Hertz - Hertz Bus Driver Follows Me To Terminal, Demands Tip

Had an experience I'm still shaking my head over today:

I returned a car to Hertz at DTW in a mental haze due to the hotel not coming through with my wake-up call. I was on the shuttle at 8:10 for an 8:45 flight, already checked in online and with carry-on bags only.

I've never departed out of the Smith terminal before so I asked the driver, who was standing outside the shuttle doors, if I was in any shape to make the flight. He said it was possible, but he doesn't leave for another 5 minutes.

The lot is dead, there are already five people on the shuttle waiting on this guy, whom I gathered was not in the running for employee of the month, so I ask in my most pleading voice, if he could possibly make this run a little early, a favor for which I would be eternally grateful. He sighs, rolls his eyes and we get underway. I thank him profusely as he takes his place in the driver's seat.

During the five-minute drive, I take all the metal out of my pockets and of my person, get out my laptop and prepare myself for security. The bus arrives, I thank the driver once more and sprint out of the bus towards the terminal.

About twenty feet out of the bus, I hear the driver yelling behind me. I stop and turn as he bounds out of the bus towards me. I figure I either dropped something or I'm headed the wrong way so I ask him, "What is it?"... at this point I am just inside the sliding doors of the terminal.

He continues towards me and shouts, "What's that in your hand?" pointing to the hand that is carrying my laptop, which also grasps a Canadian $5 bill that I had retreived from the bus floor when it fell out of my pocket during my metal purge.

I'm still not following his drift until he answers his own question... "That had better be my tip!" he tells me, in front of two other Hertz customers who are also entering the terminal. Since he is not demanding a tip from them, I assume my "extra charge" is for "asking" him to make an early run.

Now, I'm not an idiot (I think), and I'm not a cheapskate, but I was really thrown for a loop by this. I had just driven to Detroit from Toronto a few hours earlier and was going on 2 hours sleep, so the whole episode kind of became a blur, but in the end I ended up giving him the $5 Canadian (I had no American money on me) just to make him stop. I even kind of apologized as I gave him the money. As he turned away from me to go back to his bus, he called me an "a**hole" under his breath.

I really didn't have time to react since I had to catch my flight, which I just barely did as the doors closed, but after I collected my thoughts, I was pretty p*ssed. Like I said, I'm not anti-tip, but I have never been asked for a tip by a Hertz employee before and I'm still not sure one was called for here. On the other hand, I accept the US is a more tip-inclined place and I would like to hear what others think about this situation before I decide to follow up on this. My feeling is that the guy was way out of line and I was basically shaken down for five lousy bucks.

Sadly, there are jerks like that in many places...

a favor for which I would be eternally grateful
Could easily be interpreted by the driver as code for a tip. No defending the guy, but usually you need to grease palms to change a schedule.

Could easily be interpreted by the driver as code for a tip. No defending the guy, but usually you need to grease palms to change a schedule.

Yeah, in retrospect I think you might be on to something... that's part of the reason I didn't lose it right then and there...

Catch his name by any chance?

Could easily be interpreted by the driver as code for a tip. No defending the guy, but usually you need to grease palms to change a schedule.
Regardless, I wouldn't exactly classify this as professional behavior (the expectation of a tip, let alone yelling at someone for one)!

Completely outrageous. Call the Hertz national office and report the behavior. Do the same with the DTW office.

Anyone who ever demands a "tip" not only deserves zero, but they also deserve to be reported to the management of the firm.

Completely outrageous. Call the Hertz national office and report the behavior. Do the same with the DTW office.

Anyone who ever demands a "tip" not only deserves zero, but they also deserve to be reported to the management of the firm.

I agree 100% - that's complete & total B.S. - this guy should be reported...

Completely outrageous. Call the Hertz national office and report the behavior. Do the same with the DTW office.

Anyone who ever demands a "tip" not only deserves zero, but they also deserve to be reported to the management of the firm.

I agree. I've asked drivers to leave early many times at DTW and elsewhere and never gotten the slightest indication that they expected something in return. Part of what you pay for when you rent from Hertz is classy treatment, which should include a bit of flexibility once in a while when a customer needs help that can easily be provided (such as doing the bus run a couple minutes early). Even if you don't know the driver's name the Hertz DTW people will be able to figure it out.

I would definitely report him. Give them the time you took the bus and to which terminal, in case you did not get his name.

Yelling at you for a tip and then cursing at you under his breath is unacceptable.

You're not looking for any compensation other than perhaps an apology. But just think what you would have thought if you were a first time renter with Hertz. For some people, this man will be their first encounter with Hertz. Hertz doesn't want to project such an image.

Hopefully, he will be let go, or at least reprimanded.

But DO write a letter.

Yes, he probably got the idea that you were going to tip him -

...but he had zero right to do anything that he did after you go off the bus, including going after you, speaking rudely, asking for a tip, and of course, swearing at you.

I'm normally the kind of person who is reticent to complain about someone if I think it could actually threaten his livelihood. This case is so over the edge, however, that I would take others' advice about how to complain.

I don't know the Hertz system the way others clearly do, but FWIW, my usual method is to try and reach companies' regional or district managers. I figure that they're most concerned that it not go higher, yet also less likely to have a personal relationship with the employee (and thus less likely to pull punches) than a local manager might.

Get his @$$ fired. That is ridiculously rude and unnecessary. He had better be glad that he wasn't accosting me for a tip. I cannot believe that anyone would act that way. Call Hertz and tell them about the situation--absolutely UNACCEPTABLE.

He obviously expected you to give him a tip, and probably got that impression from your conversation, but that does not excuse his behavior leaving early (possibly inconveniencing passengers who arrived after departure) and especially after you arrived, so I would write.

I have never ever ever tipped a courtesy bus driver for any car rental firm. The fact that this guy embarassed you in front of others is so out of line regardless of what he thought he was owed. This is the USA, and you would like to think that coercion and graft are not part of business as usual. You should report this guy and insist that the company do something about him.

Could easily be interpreted by the driver as code for a tip. No defending the guy, but usually you need to grease palms to change a schedule.


But the driver did do the trip reluctantly

It's Detroit. He should be happy to have a job.

I've tipped the drivers that I thought did an exceptional job helping other people, even though I don't need help with my bags. This guy I'd have just left mumbling, though I can see how I might have been in the situation of the OP and just given him the C$5 (worth about what...US$.50? ;) ) to go away.

Sometimes it would be useful to have a high denomination bill in a currency that's not actually worth anything to give away in just these circumstances...

33 years ago I drove one of the airport shuttle vans for a hotel in LA (then the Americana, now the Radisson).

It was far from the airport (about 10 minutes each way, plus as much as 30 minutes inside the airport, because LAX was a single deck until the 80's).

We often got tips. I was a college employee working for the summer, so I think I was nicer than most of the other drivers.

However, there was one exception. Five times (I counted) I was walking away for my lunch break and I was asked by a customer "Oh, please, I am late for my flight, would you take me to the airport?" (There were generally 3 vans on duty, so another one would have arrived in the next 5-10 minutes.) Not one of those 5 people gave me a tip.

Now, I never even considered "chasing them" or "embarassing them" and consider what the Hertz driver did to the OP as unacceptable. But I did develop a policy "Sorry, it's my lunch break, another van will be here in just a few minutes."

When I worked for HLE - we were specifically told to refuse gratuities or tips. Not sure if it was his work ethic, but surely if you work in a customer-service orientated industry -shouldn't one go above and beyond customers expectations?

Not to defend the driver's actions afterwards, but I couldn't imagine NOT giving a driver a tip for accomodating my screw-up by changing his schedule.

IMO

The driver went early for you, and should've been tipped.

That being said was rude asking for one too.

Im an avis manager. If any of my employees ever demanded a tip, its immediate termination. I do understand, expect, and respect, that this is a service industry and tips do happen and are appreciated, but under no circumstances should a tip be demanded, regardless of what was promised, agreed to, or implied.

Had this situation been me, I would most certainly have gotten his name, and upon landing at my destination, filed a complaint, including feeling "threatened with bodily harm."



Completely outrageous. Call the Hertz national office and report the behavior. Do the same with the DTW office.

Anyone who ever demands a "tip" not only deserves zero, but they also deserve to be reported to the management of the firm.

that is my companies policy as well (avis) but I do understand that tips do happen. And because of the company policy, if anyone ever demanded one, buh bye.

When I worked for HLE - we were specifically told to refuse gratuities or tips. Not sure if it was his work ethic, but surely if you work in a customer-service orientated industry -shouldn't one go above and beyond customers expectations?

Leaving early is by no means an indication that one should expect a tip.

But I guess people in america always expect a tip for even answering the phone these days. You would never see 'gratuities appreciated' on a courtesy bus ferrying people between airports and other properties in Canada.

That said, I was once asked point blank by the hotel courtesy bus driver for a tip when he dropped me off at SFO. The hotel driver was from the Hyatt Regency SFO airport.

I gave him $2 but reported the incident to the hotel manager.

I was immediately offered an apology and was given a complimentary stay for my future trip. I replied to them that I was not asking for anything in return but rather that the experience was nerve wrecking to say the least. But apparently a few days after the incident, the driver resigned himself so I didn't know if my complaint had anything to do with it.

The Hertz Driver is certainly out of line. He even accepted the C$5 canadian but still cursed you in the process. Now that's US$4.. certainly a lot more than what most people would even give.

Tips should be earned. Not expected.

I'm in DTW this weekend. My shuttle ride to the lot was exceptional. A very nice lady, and I was the only passenger.

I'll be using the shuttle early Monday morning and will let you know if I get even a whiff of the OP's experience.

try this out, Mention to the manager in the morning that "its all over the internet, one of your drivers called a passenger an A*****E and demanded a tip." even give him/her the website. I gather there will be a department meeting and the guilty party rooted out, or perhaps this individual has a track record of doing it already.

You dont have to be the offended party to be offended. Dont expect compensation, but those of us who travel alot need to band together on stuff like this. If a company knows that "you wont just lose one customer, but multiple customers" over something like this, they will be quicker to react and less likely to just sweep it under the rug.

And as a manager in the industry, I would want to know if my people were behaving in such a manner. Only 1 in 20 complaints gets logged properly, and that number goes for any service/customer service job. You can put out all the "contact us" cards and numbers out there,but unless someone is motivated enough to complain, nothing gets noted. Often when we ask "how was your trip" by actually initating a conversation will we get the answers we seek.

Thats why in the best of the best in all service industries, they ask the difficult questions on EVERY transaction.

Hotels will ask if everything was okay with the room, as will some rental cars. Some fine restaurants will have someone, often an owner or GM, walk around and ask questions throughout the dinner evening. Car dealerships have call centers call you and send out questionnaires after routine service or the closing of a car deal. Supermarkets send questionnaires and sometimes have census takers at the exit to ask questions about your transaction.

if you dont open your company up to take criticism, you wont ever improve. I know my company wants to hear it, and I am sure that Hertz wants to hear it too.

I'm in DTW this weekend. My shuttle ride to the lot was exceptional. A very nice lady, and I was the only passenger.

I'll be using the shuttle early Monday morning and will let you know if I get even a whiff of the OP's experience.

Very early this morning - 5AM - and not a whiff of the OP's experience. A friendly gentleman in his 40s or so; I was one of two on the shuttle; the driver made live announcements with a warm and easy tone of voice. There was no staff at that hour to check in the car, but I was easily directed in to the counter, where the CSR provided a receipt without any attitude other than courtesy.

I agree with the post above - and indeed Hertz does have a "How Do We Rate?" form, which I have filled out on occasion. When I have specific complaints, I let them know; the last three times over about a three-year period have resulted in one bland form reply and two more interesting, concerned replies with $25 certs enclosed.

I've only been to DTW a few times this decade, but each time I've actually felt that Hertz service was above average.

You have to be kidding. After demanding a tip, I'd have turned my back on him and left.

I probably would have tipped him for leaving early.... but when its an issue of demanding.... nope.

Yes, he may have deserved a tip for providing prompt service to the airport, but a tip should be appreciated and not expected...if he demanded a tip, you absolutely should contact the appropriate people...

Not to beat a dead horse, but this thread reminds me of why I feel that the encroaching "tipping" paradigm is ruining the travel experience for the rest of us, who believe that gratuities are for service above-and-beyond, only. The unusual sub-minimum-wage waitstaff situation (where tipping 15% is almost statutory) is a contributing factor to this problem.

If everyone receives a tip, everyone starts to think they are entitled to a tip. It is getting (or already is) out-of-hand in some parts of the US.

You have to be kidding. After demanding a tip, I'd have turned my back on him and left.

I probably would have tipped him for leaving early.... but when its an issue of demanding.... nope.

IMO, he earned a tip for leaving early. But he also lost it before leaving the parking lot by rolling his eyes and sighing.

The demand at the end, however, would get him written up.

Not to beat a dead horse, but this thread reminds me of why I feel that the encroaching "tipping" paradigm is ruining the travel experience for the rest of us, who believe that gratuities are for service above-and-beyond, only. The unusual sub-minimum-wage waitstaff situation (where tipping 15% is almost statutory) is a contributing factor to this problem.

If everyone receives a tip, everyone starts to think they are entitled to a tip. It is getting (or already is) out-of-hand in some parts of the US.


Exactly.

It's annoying and sometimes really takes from certain situations when everybody wants to be tipped for everything.

It feels like a continuous shake down sometimes...

Yeah, the driver is out of line, as were you in asking him to violate a rule of service to bail you out.

On the other hand, I don't think anybody would claim that such folks aren't commonly tipped for service above and beyond. Myself, despite the fog of waking up late, I think I might have remembered to say 'thanks' to the guy who saved my flight.

Should he have chased you down - no way, no how. But shouldn't it have occured to you that he'd done you a huge favor - yup, for sure.

Yeah, go ahead, get him fired. That way you can be absolutely certain no Hertz driver will ever bail any of us out of a similar situation again - tip or no tip. :rolleyes:

Lihu'e 1k

In your letter complaining of the driver's rudeness and arrogance and threatening behavior, ask for the five dollars back. This will improve the chances of the complaing letter being read, investigated, logged, and reported.

At least they now have to write you a personal letter denying the refund as opposed to a form letter just "apologizing".

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