Originally Posted by
pete3
Apparently I failed to learn a lesson. After months of renting from other companies after this charge for a traffic ticket from before I'd picked up the car, I dumbly tried Hertz again.
This time a rental for just under six hours from their Stuttgart, Germany airport location. This car came with 400 included kilometers, which was more than sufficient for the roughly 200 round trip I needed to drive for a private visit.
Hertz's latest revenue generation is apparently to charge for extra kilometers on such rentals. In fact 807 extra km, for a total of 1207 km they claimed I drove in just under six hours. While this is Germany, where it might theoretically be possible to drive 1207 km in under six hours, it was a rainy day with low speed limits on the short Autobahn portions of my trip, and I spent a couple of hours dining and having coffee with my nephew's girlfriend's family. With photos and witnesses.
Further, as my rental was a Volvo, the car's top speed is limited to 180 km/hour. So it would have been completely impossible to drive 1207 km in this Volvo XC90 in under six hours!
Did the mileage on the odometer when you picked up the car match the "out" mileage on the rental contract? Did you check?
Did you take a photograph of the fuel reading and odometer when you returned the car? Did the odometer reading match the "in" mileage on your rental receipt?
These are essential actions a renter should take to protect himself against occurrences like this -- regardless of which company you rent from. A mistake like this can occur due to a simple keystroke error when the car is returned by the prior renter -- or when the car is returned by you.