EmptyKim

ginmqi

Heh yeah. From the video I posted plus common sense, there's no reason to expose your bank account directly to hundreds of merchants when you can spend credit car company's money which also reduces your liability for issues as opposed to exposing your account directly.

Unless you're a very bad impulsive spender with a CC, there's no reason to use debit cards.

Often1

As to the National policy, it is clearly stated. You knew this when you rented, so if it's "stupid" just rent elsewhere. I am surprised that there are still agencies at major airports which would take anything but a CC for an individual rental at pickup.

As to the whole "debt free" thing, that has nothing to do with CC's. CC's give you a great deal of consumer protections which DC's do not and a compromised DC can mean that the account to which it is linked may be emptied before you know what has happened.

Using a CC for car rentals and many other items affects "debt free" in only a hyper-technical sense. Choose the card carefully for its fee (none) and grace period (as long as possible) and just pay the balance down to $0 within the grace period. At worst, a couple of bucks in interest is also not a bad thing if you do find that you, at a later point, need credit for something.

manohman

National YYZ had 3 cars stolen in November/December 2017 according to the employee I quizzed when they became more demanding at the exit booth so yeah I understand the stricter policies.

I have multiple credit cards (3 of them at last count) and am debt free. I don't carry a balance and pay them off in full. It's called being a responsible adult and living within my means. I like having the credit cards merely for the reward points. Even if it's a $50 gift card a couple times a year, it's still free money with no increase in monthly spending on my part! Win win situation.

Not to mention my credit cards include various benefits such as car rental insurance (worth it's weight in gold), extended warranty on purchases (1 year) and accidental damage within 90 days of purchase. I smashed my smartphone's screen on the 89th day after buying it, bank bought me a new screen with no runaround.

Miles Ahead

I don't think that National is taking on substantially less risk on a $30,000 (or more) vehicle with a $500 deposit.

EmptyKim

Playing devils advocate: what would the difference be between a $500 deposit and a credit card with a $500 limit?

AutoSlash

Technically nothing, but it's rare to find a credit card with a $500 limit. Could the customer have a $5K limit card with only $500 in available credit? Sure, but we're not talking about outlier cases, but rather risk factors and average indicators of a person's credit worthiness.

We can guess all we want at what criteria lowers their risk, but they have actual data to back up their policies. Is it perfect? Certainly not, but the point is to reduce risk with realistic policies not eliminate it entirely by making the requirements so onerous that they lose so much business that it becomes impactful to them.

In short, they are willing to lose a certain percentage of customers they deem to be high risk in order to lower their incidence of fraud. That means that some honest trustworthy potential customers (like the OP) may be turned away, but it also likely means (if they do their job correctly) that for every legitimate customer that is turned away, two or more illegitimate customers aren't able to rent and defraud the company. It's nothing personal against debit card holders, but business is business.

Often1

Or you have a card with a $10K limit and don't use it !

Until some day when you are stuck at TOM and need to buy a one-way ticket back to the US.

If you have a moral aversion to debt, you should not rent cars whether you do so by cash deposit or CC hold. The key to being debt free is not to accumulate meaningful debt.

OP is standing on form here and that won't get him the car keys.

jackal

Anybody can get a debit card and deposit $500 in the checking account. You might have $501 in the account or, sure, you might have $500,000, but the rental car company has no way of knowing.

You have to give the bank some reason to trust you to give you a credit card with a $500 limit. Usually that's proof of a reasonable credit history (a $500 card doesn't require much, but at least you didn't declare bankruptcy last week or something). Even if it's a secured card, the fact you're willing to put $500 down and let the bank hang onto it for a length of time shows some level of responsibility that the vast majority of people who can't get a credit card at all don't have.

Is it a perfect screen? No; there are people outside the curve on both sides. But the requirement to have a credit card does screen out the vast majority of the riskiest renters out without being too burdensome for the vast majority of people the rental car company actually does want to do business with.

ijgordon

A discussion with "I refuse to have a credit card" is a nonstarter. I've had a decent amount of fraud over the past year on one of my accounts in particular (probably due to Target breach), and one or two incidents on another card. There was never an issue over me being out that money. My husband had $1500 taken from is checking account (oddly, via ACH, not the debit card, but this caused us to open our eyes a bit more and I told him to stop using his debt card for purchases) and THAT can be a big problem while the bank investigates, before they give you back the money.

So get a no-fee credit card, pay the balance every month, and stop complaining!

guller

Turns out Hertz at this location accepts debit cards so all is good.

No, I'm not getting a credit card just to rent a car.

My info has been breached through the DOD hack already. Multiple times I have had people try to charge $500 here or there. No issues so far with my bank sorting out the fraudulent charge and declining it on the spot.



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Often1

When the account behind your DC is eventually breached, your bank account will be cleaned out. Good luck with that.