bazers

My wife and I took our church youth group to the mountains this past weekend for a ski trip. We rented two vehicles from Hertz for 3 days. When my wife got into her SUV not only was the passenger front seat broken in a permanent recline, the vehicle smelled like "cigarettes". Only when the teens piled in at the youth pick up location was she informed by the youth group that the vehicle had a strong "dank weed" smell. We were already on the way and there was no time to try to make any exchanges.

I tried to call customer support when we were on the trip but no one could help us with our issue.

We tried to keep the windows down a bit to air it out but even returning it 3 days later did it still reek.

When we returned I talked with the Hertz District Manager and he offered one day credit and a $50 voucher for the "inconvenience". I can't imagine how they think that is acceptable.

m907

You could file a complaint with Hertz corporate but they already offered you a voucher and a partial refund. If you just want to make sure it doesn't happen again then you should contact corporate.

bazers

I think the seriousness of the error warrants a full refund if not more.

cestmoi123

The vehicle wasn't "weed filled," it smelled of smoke. Why did your wife accept the vehicle in the first place, if the smoke smell was that bad? Personally, I won't take a smoky vehicle.

neo_781

If it was that serious you would have returned/exchanged the car. But now that you've "eaten the steak" I don't think free is the resolution.

flyingcat

Social media is better than callign sometimes. Find out if the location has their own page or feed.

bazers

Corporate has now issued a full refund and a $100 voucher to express their apology.

I called their "help" line while on the trip but no one could help me. Then I was on hold forever and finally gave up as I had a youth retreat to run.

We had 30 youth waiting to be picked up and they had no other large SUV available so we were "stuck".

Correct, it wasn't literally filled with weed but filled with weed smell, although some suspected some might be stashed in the car somewhere since the smell wasn't going away.

HomerJay

Good to see that the kids in the church youth group immediately recognized the smell of weed.

As Mencken observed, "sin is a dangerous toy in the hands of the virtuous. It should be left to the congenitally sinful, who know when to play with it and when to let it alone."

Here's hoping the kids in your youth group are among the former.

Palal

Did any of the kids have visions of god during the trip?

RandomBaritone

Commie

Rental_Guy

You could have only got a full refund if you'd not put miles on the vehicle and/or there there were no other SUV's there. And i don't completely understand how the smell was unnoticed until you left the facility. That is one of the first things anyone generally notices about their rental.

theddo

It was a church youth retreat so presumably, there were loads of weed in the vehicle, just belonging to the passengers. I think the complaint is ridiculous, and I find it weird Hertz fell for it.

rbAA

Bummer. I was going to sign up for the next retreat just for the herbal sacrament.

jackal

The On Rent Help Desk wouldn't have been able to help you anyway.

The On Rent desk is strictly an administrative call center. They can do things like extend your rental, dispatch a tow truck, etc., but they have no customer service oversight and cannot change rates, issue credits, or make any other modifications to the rental agreement.

Only two groups have any kind of ability to issue credits/refunds:

• A manager at the physical pick-up location
• The Hertz corporate customer service department, but only after the rental car has been returned and the contract closed out

Unlike Enterprise, Hertz managers are not trained in how to ensure complete customer satisfaction at the local level (Google "Enterprise ESQI" for more on that), so you won't generally get great results from local management (whereas with Enterprise, it's actually not difficult to get an entire rental for free just by uttering the words "I'm not completely satisfied"). Customer Relations tends to be slightly more generous, but it's hit or miss with them, too. At least it seems Hertz did ultimately step up in your case, though since you didn't refuse the vehicle at the time of pickup, I think their compensation offer is well above and beyond expectations.