Hello all,
Seeking any anecdotes of this occurring, or suggestions to handle differently (other than canceling all future Hertz reservations and making them again with National, which I already did).

Three weeks ago I had a reservation to rent a two day weekend rental from Hertz at a major airport with a CONRAC. I'm Hertz President's Circle. Not seeing much of anything desirable at all, I did eventually find a small SUV that would be suitable. I did my walk around, took a photo of the license plate (so I could add it to my toll profile later), scanned the barcode on the windshield into the app to activate the rental, and put my bag in the back. As I close the back, the vehicle locks. I can't get the driver or passenger door to open. Trying the driver door again, car beeps and unlocks. I turn around to see someone holding a remote walking toward the vehicle, rental papers in hand. They said they had the car (no idea why they would grab one off the selection area then go inside to the desk). A little back and forth that I am showing this rented to me in the Hertz app, and I said whatever, took my bag, and went inside. Waited and spoke to the agent and advised of situation. I asked them to please remove that car from showing rented by me because I cannot undo it in the app. He said do not worry, it will all get settled at the exit gate that when they try to drive out, and name doesn't match me, they'll rent it per that person's ID, and when I take another car to exit, they'll change the vehicle assignment. I started to walk away, but annoyed at the person's overall attitude, I turned back and asked them to please just cancel the rental and I will go elsewhere. I made a National reservation and walked down the lot and got an A4 off the Aisle.

Two days ago, I'm reviewing my Amex statement and see a huge charge from Hertz, quite a bit more than my reservation would have been if I did take a car. I go online and see a receipt matching in my Gold Club profile.... the car I originally scanned apparently was driven around for long after I had town to go home, and then returned. Appears to me nothing got fixed, my reservation wasn't canceled (or presumably the person at the desk didn't act or the other person drove out the gate without their ID being verified properly). Called Hertz who was of little help and said they have to open a case, will hear back in 5-7 business days. I asked what are they going to do in order to resolve. They said they have to verify if I drove the car or not. Many follow up questions I did not ask about how they were going to go about that... I voiced my concerns starting with they clearly didn't verify ID on the reservation at the exit. "We will make a note of your concern."

I filed an Amex dispute. They agreed that the first time I attempted to resolve it was on date of rental when I advised them to cancel it. I also called the police department for that location (it's on an airport that is its own legal city and has its own police force) who took a report, and said that I did the right thing by reaching out, given someone drove around a car tied to me for better part of a week. They are able to verify my identity because I used to manage an airline location on that airport and had an airport ID until two years ago - which the officer was able to pull up my record so they have my info - photo, fingerprints, background check results, etc. which presumably would make verifying camera footage easy.

I am waiting to likely get a charge to hit for tolls.

Has anybody had a situation like this? Any suggestions on how to have prevented it, or different means of going about a resolution?

Appreciate any feedback. I did move quickly in making the rounds of calls first thing in the morning after I caught it on the statement (maybe too quickly, maybe jumped the gun with the police report) as I was in another city about to board a flight and had let it ruin my morning (though many kudos to Amex Plat agent who was very nice, calm, assuring).