I have never posted on this board before as I am a very infrequent vehicle renter and am not a member of any car rental loyalty schemes. Nevertheless I hope someone can offer me some advice on my situation.
In August I rented a car directly through Hertz. There were some pretty major issues getting the car on arrival as the booking had been lost, but that was not the real problem.
On the final day, a few hours before our return flight, we loaded up the car and attempted to drive to the airport. However the car would not start. An error message came up every time that said (in German) "No Key".
This had happened once before on the trip and was resolved by removing the key and reinserting it in the ignition. This second time, no amount of jiggling about would remove the error message and so the engine would not start.
We had no time to call Hertz and arrange for an alternative vehicle if we were to have any chance of making our flight, so we ditched the car and got a taxi to the airport instead, which cost 45 euros. We explained what happened to the agent and left him the key with an address for collection and boarded the flight just as the doors closed!
On my return to the UK I was billed 45 euros plus VAT for the fuel that I had used, which I was unable to buy myself for obvious reasons. There is also a 35 euro charge identified as DLC which, according to the email, seems to be a collection charge (but I might be wrong on that).
I contacted Hertz in the UK and said I wanted either a refund of the fuel cost or my taxi fare as I didn't believe it was fair that I ended up paying for both. A part of me thought Hertz should really be liable for both because of the inconvenience caused but I was trying to be realistic.
This request was followed up with an email showing the invoice with a bit more detail (but still nothing more than acronyms I am not entirely familiar with) and not mentioning a refund. Responding directly to that email has not garnered a response at all.
- Am I correct in assuming DLC is a collection charge?
- Am I being unreasonable in my request?
- Who should I follow up with now that my call and email have not been sufficiently responded to?
Many thanks!