cbr600f4i2

And this hasn't been the first time. I've noticed Hertz employees and customer service is severely lacking of late. I tried to resolve a mileage issue from last fall and still haven't heard back from Hertz. This is the latest issue:

When I went to my car at the Hertz airport location at LAX on Thursday, there was no rental contract in the vehicle. The car was also not the size I reserved and it was dirty (it was a Kia Spectra, aka no power doors, locks anything). My reservation was for a mid-sized car. I asked the lot attendant for help about the contract and his “boss” said they were too busy dealing with cars being returned to the lot and he wouldn't let this employee help me. I walked to the customer service counter. After waiting 20 minutes in line I got a rental contract and proceeded to leave the lot. When I got to security they asked if I wanted to buy the “Hertz gas option” which was $2.73/gallon. I said yes and had to sign my name on a clipboard the security guard handed to me.

That part of the rental experience from Hertz wasn’t as bad as when I returned the car but I want to point out I was fine with the mistakes made by Hertz to that point.

After pulling into the Hertz lot at the Orange County Airport to return the car, I was handed my receipt. I noticed when walking to the terminal that the gas charge was $60, which seemed very high, especially since I returned the car with a quarter tank of gas and elected the fuel option. I figured the gas option wasn’t included so I went to the Gold counter and asked for them to check on it. The lady at the counter said I rented an orange convertible and that the gas charge was accurate as the gas tank was 17+ gallons at $4.99/gallon. I pointed out that the car I had rented was a gray Kia Spectra with Pennsylvania plates, which was a small car. She reiterated that it was an orange convertible with CA plates. I asked her to follow me outside to physically look at the car. She wouldn’t. She kept looking at her computer and said the gas charge was correct and refused to look at the car. I went outside looking for the car. It was already pulled off the lot and I asked around to a few Hertz employees, asking if they had seen the car. No one could tell me where the car was. I went back inside and asked for a manager. She didn’t get a manager. I went back outside and found the attendant who checked my car in and asked him to confirm the car I returned. He told the lady at the counter that I had returned a Kia Spectra with out of state plates. She finally obliged and asked if 14 gallons of gas was acceptable, and I said yes. When I got to the elevator I saw that she charged me $4.99 a gallon, not the gas option price of $2.73 that I signed for at the Hertz LAX security gate. I needed to get to my airline gate so it was too late to go back once again.

I cannot believe that a Hertz employee was accusing me of lying about the car I rented and returned. I also cannot believe how long it took to convince her to get a manager involved or find the person who checked me in. I am also very concerned that my rental record receipt and the Hertz computer system showed that I rented a completely different car. How do I even attempt to prove what I drove? Anyone else go through this mess?

:t d:

pinniped

I haven't had the system not know what car I was in, but yes - I've noticed that service has deteriorated at Hertz sharply in the past 2-3 years.

Cars not ready, gas charge shenanigans, unable to find an employee who is capable of thinking and solving problems efficiently and correctly - yes, I've experienced all of those.

It's ironic: years ago, I perceived #1 Club Gold as the, well, "gold" standard of rental car service. I preferred it over Emerald Aisle because the exit booth process was smoother.

Now, I avoid Hertz exactly because of #1 Club Gold's process and service. If my name isn't on the board, I'm going to lose 5-10 minutes minimum and likely more. That's unacceptable. Now I go with National every time, knowing that if there's any car on the lot with a key in it, I can pretty much take it and go to the exit booth. I've eliminated the entire "we're running behind" or "we're too busy to prep the Gold cars" that I've heard as an excuse repeatedly at SEA and other places.

Even Alamo has become superior to Hertz as long as the station has one of the newer kiosks.

cbr600f4i2

Thanks for the feedback. I'll now rent from National.

Auto Enthusiast

Spades had once said the fuel purchase option is a great shenanigan on one-ways, since the originating branch is essentially "stealing" fuel and profit from the other.

Apparently the computer glitches Hertz seems to be increasingly experiencing is compounding any underlying customer service issues and vehicle availability problems. These issues of course vary by location, but could probably be improved at least a little by a concerted effort. I've been surprised to see some counter clerks that clearly have some sort of language barrier, for instance. This is customer service, not back office programming.

By the way:

I pointed out that the car I had rented was a gray Kia Spectra with Pennsylvania plates, which was a small car. She reiterated that it was an orange convertible with CA plates.

I was told by multiple Hertz people in both CA and NY by law this is not supposed to happen in CA. In fact, my friend told me when I got back from my roadtrip he did the same I-80 trip from his brother's house in San Rafael to NY. They got an involuntary upgrade to a UT car that was sitting and sitting for precisely such emissions law reason. Somebody must have goofed up in several ways when they originally assigned your car, which may partially explain the computer glitch regarding the type of car rented.

spades097

Just put the charge into dispute. This probably isn't a computer glitch as much as it is someone failing to do their job. When the security reps collect your signature the cards are supposed to be forwarded to a manager to manually go in and add it to your rental. Obviously that never happened here.

Tummy

I'm not an employee, but I can imagine a lot of people lie about the fuel and whatever else suits them. I'm not surprised employees don't believe you because I've seen customers treat them like crap from the get go.

pinniped

I don't disagree that people lie about the fuel, but this doesn't seem to be one of those cases where they are arguing about whether the renter refilled the car. Or whether they really filled it to full, etc. I agree that people have always fibbed about the gas - especially on short rentals - which is why a lot of agencies have a fixed per-mile charge on short rentals unless you show 'em a receipt that you really bought a gallon or two of gas and didn't just come back saying "Yeah, it's full."

It sounds like some fundamental problem where Hertz didn't know what car the renter had at all. They lost both the fuel option signature and the entire record of the Kia itself.

Throw in a dose of laziness on both ends of the rental and you have a bad situation.

FlyforSAP

I was a loyal Hertz customer for 20 years. After several experiences at MKE with my name not on the board even though I was President's Circle, I opted to go with other rental car companies.

My current favorite is Dollar. I have rented from them the last several weeks from DAL. When returning the car, I am met promptly by the return agent, meanwhile the bus driver has come over and put my luggage in the shuttle bus. At that point, my receipt is ready from the return agent. My experience picking up the car is equally speedy.

Dollar is roughly half the price of Hertz!

pinniped

Over a long period of rentals, I find that pricing is all over the board. Sometimes a Hertz promo makes them the cheapest. Sometimes one agency will be having such a rich FF promo (e.g., 2 full WN credits) that their rentals are practically free if you have a use for the miles/credits.

The only sort of "general" rule of thumb that I've noticed is that Alamo and Dollar tend to consistently be cheaper on if I want to confirm a specialty car like a convertible.

For a regular car, it can be anyone. My rental for this upcoming weekend just dropped in price by almost 50%. It's with National...everybody else (including some 2nd tier agencies) is far higher.

spades097

People lie all the time about fuel (Some will even argue with you that it is full even if you are standing right there and it is clearly below full) but there is no excuse for not honoring the OP's request to look at the vehicle. They are getting paid to be there and the request was very reasonable.

noah

Um, this is not correct. I rent about 10-15 times a year at SFO and have regularly received cars from other states -- AZ, AK, WA, OR, NV, NY, MA -- you name it. There is no law that prevents Hertz from renting cars tagged out of state.

Auto Enthusiast

Were these out of state cars used for roundtrip and/or one-way within CA? Or one-way out of state? When I picked up my Ford Escape at an HLE near SFO, the clerk said he can't rent it locally because of the Georgia plates. He can only give it to me since I was driving to NY. In fact, the key chain had a big sticker pasted over the vehicle information sheet saying, "Out of state." Nowhere else in the US have I seen such a distinction. My MIA Cobalt had the usual vehicle ID sheet on the keychain that simply said, "Original City: Volusia."

Auto Enthusiast

Since I was told "everything needs to be documented" for CA governmental fine purposes, perhaps the large airports agree to pay the fines out of convenience. Although, it is interesting to note that U-Haul and Penske have said to me their trucks are exempt. So CA to NY and vice versa is the same rate for trucks, whereas cars CA to NY tends to be much cheaper.

1P

I've changed from Hertz to Avis this year, and haven't had anything other than excellent experiences so far. I'm sure this will not last, but my final four/five rentals from Hertz (as a 5*) were ghastly.

Tuneman1984

That's one of my pet peeves with car rental companies in general these days: employees that don't think logically in a situation. They all seem to be slaves to procedure, handing out keys without even paying attention to who's getting what. As a car enthusiast I'll often see something on the lot I haven't driven before that I'd like to try, and I'm fine with paying to upgrade or even downgrading myself. Whenever I ask for a specific car, I'm made to feel like I'm this big troublemaker and difficult patron, so now I don't even bother and just sulk to my 4th, 5th, or 6th lime green Sonata in a row. It seems like they're so fixated on giving me one particular car and can't think outside the box.

I have a question that I've been meaning to post for a while. Last month I rented from Hertz SEA and wanted to add prepaid fuel. At SEA all car rental customers clear a consolidated security checkpoint outside of the parkade. Do I tell the agents there that I want to add prepaid fuel? I had just assumed their job was to make sure that I had obtained the car legally and nothing more...