PrincipalMember

I recently rented from Hertz at DFW using their free weekend day rental program.

I am Hertz gold - so just looked up my stall number and picked up the car, loaded the luggage and drove away.

When I returned the car, the guy who prints out the receipt, checked the car in detail. He found a little chip in the windshield. I had rented the car at night and hadn't noticed it and just driven to the hotel at night when there was hardly any traffic. When I drove the car in the morning, I saw the windshield chip. I drove the car for a total of 78 miles in this rental. While low mileage is no guarantee that you won't have a chip, but I did not hear anything hitting the windshield and I am almost certain that the chip was already there and I just didn't see it the previous night.

This is where it gets interesting. The checker won't give me the receipt. I had to go to the rental counter. At the counter, they started using the usual pressure methods - you can admit guilt and pay for it right away. Else they would have to file an accident report. I presume this is to pressure the guys who have a flight to catch into paying Hertz right away. Since I had enough time and I was pretty sure that I would have heard something like a stone hitting the windshield, I asked the person to file the accident report. Then the guy points to a section of the form and asks me to describe how it happened. Gotta be kidding me - if I knew about it, I would pay for it.

Next the guy asks me for the pre-rental inspection form from my rental car. I went back to the car and got the inspection form (this is first time that I have heard about this so called pre-inspection form that you automatically accept when pick up the car since they don't tell you about it or the guy checking the car at the exit doesn't mention it either). It said nothing about the chip. So I asked the rental guy what happens next? So he said that they investigate if the same thing was noticed before. That seems a boat load of crap. If they have a previous incident, it should have been on their computer instead of trying to bamboozle a customer into paying for the thing right away and they should not have rented the car without fixing the chip. Looks like their whole system of dealing with this is flawed.

I have rented from Hertz multiple times (I am in their so called President's circle for being a very frequent renter) and never have gone through this kind of thorough inspection when I return the car. This seems so one sided. When you pick up the car, you get whatever crappy inspection that they do and then on the car return, you get nailed. If the expectation was that they were going to do a thorough inspection on the return, they should have done a walk through with the customer at the time of the rental too and marked all the bad things in the car. In fact, that is exactly what Enterprise rent a car does. I kind of hate that - but I would rather take that over this new one sided inspection by Hertz.

When I went back to pick up my pre-inspection form from the car, I noticed that they had flagged 3 other cars for wind chips. So if you going to be renting a car from Hertz at DFW, better do a walk through yourself and mark the pre-inspection form - or you might get nailed later.

I don't know about the final resolution from Hertz on this. If they do charge me, I will update the thread.

PS - The irony of all this is that we had just returned from Mexico where I was very paranoid about renting a car with all the horror stories on the net about car rental companies being very strict about dents etc. on the car. We rented a car from National, pre-inspected and marked things on the form, and then returned it with no problems from National. Then we fly back to DFW and get nailed by Hertz in good old USA.

Dovster

The "chip in the windshield" scam seems to be worldwide. I made the following post a few years ago about my experience with Avis in Milan:

I had made my reservation through the Avis Tel Aviv headquarters and had CDW included. However, I was given a written sheet saying that if I did not accept a further CDW in MPX I would be liable for a 300 Euro deductible.

When I picked up the car the agent didn't ask me about the deductible but checked on the policy that I had accepted it and that the charge was Euro 0. In other words, the contract said I was given it for free.

Two weeks after I returned the car my credit card was charged for Euro 1000. I called Avis Tel Aviv and they promised to look into it for me. They reported back that I had damaged the windshield and was charged for that.

This infuriated me because: 1. I knew there was no damage, 2. My contract said I had been given the complete CDW and 3. Even if I had not, I should have been responsible for only Euro 300.

I told this all to Avis Tel Aviv and they promised to check it out further. At the end, they told me that MXP refused to refund the money but Avis Tel Aviv gave me a check for it because they checked the rental records and found that the damage (apparently a tiny hole made by a pebble) had been made, and paid for, by the renter who had the car before me.

I continue to rent from Avis, but never again in Milan.

p1cunnin

Very odd. I've never had one of those happen at Avis or Hertz... discount guys scam people all the time, but never the big guys in my experience.

Question: do you rent with full insurance coverages or do you waive insurance as a corporate customer?

I'm going to start paying attention to these stories a bit more. I'm wondering if the economic downturn is causing the rental companies to 1) not want to eat the costs of small dings anymore; and / or 2) need to "enhance revenue" by extracting extra cash from customers for these things. (The fact that they wanted to immediately extract money from your wallet makes me think scam.) The scam part of this is getting people to pay for the same damage multiple times. If it isn't a scam, they'd happily let your insurance company take care of it -- but then they'd have to fix that problem.

Honestly, it wouldn't surprise me if Hertz and Avis are measuring their locations by the amount of damage write-off they have to take (I suspect that it is a big number), so there is very likely severe pressure to reduce write-off. That likely means the check-in people are also being paid bounties to find damage (and get dinged if they miss something). Assuming that they fix the damage when it is paid for, I have no problem being responsible for damage that occurred on my rental, but this also means that they will have to spend more time up front with the customer inspecting the car at point of rental.

Problem is, this can become very adversarial for the rental companies. The whole point of the Gold program is to get the customer into the car and out of the lot quickly and with minimal hassle. That goes away if the customer has to inspect the car, find someone to take note of the damage, and then pray that they didn't miss something in the dark.

As a customer, I want to have some trust with the rental company that they aren't out to screw me by giving me a crappy car that badly needs maintenance or that they aren't going to make me pay for damage caused five rentals ago (and paid for five times). As a corporate customer, I have an expectation that my business is meaningful and that paying a small premium on each rental (over any spot discounted rates) means that I won't be scammed by the rental car company.

skywalkerLAX

At my local HLE we do the pre rental inspection 50% of my rentals.

BUT I recognized that the customer & agent have to sign this form in the designated fields. I would assume it is invalid otherwise...

PrincipalMember

This was personal rental - relying on personal/credit card coverage. I am not certain, but the form that they had for paying instantly for the damage had an option - "If the customer had LDW, ....". I don't know if they bother filing an accident report in such a case and stick it to the next unsuspecting customer.

Personally, if they really want to protect the value of the car, each car should have a printed history of all the damages + visual inspection. This way, they won't collect on the same damage multiple times.

PTravel

I think I was once set up for this. I rented a car from Hertz in San Francisco (not at SFO, but one of the city offices). They told me they were washing the car and it would be ready shortly. It was delivered to me wet.

I drove it back to my home and was starting to load it up when I noticed a chip in the window. The chip wasn't previously visible because of the drops of water on the windshield.

I immediately returned it and told them what I discovered. I wasn't given any argument and a different car was provided.

After reading this thread, and in retrospect, I have to wonder if the whole bit about "washing the car" wasn't specifically to hide the chip.

RSWillson

I'm a bit surprised the OP says they weren't familiar with the pre-inspection form. It's always in the car or part of the paperwork you get.

We've been dinged once by another company, and it was settled through the credit card insurance. So we're very thorough when we pick up the car. We get them to note any scratch or or dent, no matter how small. The gate agents are OK with this.

My former employer was so paranoid about this that we were forbidden to accept a car that had any dings.

Don't be afraid to be anal about it...it's your money.

MojaveFlyer

And at least on Hertz the damage form has you indicate things like scratches and dents on various body panels. But its a binary form - "S" means there's one or more scratches. So every scratch or dent you note will cover you if you add to the number of scratches and dents

No I certainly don't purposefully trash my rentals but small things like someone dinging your car by opening a door next to you should just be considered normal wear and tear. And if Hertz were really fastidious about fixing such damage, we would not be renting cars with chipped windshields, would we?

In fact, part of the reason I mostly rent from Hertz is that they are 1) quick and 2) no hassle with the small stuff. Certainly price isn't in their favor!

Markieg

Just rented an x-terra from MCO.
It had 40k on it but inside was in good condition. Its bodywork was in a dark shade of blue that showed every mark - the pre-delivery form showed damage to every panel when I picked it up. I think some typical car park paint damage (purposefully scant here) was done at some point when I was not there. Of course on taking it back every panel was pre-noted as being damaged so not my problem...

JLewisinSyr

Just to clarify, an insurance settlement doesn't require repair.

PrincipalMember

May be because I rent at a small airport. I rent a car once every week from Hertz. In fact, I rented one from Hertz (no choice due to my employer requirements) and the car had no pre-inspection form.

At the bare minimum, I would expect that the checkout attendant will ask the question - "Have you checked the car for any damages?" just as they do for "Do you have a full tank of gas?".

footlax74

What the OP was victim of was Hertz's "PreInspection Form" and its not a scam. After many years of "eating" cost of damage to vehicles they started trying to charge customers for damage to cars. The original system was supposed to be, the VSA (guy who cleans the car) does an inspection of the car noting any damage scene, the form is left in the car on the passanger seat, the customer is then supposed to do a second inspection either agreeing to the damage or amending the document, then the customer heads to the exit gate (if one is present) the top copy is ripped off and is supposed to be filed somewhere by the location. If the car came in with new damage noted by the IRR then they customer could be charged right on the spot or fill out the accident report and going through HErtz Claims.

The problem arose in its initial roll out that is was taking to much time to get customers out of the gate causing long lines and confusion, and also customers going over a car with a fine tooth comb noting things that they wouldn't be charged for ( the complete rules of what is chargeable and what isn't is long and very detailed) So after the initial issues the program was modified only non gold customers were to fill out the form and hand it in, gold customers forms were to go into the glove box only taken out if there was an issue at return, only platinum members were to be exempt from the process.

What happened after that is pressure from OKC and Park Ridge came down to make sure each location was doing its best to collect on everything possible, without training the entire staff many locations only had one or two people completely trained in this new and exciting revenue stream. So what the OP experienced was a highly trained employee who knew what to look for, the chip, whether or not it is your fault will probably be charged to the CC on file do to the poor inspections previously, unless three rentals and three forms ago it was noted, or previously charged and negligently rerented to you in which case you won't be charged.

Hope this clears it up, despite your status level, it really means nothing only platinums are exempt, the system is extremely flawed and there are many holes in it. It's not a scam just a poorly planned and executed policy. Thats all i care to share.

p1cunnin

But filing multiple claims on the same damage would be fraud.

JLewisinSyr

You are correct, but no one is obligated to repair damage that was paid out by an insurance claim, they just cannot claim that damage in another claim (not saying this does/does not happen).

szymon

If you wrote on the accident report form that this was pre-existing, they shouldn't hold you responsible. A few years ago an HLE accused me of damaging a Mazda 5 bumper - I wrote on the form that this was pre-existing. When they assigned a Hertz claim representative, I called her and she said she closed the claim as they can't "chase after something I didn't do".

Szymon