BrianV
Mar 15, 11, 4:27 pm
I've been a Hertz guy for about 5 years (5-star member the last 2 years). As I started to travel more, I consolidated on Hertz. My company also got a promo code, and I have my USAA code which generally makes for competitive fares.
For the first 4 years, I was very happy, but recently I've had three issues in a very short period of time, all of which have been unresolved by Hertz.
I'm not coming here to complain directly to this forum, but to seek any proper way to bring to their attention the issue, as today's experience really set me over and I have to consider changing vendors. However, with my corporate contract here and the USAA code, it's harder to do than I'd say.
In chronological and factual order, here are the three issues that have transpired in the past 3 months. I rent a car ~2 times per month, so this is about half of the rentals for the period. Prior, I really never had any issue.
1. Rented a car at Buffalo airport and received a car that was in horrid condition. It hadn't been cleaned, and most importantly, the car had vile substances on almost all of the seating surfaces. I couldn't detect, but it was on seat fabric and door panels and appeared to be one of the following: vomit, snot or other foreign bodily fluids. (picture below)
I did write a complaint on Hertz.com and just received a response from someone at Hertz that they had contacted the manager and they work to clean every car, etc. etc. They had apologized, but it wasn't so sincere, and I never heard any follow-up from the management which they implied I would.
2. Rented a car weeks later at Buffalo again. The car was nice, but since I was returning the car at Toronto airport, I received a car that had its odometer in Kilometers and not miles. For whatever reason, the car (volvo) would not change into miles, or I couldn't find the setting. The car rental I had arranged was for a fixed amount per day, plus $0.25 per mile. It seemed since I was returning over the border, I couldn't get an unlimited plan for that rental. None the less, I drove it 465 kilometers if my memory serves me correct. When I returned it to YYZ, they said my invoice would be emailed to me, they couldn't print it. I watched the gentlemen dialog my kilometers and I mentioned and showed the original receipt which says I'm to be charged for miles and not kilometers.
1 week later I get my invoice and I have been charged for driving 465 miles, despite only driving 465 kilometers. With a simple conversion, I should've been charged $0.25 for 288 miles.
I called Hertz customer service in Oklahoma twice to get this resolved, yet I never received a refund. Each time I had to explain to the reps that miles and kilometers are not the same, and I clearly entered an agreement based on miles and not kilometers. Each time I was told it had been corrected, yet I was never issued a credit. After spending about 45 minutes each time, I decided to eat the $45 or whatever it was. Even though my company asked me to get it corrected, we both decided it wasn't worth wasted productivity to get it resolved. Either way, I was disappointed in how it was handled, especially after working the problem twice. $45 isn't a big deal, and my company did eat it, but the lack of getting it resolved given my effort was frustrating.
3. Finally, today I arrived at SNA airport. I rented an SUV as I have coworkers I was to pick up later as well as some server equipment that is in large boxes. My confirmed reservation was for 12:00 PDT. I arrived to see a group of 20-30 people standing around the gold board (picture below). As a 5-star member, I didn't see my name on the board either. It was 12:10 when I arrived, I then queue'd up to talk to someone at the desk. About 5 minutes later I got to the front for a check-in. They asked me if I needed an SUV, and I said, I have passengers and boxes. He wrote my name down and said he'd get me something large and asked me to stand over by the sign (with everyone else). I asked what was going on, and the gentleman said they were bringing cars down and I needed to wait. I asked how long, and he said 20-30 minutes.
I patiently awaited my turn. At no point was any employee communicating anything to customers, we were each getting called about once every 2-3 minutes. There were many cars in the parking stalls, but they were only helping 1 customer every 2-3 minutes.
Finally it was my turn, exactly 39 minutes after I had arrived in the garage. I was handed the keys to a Camry. I asked the guy who was handling the car giveaway about an SUV, and he said something to the effect of, "take it or leave it". I did see 4 SUVs in vicinity, although they were each nicer than the one I had (I rented a Xterra, and they had 2 tahoes, a suburban, and an inifiniti FX-something). Given the amount of time I had already waited, I just couldn't afford to wait any longer as I had co-workers who were awaiting me to pick them up and take us to a lunch appointment we were waiting for.
Those are the three stories, I failed to get any reasonable response on items 1 or 2, but #3 really upset me. I had a confirmed reservation, and not a single time did one employee even apologize even as simple as sorry. I've rented at SNA many times, and this was a first. Also, when I checked out, the check out guy (Hertz badge) asked How I was doing? I simply responded, "Not well.", and he didn't say another word. Why ask if you don't really care? I understand that perhaps they were swamped or someone didn't return a car, but to have some 30 people waiting seems more like poor management there or at reservations. Most importantly, not once was there any apology from a single employee (I spoke to four different employees). Meanwhile, other customers were yelling and throwing tantrums, I just sucked it up, and the only reason I didn't make a deal out of it was that given the state of affairs in the rest of the world, this issue is relatively irrelevant.
However, I feel it's my duty to report this, I just don't know how to get through. I am going to consider switching to National or Avis now, not because crap happens, but because the customer service just isn't there when it does. I'm sure it's no better over there, but Hertz has shown through its employees that they simply don't wish to make the effort.
What do you guys think? I know this is FT, so I'm probably not going to get much help other than get told to go sit in the corner and pound sand, but here are pictures.
1 - Nissan Altima with bodily fluid on it (this was on 3 of 4 door panels and 3 of 4 seats). Also, I had to drive clients around. Before anyone asks, I didn't notice it until we got to the border crossing and had our vehicle randomly searched. The parking garage at Buffalo is very dark and I didn't enter the back seat or passenger seat where it was bad. It was too far to return back at that point.
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/112537/hertzbuffalo.jpg
Note there's a small piece of pink crusty food like substance, this led me to believe the possibility of food chunk/vomit. Also, although not horrible, the lingering smell of funk existed.
2. Here is a line of people at SNA this morning.
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/112537/hertzsna.jpg
This was only about half of the people, there was another bunch of people to the right of the sign where there was a bench.
I'm just a frustrated customer who rarely complains, but is tired of the lack of customer service. I've only complained once to Starwood and Starwood corporate contacted me directly as did the hotel manager, and they offered an apologetic approach and even asked me detailed questions to get to the root of the issue. That's all I want.
For the first 4 years, I was very happy, but recently I've had three issues in a very short period of time, all of which have been unresolved by Hertz.
I'm not coming here to complain directly to this forum, but to seek any proper way to bring to their attention the issue, as today's experience really set me over and I have to consider changing vendors. However, with my corporate contract here and the USAA code, it's harder to do than I'd say.
In chronological and factual order, here are the three issues that have transpired in the past 3 months. I rent a car ~2 times per month, so this is about half of the rentals for the period. Prior, I really never had any issue.
1. Rented a car at Buffalo airport and received a car that was in horrid condition. It hadn't been cleaned, and most importantly, the car had vile substances on almost all of the seating surfaces. I couldn't detect, but it was on seat fabric and door panels and appeared to be one of the following: vomit, snot or other foreign bodily fluids. (picture below)
I did write a complaint on Hertz.com and just received a response from someone at Hertz that they had contacted the manager and they work to clean every car, etc. etc. They had apologized, but it wasn't so sincere, and I never heard any follow-up from the management which they implied I would.
2. Rented a car weeks later at Buffalo again. The car was nice, but since I was returning the car at Toronto airport, I received a car that had its odometer in Kilometers and not miles. For whatever reason, the car (volvo) would not change into miles, or I couldn't find the setting. The car rental I had arranged was for a fixed amount per day, plus $0.25 per mile. It seemed since I was returning over the border, I couldn't get an unlimited plan for that rental. None the less, I drove it 465 kilometers if my memory serves me correct. When I returned it to YYZ, they said my invoice would be emailed to me, they couldn't print it. I watched the gentlemen dialog my kilometers and I mentioned and showed the original receipt which says I'm to be charged for miles and not kilometers.
1 week later I get my invoice and I have been charged for driving 465 miles, despite only driving 465 kilometers. With a simple conversion, I should've been charged $0.25 for 288 miles.
I called Hertz customer service in Oklahoma twice to get this resolved, yet I never received a refund. Each time I had to explain to the reps that miles and kilometers are not the same, and I clearly entered an agreement based on miles and not kilometers. Each time I was told it had been corrected, yet I was never issued a credit. After spending about 45 minutes each time, I decided to eat the $45 or whatever it was. Even though my company asked me to get it corrected, we both decided it wasn't worth wasted productivity to get it resolved. Either way, I was disappointed in how it was handled, especially after working the problem twice. $45 isn't a big deal, and my company did eat it, but the lack of getting it resolved given my effort was frustrating.
3. Finally, today I arrived at SNA airport. I rented an SUV as I have coworkers I was to pick up later as well as some server equipment that is in large boxes. My confirmed reservation was for 12:00 PDT. I arrived to see a group of 20-30 people standing around the gold board (picture below). As a 5-star member, I didn't see my name on the board either. It was 12:10 when I arrived, I then queue'd up to talk to someone at the desk. About 5 minutes later I got to the front for a check-in. They asked me if I needed an SUV, and I said, I have passengers and boxes. He wrote my name down and said he'd get me something large and asked me to stand over by the sign (with everyone else). I asked what was going on, and the gentleman said they were bringing cars down and I needed to wait. I asked how long, and he said 20-30 minutes.
I patiently awaited my turn. At no point was any employee communicating anything to customers, we were each getting called about once every 2-3 minutes. There were many cars in the parking stalls, but they were only helping 1 customer every 2-3 minutes.
Finally it was my turn, exactly 39 minutes after I had arrived in the garage. I was handed the keys to a Camry. I asked the guy who was handling the car giveaway about an SUV, and he said something to the effect of, "take it or leave it". I did see 4 SUVs in vicinity, although they were each nicer than the one I had (I rented a Xterra, and they had 2 tahoes, a suburban, and an inifiniti FX-something). Given the amount of time I had already waited, I just couldn't afford to wait any longer as I had co-workers who were awaiting me to pick them up and take us to a lunch appointment we were waiting for.
Those are the three stories, I failed to get any reasonable response on items 1 or 2, but #3 really upset me. I had a confirmed reservation, and not a single time did one employee even apologize even as simple as sorry. I've rented at SNA many times, and this was a first. Also, when I checked out, the check out guy (Hertz badge) asked How I was doing? I simply responded, "Not well.", and he didn't say another word. Why ask if you don't really care? I understand that perhaps they were swamped or someone didn't return a car, but to have some 30 people waiting seems more like poor management there or at reservations. Most importantly, not once was there any apology from a single employee (I spoke to four different employees). Meanwhile, other customers were yelling and throwing tantrums, I just sucked it up, and the only reason I didn't make a deal out of it was that given the state of affairs in the rest of the world, this issue is relatively irrelevant.
However, I feel it's my duty to report this, I just don't know how to get through. I am going to consider switching to National or Avis now, not because crap happens, but because the customer service just isn't there when it does. I'm sure it's no better over there, but Hertz has shown through its employees that they simply don't wish to make the effort.
What do you guys think? I know this is FT, so I'm probably not going to get much help other than get told to go sit in the corner and pound sand, but here are pictures.
1 - Nissan Altima with bodily fluid on it (this was on 3 of 4 door panels and 3 of 4 seats). Also, I had to drive clients around. Before anyone asks, I didn't notice it until we got to the border crossing and had our vehicle randomly searched. The parking garage at Buffalo is very dark and I didn't enter the back seat or passenger seat where it was bad. It was too far to return back at that point.
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/112537/hertzbuffalo.jpg
Note there's a small piece of pink crusty food like substance, this led me to believe the possibility of food chunk/vomit. Also, although not horrible, the lingering smell of funk existed.
2. Here is a line of people at SNA this morning.
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/112537/hertzsna.jpg
This was only about half of the people, there was another bunch of people to the right of the sign where there was a bench.
I'm just a frustrated customer who rarely complains, but is tired of the lack of customer service. I've only complained once to Starwood and Starwood corporate contacted me directly as did the hotel manager, and they offered an apologetic approach and even asked me detailed questions to get to the root of the issue. That's all I want.