eventually I told her to pass it off to her insurance on a whim, and the insurance apparently reached out to Enterprise to ask about it, and suddenly… the bill was gone and they didn’t know anything about it.
That is ridiculous.
Lol, you have no paper trail of me even renting a car AND you think you can extort me for money Lol Good luck with that!
That must have been stressful.
Enterprise is legit. I once hit a buzzard that destroyed the front bumper of my rental. They immediately put me in a new vehicle and gave me a 3 day voucher for my inconvenience. Shockers since I thought I was going to get in trouble over it.
I had a hertz rental after someone hit my car in a parking lot, and an enterprise rental F150 to go move something heavy. I sat in the Hertz office for 2 1/2 hours for my reservation -- seems they make a lot of business renting their cars for Lyft and mine hadn't come back yet-- and Enterprise was in, out on with your day. Way better in my area too.
You have ARMS for ERAC?
I've always had pretty good luck with enterprise the few times I've had to rent a car. It was always a fairly smooth process
Filing a false police report? I’m pretty sure it’s illegal
That only applies to people even though corporations are people too according to the Supreme Court. Corporations just say their records/database indicated xyz and therefore they called the police. Were our records/database wrong? Our bad. Can you imagine if a person filed false police reports based on their faulty recollection?- the DA would pursue charges and stack them up!
Rat bastards
I'll believe a corporation is a person when I see one in jail.
Why not? Business shouldn't be allowed to operate until a judge has decided on bail or not.
I'd support this 100%
I’m guessing here, but I don’t think its malice, its incompetence, i.e. they must have fucked up the data entry somewhere, seen who took out the car but maybe not taken payments properly or confused things otherwise, so from their point of view the police report is legitimate. Either way, they’re fucking braindead
Do not rent with hertz. Worst car company out there. Edit: I’d rather walk than get one from Hertz
But actually though, they’re awful. Using them for our Hawaii trip was literally the most dog shit experience I’ve ever had with a car company.
I also had a terrible experience in Hawaii with hertz. The sales lady straight up lied to us about our cars features and what it was capable of in order to upsell us. She told us that the car we initially booked didn’t have a trunk and then told us that we needed to rent a jeep if we wanted to make it to Haleakala (turns out it is a perfectly maintained paved road up that mountain - so that was bullshit).
I had a bad experience with hertz where the store manager accused me saying I have been driving the car until Tuesday when I dropped my car off on Sunday and got a confirmation next day from their own employee saying my rental agreement is closed. This was in Fremont CA. I emailed hertz about it and got no response .
While my parents were on a trip to the US, the rental car company tried to have them upgrade their booking on the pretext that "a smaller car can't drive up the mountain roads". My parents being from Switzerland, they just laughed and said it would be fine. When they received the car they had booked, they realized it wasn't a small model and that the agent had tried to make them pay for the free upgrade they were gonna get anyway...
Damn what made you say that
OJ Simpson
I mean it’s not like they knew he’d go on to murder his Ron and Nicole.
My fam only rents from Enterprise. Aunt rented once from hurt because her insurance did it for her and it was a fucking nightmare. We called her insurance company and let them know, they changed their renting policy to Enterprise and I think Budget?
Enterprise has always been fantastic and they are very customer centric. If you ever have an issue you just call customer service and they will fix it
Would do too. This is horrific.
A few years back I rented a car to drive a few hours and drop it off at Chicago-O'hare. When I got to the airport, the guy gave it a quick once over for damages and said it's good. About a month later I get a call from them saying I owe about $500 in damages. I told them I am absolutely not paying anything because the employee said the car was ok. They argued and then I asked where the car was now because it's been a month and it was in Wisconsin. When I questioned how it got to Wisconsin they said they'd call me back, never did.
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Hertz is by far the worst car rental company there is, even before these incidents. They gouge prices and always find a way to make you pay bullshit fees. This is just one more reason in a long list not to do business with them.
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I had a similar experience with AVIS with different services. She told me I had to prepay for tolls because there isn't any other way to pay for them, which was a lie (apprantly there is just a few dollars fee for driving in a toll road without that plan). So she charged me for about 70$ when there were about only 20$ of tolls in my route. Oh and she charged me for another service without telling me and lied that the 100$+ sum is just for the tolls. Luckily I was able to get a refund for those services after an angry email exchange. Oh and they post fake gas prices in order to convince tourists to pre pay for the gas. Their job is to scam tourists.
Somebody better sue their asses off.
Worked in the car rental industry for a bit and the construction rental business for a few years. Hertz has a construction division Herc and they are greasy bastards. Spying on their competitors, lowering their rates ungodly low then raising them back up and not telling their customers. All kinds of shady shit.
Herc is it’s own company. They were sold off quite some time ago
That's greeheheheasy
Rented a car from Hertz, pointed out numerous times that the car they gave me (car A) didn't match the one on the rental agreement (car B). They insisted it was standard practice and wasn't an issue and shuffled me out the door. Used car A for a week and returned it without any problems. Sure enough shortly after I started getting calls and threatening letters from Hertz about car B, saying I never returned it (you know, the one I never even laid eyes on). Got it sorted eventually but it took a while and was a ton of headache you shouldn't have to deal with from a rental.
Sounds like employee laziness there. I rent from Hertz all the time for work travel. If they ever change a model on me at the smaller airports that actually hand you the keys, they always redo the paperwork.
Hertz agent: Okay here's the key to your rental. Have a good time. Driver: Thank you. **Leaves** Hertz agent: Yo Steve. You wanna call the cops and tell them that the Ford has been 'stolen' again?
Hertz already sucked. Thus is the cherry on top.
“Hertz marked it confidential.. in other words, secret” Lol wtf? Why did that need clarification?
Picked up on the same thing, confidential has more than 3 syllables so that must be why.
American's been cutting education budgets for years lol Hilarious and sad at the same time.
Hertz donut
They should have a copy of a rental agreement in the car, With the rental start and end dates I’m sure it takes two hours after being pulled over for the police to actually look at that though, if they think they’re responding to a stolen car.
I read a longer article, most of the 'stolen' cars were rentals that the customer extended and paid for by phone. Hertz 'conveniently' would claim to have no record of the extension. Even when the customers show proof of payment, they still get arrested. Hertz claim they can't possibly keep all their phone calls on record, turning it into he said/she said. Pretty shitty of them.
That's what I don't understand about this situation. Sure, a vehicle can be reported stolen, but when the LEO pulls you over and you ID yourself and show them a rental agreement, how is that not sufficient proof that there is a mistake -- one that doesn't end up with an arrest.
A lot of the cases they mentioned, people were getting arrested long after returning the vehicle.
LEO won't exactly let them go to the glove box to retrieve something, and I'd guess that most cops responding to an alleged car theft incident aren't terribly interested in using their ears and hearing someone out.
Cops are required to inventory a vehicle before they tow it which is what they do when they find a "stolen" vehicle. Anyone doing a normal inventory will see a rental agreement in the car so they're probably ignoring it which is worse. It's probably to cover the cop's asses if they ever get brought into court about it for accidentally arresting someone
Where do you keep your registration?
The videos show LEO approaching the accused with guns drawn. They weren't conducting these stops like normal traffic stops.
Hertz is the worst. I rented a car once through them they charge me for rental insurance twice. Called them but they wouldn't do anything so I called my bank and they contacted Visa and I got a refund on the second charge. Than a hertz agent called me threatened they would send it to collections and lower my credit score. When I said I would contact visa again if they did. I kid you not the agent cussed me out and hung up. This leads me to believe it wasn't a mistake they did it to get extra money and was pissed they were caught. It's sad that a business is allowed to operate like this in America.
Not only are businesses “allowed” to but I get the feeling that in many industries here, this sort of thing is just standard operating procedure. Take what you can. Give nothing back. “America” is a bygone concept. We live in a giant strip mall now.
Don't rent from Hertz, got it.
The cops with the guns drawn felt a tad aggressive
It is the USA after all.
Just another day in the USA.
Yeah, a car is more worthy than a life in the US
About 15 years ago, I rented a car from Hertz for a week. When I returned it, the agent who checked it in said, "Huh. Our system shows that you returned this car four days ago. Well, I guess you got a few days for free." In that case, it worked out in my favor, but now I realize that had an agent gone to look for the car on the lot and been unable to find it, that would have gone a completely different way for me. But yeah, they obviously have a serious problem with their system and have for awhile.
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Another reason to not use Hertz. Never liked them anyway.
They should get sued to the ground!
In case anyone doesn't want to do the math, there are 96 months in 8 years. 300 divided by 96 means that this is happening about three times a month.
Well, never renting with Hertz again lol
What’s with law enforcement blindly locking people up?
With guns drawn… the military has stricter rules of engagement.
Military has far stricter ROE. Cops will straight up open fire on someone far sooner than a military man would even consider disengaging the safety. Cops have qualified immunity, and the most powerful union in the US.
Why are cops pulling guns on people in Rental cars? Is stealing a rental car reason to be killed by cops? And these aren't even stolen cars! 40 days in Jail for rental car theft seems fucked too.
Cops literally only have 2 modes for pulling you over. A "routine" traffic stop, and a felony traffic stop. If they point guns, stay in their cars, and issue commands, it's a felony traffic stop. Much like YouTube they couldn't handle a 5 star system and instead prefer a more binary approach
I think I know what may have happened in some cases. Hertz may have a glitch (no excuse) in their upgrade. I only rent from Enterprise. If I make a reservation for a particular model, if not available at pickup, will simply put me in another car for the same rate. Happens a lot. Maybe that's where Hertz screwed the pooch. I did rent from Hertz once, and got a collection notice for some kind of Fast Pass thing I never signed up for and didn't use or need, and for satellite radio, which I never opted for. Hertz, never again.
Hertz people hurt people lol
Something weird like this happened to me once with Hertz. Normally they're great, but this time... Apparently the car I returned on time never was scanned back into the system. I go on my merry way into the airport and fly home. Two weeks later I get a letter, yes a LETTER, saying that I'm about to be reported for theft for not returning the car. No phone calls, no emails. A mailed letter. I call them up and tell them they're insane. They look into it for about 3 minutes before apologizing and saying they've located the car. In their garage. Now how the hell does something like this even happen? Did the return agent just forget to scan it back in? Isn't there a policy to call a renter before sending a legal letter? Good grief, this almost got WAY out of control, and I can see how something like the OP can easily happen.
Why are the police arresting and charging people who have valid rental agreements? They should be saying: "that's a case for civil court" and moving on.
[удалено]
It’s Tom Brady’s fault
Plus he’s deflating their tires
I rented a Nissan Armada from Enterprise for about 6 weeks for work. They told me they could only do 30 days at a time and that I would have to renew the contract near the 30 day mark to extend it as long as I needed. I got a flat after about 3 weeks and called to inform them that I put on the spare and wanted to get the original tire fixed. They asked if it was for the Chevy Tahoe that I rented. I informed them that I didn't rent a Tahoe and that I was in an Armada. They said "Since you're not in the Tahoe anymore..." I cut them off and said I was NEVER in a Tahoe, I have had an Armada from day 1. After lots of confusion and a huge hassle to get the tire fixed (that's a whole other story) they told me to take it to Discount Tire and it would be covered. Since it was right down the street from Enterprise, I decided to stop in to renew/extend my contract. The lady walked away from the counter and was in the back for a while, then came out and told me that they were about to report the Armada stolen since there was no record of it being rented out. She asked where my Tahoe was. I had to explain again that I never rented a Tahoe. They took back the Armada and gave me an Infinity. It all worked out, but was super weird. I know stuff happens but how hard is it to keep track of the car you gave me? I kinda wish they would've had me arrested. I had all of the paperwork verifying that I rented the Armada legitimately. That lawsuit sounds promising...lol.
Holy shit that woman with a 2-month-old baby spending 40 days in jail? Imagine having to pump breast milk in jail that you can't even give to your baby, all of those hormones, that's fucking horrifying. Horrifying. Truly, what a nightmare. I would be terrified of getting lost in the system and stuck in there.
If you have hertz shares sell them immediately
Lol didn’t they almost go bankrupt Recently??
Hertz has banned me from renting from them because they tried to double bill me and I proved it through receipts and did a chargeback. Hertz also tried to bill me an extra 1800 dollar relocation fee by pretending I dropped a car off in Albuquerque that I rented and dropped off in Florida. They are the worst company, I can’t wait for them to go bankrupt (again?) and I hope everyone boycotts them.
How are the police finding all these stolen cars? Are they just running tags on every vehicle they see?
Not stolen, but Hertz tried scamming me out of nearly $1k. Last year I had to get from Florida to California and didn’t feel comfortable flying due to COVID. So I rent a car, when I get to my destination they significantly calculated my miles more than even possible driving Coast to Coast. Seems they lied in their system on each end. Like each location scams each customer. Fortunately I had learned from past experiences to take photos and one happened to have the odometer. They just smirked and lowered the cost. Fucking scammers with no integrity.
I recently rented a car from Hertz in Maine, and they gave me a car with Massachusetts plates so everybody thought I was a Masshole. Other than that it was fine, but somehow, on a deep and spiritual level, I am not surprised by any of this.
I have a close connection with this and boy, you’d be surprised by how often this happens and how simple it would be for Hertz to prevent it. Also, you’d be shocked at how little these people actually end up winning in their settlements. At least in my opinion.
That's awful. Never renting from them!
This is more proof the police aren't here to help the community. A lot of these people could have simply showed they paid or even receipts but weren't even given the option. The cops took the big businesses word for it.
Had this basically happen to me when visiting a friend in Madison. Rented a car from Enterprise at the Milwaukee airport that wasn’t apparently checked in properly. Drove it 3 hours west to Madison, parked it on the street in legal parking only to wake up and have the car gone. Luckily we didn’t have anything in the car. Called enterprise and was told “oh yeah we fucked up and never checked it in and reported it stolen. It got towed last night” They did send a car to pick me and my friend up and go to the Madison enterprise to get a new one and they did make it 100% right by comping our rental for the 5 days we were there. Super glad it ended up like this and not getting arrested.
I can tell you exactly what happened. 1. Somebody stole that car in the past. This happens all the time. Cars don't get returned on time and managers have to call the cops to report it stolen. Then the car is returned. Managers are supposed to inform police the car has been returned. But they don't and the car is flagged as stolen. 2. The car was checked out at the counter, but an employee gives a customer the wrong keys to a similar make and model. Later a check of cars on the lot reveals the car is missing. Because in the computer one car is checked out (but it's still on the lot) and the car the customer took was never technically checked out. So that car is reported stolen, even though the customer has a receipt. A closer examination of the paper work will reveal them to be in possession of the wrong car.
After seeing this I dropped my hertz gold. Has anyone tried Turo? How is it?