Hertz - Left me Stranded!!!
 

The WORST rental car Agency in my entire frequent traveling life! I am a Hertz GOLD customer, booked a Hertz car, on-line, several weeks in advance of my trip. Hertz sent me numerous e-mails urging upgrades, re-confirming my reservation, etc. Upon arrival at the airport, I was pre-booked into a car and went directly to load up the car. At the Hertz Checkout Gate, the Hertz employee very RUDELY shouted "you need to get out of that car, YOU are on our DO NOT RENT list". (It was the most embarrassing/frustrating experience of my life.)

So, there I was without a car, without any explanation, in the lobby of the airport, STRANDED!!! DON'T RISK RENTING from HERTZ - at ANY location; the same can and WILL happen to you.

Later, after many, many calls/e-mails/letters to Hertz and hours on the phone, Hertz sent me a "sorry, we made a mistake" apology. AGAIN: DO NOT EVER RENT FROM HERTZ - they WILL leave you stranded without notice!!!

Welcome to Flyertalk :)

Did Hertz offer any compensation for their error? Did you rent with a competing company when they left you stranded? Was that rental more than the Hertz rental?

You have an identical review on the Better Business Bureau site.
https://www.bbb.org/west-florida/bus...and-complaints

Did you also file a complaint with the BBB? Did Hertz respond to that?

How were you stranded? were there no other car rental companies or taxis ?

Refusing to allow a rental is not the same as leaving someone stranded

Were you on Hert'z Do Not Rent list? if so, the agent was correct in denying the rental. It isn't the location's fault if Hertz accidently or intentionally places someone on the DNR list

Some missing facts would help.

1. Were you on the DNR list and should not have been? Or is it that someone else with a similar name was?
2. What was the resolution, e.g., are you no longer on the DNR list?
3. What alternative arrangements did you make?

No need to do the all caps thing, we're all pretty literate here.

Response to several replies:
 

Hertz had apparently placed me on the DNR list, but with no notice to me.
I was apparently placed on the DNR list due to my disputing an earlier refueling charge they had placed on my Visa card - without ever notifying me of any problem.
After many hours of time on my part, trying to reconstruct the related billing error sequence, I was told by Hertz Customer Service that I was removed from the DNR list, and that my account was fully re-established. Then, today (3 months after the Customer Service Rep told me that all problems were resolved, my billing fully corrected, and, they apologized for their billing error), I was notified by Hertz that my Gold status was revoked, implying that I was no longer eligible to rent cars from Hertz, causing me to reinvigorate my social-media efforts to counter their "abuse" of me.
BBB never responded to my Hertz complaint filing.
I was able to rent another car, from Alamo, later that day, but I missed a very important engagement.
I never met an Agent at the rental location, all of the rental paperwork was waiting for me in the car pick-up area; after we loaded our luggage, etc. and drove to the exit did the "denial" come from the Gate Person, in very rude fashion - handing me a telephone number to call - a bogus number that only rang, with no answer - apparently a joke by the gate agent. (in the days immediately preceding the DNR rental denial, I had received three e-mails from Hertz - urging me to upgrade, etc. and thus reconfirming my reservation).
I have received no compensation for this sequence of errors by Hertz, and I don't want any compensation. One of my primary locations where I need to rent a car is only served by Hertz, and Hertz, as of their letter to me today, apparently will no longer rent cars to me, there or any other location - at least I can't be assured of that since Hertz will put you or anyone they choose on the DNR list - without advising the customer of this action.
In my view, all of this dispute relates to the fact that I protested a fraudulent refueling charge that they wrongly put on my Visa card following the rental; they eventually removed this incorrect charge, but not until long after the non-notice DNR event occurred. Hertz has treated me in a childish, vindictive, punitive manner, and Hertz, in my view, has to be the world's worst car-rental agency.
Hertz will leave you stranded too - especially if you are unwilling to accept their wrongful, after-the-fact charges.

Lesson learned: Avoid being put on DNR list. :p

How did you dispute the fuel charge originally? Did you dispute it with Hertz or did you just dispute it with your credit card company? If you did the latter, its no surprise Hertz added you to a DNR.

A more general lesson - do not issue a chargeback (i.e, call your bank and dispute the charges) against any company you want to ever do business with in the future. Talk to their customer service, escalate, complain on twitter, etc.. all fine.

But a chargeback burns all your bridges - you can take the money back, and cost them extra fees and a lower rating with the credit card processor, but you'll certainly get put on a blacklist of people to not do business with ever again. And why would they want to?

Something to consider if it's a company you may ever want to deal with in the future, and whether it is worth it.

Not sure how to avoid being put on something called the DNR list; I had no idea that there was such a thing, especially since I received no notice that Hertz put me on such a list. I posted here just to warn others that Hertz will put unsuspecting customers on their DNR list, without notice, and they will let you drive all the way to the exit gate before they rudely kick you out of the car.

More info on DNR lists here.

If you disputed a charge which Hertz considered valid, Hertz simply shows you as owing it money. Chargebacks do not wipe out debt, they simply force the vendor, e.g. Hertz to make its own decisions. Many businesses, such as car rental companies, simply choose to not do business until the underlying issue is resolved.

Apparently when you did deal with the underlying issue, you were removed from the DNR list and received the standard cut & paste apology. This suggests that Hertz would have credited the amount had you dealt with Hertz.

Some businesses will notify you that they have "fired" you and others won't. Your status has nothing to do with DNR. You can still rent, but you no longer have status. If your communications to Hertz have suggested that you won't do business going forward, revoking your status is the natural consequence. Status is a marketing device to get you to spend more. You won't.

As to "compensation" there is none, especially for consequential damages.

Initially, I disputed it via telephone calls with both the Hertz renting Agency; and with the Hertz Agency where I dropped the car, and this Agent assured me they would correct the billing, and drop the refueling charge. Apparently Hertz cancelled the original billing, and then they tried to repost a new bill a short-time later resulting in my credit card company refusing the new billing, and the credit card company cancelled my credit card, due to "suspicious billing activity"; the credit card company then sent me a new card with a new account number. (Of course, my Chase credit card, would not provide me with the details of the "suspicious activity", so I could not have known for sure that it was the Hertz repeated billings, but the related billing dates were coincidental.) The only notice I ever received was a copy of the corrected bill which Hertz chose to send to me in the mail about a month later. Upon receipt of the corrected bill, my business office promptly sent Hertz a check for the related amount. My bank statement showed that Hertz had deposited the check (which noted the original Invoice #) and about a month later put me on the DNR due to the "unpaid bill". I had to send Hertz a copy of the deposited/cancelled check for them to finally acknowledge that they had failed to post the check to the proper account. All they said was "sorry, our mistake". Then yesterday, they sent me another letter, telling me that they were "revoking my driving privileges" due to the same "unpaid bill". Bottom-line, they are horribly mismanaged in every respect and they will breech firm rental agreements without notice to the renter - leaving the renter stranded.

It was not I who created the chargeback; Chase cancelled my Visa Card apparently due to Hertz's "suspicious billing activity" (perhaps there were other "hits" on my credit card account, there's no way of knowing), but I suspect it was Hertz since the dates are do coincidental. At the time of all of this, I was not even aware that a consumer could "dispute" merchant charges by apparently notifying the credit card company.

Posting a review is not enough. You have to actually file a complaint against the business with the BBB. And then the BBB always responds and is very good about keeping you posted about the status of the complaint.

^

Yes to these. A chargeback should be reserved almost always for situations where your card has been used fraudulently by a third-party.

Don't do chargebacks.

And just a point of perspective: I've rented dozens of cars, from five different companies, over the last several years. I've had occasion to be annoyed with each company at one time or another, and the majority of those companies did some sort of incorrect charge. In every case, escalating the issue directly with the company via Twitter resulted in satisfaction. Sometimes it took some back and forth (some companies put their best reps on Twitter and truly empower them, some do not) and some escalation. A chargeback is only for a company with whom you don't want to do business again or where your card was used fraudulently.

If you had gone this route and gotten no satisfaction, then the next step is either an actual BBB complaint filed (although the BBB is fairly toothless in the end and given Hertz's current ratings with the BBB probably wouldn't much care) or a complaint to the state's attorney general or consumer protection agency where the rental-that-was-not-a-rental occurred.

So - with th eextra information , the situation at the airport was that y

you had previously not paid a charge due to disputing it

you were put on the do not rent list

when you attemoted to rent a vehicle, the agent at the location told you that you were on the do not rent list and that you could not rent the car

You were not stranded - you were at an airport with other means of transport