There's a thread going on over at Reddit over someone who made a mistake dropping a car one way and all the price pain that entails: (https://www.reddit.com/r/personalfin...0_on_what_was/ )

However, my interest is not in the main argument/advice, but one point a commenter raised -- suppose an employee of a company like Hertz gives someone vague or even mistaken information about the cost of something, and the customer acts on that information.

Can the company be held to honor that verbal information as a modification of the contract? or are line employees not legally able to modify contracts like that?

Whether anyone can succeed in bringing such a matter to court successfully etc. is the practical matter go course, but I'm just interested in whether line employees verbal statements can be held as binding the company. Or is it only officers of the company who can do that? Or maybe the contract explicitly forbids individuals from modifying the contract?