I do agree with you that the handling of this by Hertz and Plate Pass is horribly unfair. However, one of my pet peeves is when people (often first-time posters) spend 15 minutes writing a rant about an issue that they would have known about if they had spent 5 minutes searching and reading. As you noted, this is a well-known issue here.

There are many aspects of travel that are unfamiliar and/or unexpected to the uninitiated, from taxi scams to airline change fees. If you're unwilling to do any research, you will pay a price somehow. The best advice I can give is to use this as a learning experience.

All that said, welcome to FlyerTalk, and I hope that you will continue to participate.