Hertz has ruined 2 vacations in the span of one month!

Hertz has cost me over $2,437 in cancelled hotels, cancelling the entire 2nd half of a trip, and bogus repair charges in the span of a month

Let me preface: I hate having to do this. I am the opposite of a Karen. My wife actually hates the way I handle things quite often because I have a tendency to let things slide and give people the benefit of the doubt. I wasn’t even going to say anything after the 1st instance and just eat the $800 and trip cancellation Hertz cost me to avoid the confrontation. However, Hertz has now ruined 2 vacations in less than a month’s time and that’s just too much money to not attempt to recoup my losses due to no fault of my own. I have Presidential status; which apparently doesn’t get you anything beyond bragging rights. I have never experienced such heinous levels of customer service from the same company on 2 occasions in less than a month. I have video, picture, GPS, and receipts for all things mentioned below.

1: Vegas(mid-May 2023): I had a CONFIRMATION email showing I reserved months ago for a car to drive from Las Vegas to Bryce and Zion national parks. I arrived at the scheduled time and they had no cars available. They checked other places in the area and there weren’t any available I could get to before the rental places closed. They said I had 2 options: A: wait around and maybe somebody drops a car off before they close. B: Change the reservation to pick up at the airport and they would CHARGE ME around $700 in EXTRA FEES AND WOULD NOT REMOVE THEM even though it was Hertz’ fault I had no car. Option A didn’t work. I waited at the rental place until they closed and nobody dropped a car off. Option B was unacceptable as I was not about to pay an extra $700ish for Hertz’ mistake. Both the onsite reps AND phone reps said there was nothing they could do. I was scheduled to depart Vegas and drive to Zion THAT night(5 hr drive). I couldn’t just hang around Vegas all weekend on the off-chance that somebody somewhere was dropping off a car. Plus, I would just be taking a car that somebody else had already reserved and screwing somebody else over. None of the onsite reps were very helpful beyond that and when I asked for their names they refused to give them. This set of actions forced me cancel my entire trip of visiting Zion and Bryce national Park!!! I had to cancel non-refundable hotel reservations, stay an extra night in Vegas, and had to pay extra to change my flight to several days earlier because now I had to go home. The total extra I had to pay because of Hertz’ negligence and lack of customer service was in excess of $800; not to mention having to cancel a trip due to Hertz’ negligence and lack of customer service.



2: Turks and Caicos(mid-June 2023): I did the usual walkaround before getting in the rental and took pictures/video of everything. Little did I know I guess I’m supposed to do a 500 point check of every conceivable issue that may/may not come up. On our way to the hotel the plastic Spare Tire cover that covers the spare that is mounted to the rear lift-gate just came flying off while we were on a major road with a lot of traffic. By the time we realized that the noise we heard was the cover coming off it had already been run over and destroyed. This cover in NO WAY AFFECTS the functionality of the car. It is just a piece of plastic that covers the spare. I didn’t think anything of it since it didn’t affect the car and continued without our vacation. I did take a picture as soon as we got to the hotel showing it was gone. Upon returning, Hertz blamed me for it flying off and proceeded to charge my over $1,600(cover, paint, lost of use of rental)!!! They would not listen to reason. I did not do this and there was no way I could have foreseen it coming off. I realize there’s a possibility for the customer to lie about this, but given the timeline there are 2 scenarios:

1: I did something to mess it up or it was stolen

2: It was loose and it was just that time to come off.

I have GPS history on my phone showing that I did not make any stops between the car rental pickup and the hotel where I took the picture showing the cover had fallen off during the drive. The EXIF data on the photo confirms this because the timestamp and GPS on the photo matches the final GPS time based on my phone history. That proves #1 is NOT the case and that #2 is the only reasonable conclusion. While I’m sure Hertz did not intentionally leave the cover loose, the evidence I have proves that this was not caused by me. The evidence proves a lack of maintenance performed or just an old part was what caused it. I don’t understand how I can be held accountable for unforeseeable mechanical/functional issues outside of my control. What if the mirror fell off? What if the oil wasn’t changed and the engine died? Would those be my fault too?(rhetorical). How am I responsible for something I did not cause? The reps in this case were also not very helpful. They in no way displayed any empathy or tried to help the situation. They just kept saying “It’s not in the same condition as when I picked it up and somebody has to pay for it” and “that I should have brought it back as soon as we saw it”. It was already pushing 5pm by the time we got to the hotel and it would have taken several more hours to get back to the car rental and then back to the hotel. I even asked if the result would have been different if I brought it back that same day and they said it would have been the same result. Think about how infuriating that would be if it were you? How would you feel in my shoes? How would you feel if a CSR said you should have done X instead of Y; when doing X would make your vacation much worse by missing most of your first day and charging an extra $1,600 vs Y and just waiting till the end and having the same result? I didn’t want to sign the contract at the end, but felt forced to an because a: we had an international flight to catch and b: I felt a bit unsafe that they wouldn’t let me leave without signing it. It’s not like I had other transportation options other than the shuttle to the airport.

I haven't yet attempted to see what my credit card(which has car rental insurance) will or will not cover, but this wasn't an "accident"; so I'm not sure what my options are here. Anybody have any ideas?

Thanks for any help!

-C