No, I have no reason to suppose that, but I also know from experience that people leave out any part of their story that does not support their opinion. "We had to be in Saint Tropez straight after" seems rather vague to me, since no actual appointment is mentioned, whereas it is quite possible that the car would have arrived at the agency within an hour (or perhaps the wait would have been two hours -- in any case it was due before noon). There is also no information about exactly why it took 3 hours to get a car at the train station. Part of my job is customer service, and I take no random story at face value when all of the <b>real</b> details are missing. The fact that the customer was annoyed and facing marital stress and that both Hertz employees were unhappy is called "drowning the fish" in French. You appear to give lots of details, but there is no real information. And then everybody goes "you poor thing; they were mean to you."

annhig, I am sympathetic, but you misunderstand two things: first, downtown car rental locations have very little storage space, often only a few spaces in a hotel garage. They really can't have a lot of extra cars. Second, airport surcharges are invariably taxes levied on out of town visitors to pay for something the locals want but don't want to pay for -- a stadium or convention center. Ditto hotel taxes and meal taxes.

ackislander - I don't think I've misunderstood anything. if I book a car to pick up at 9am at location A, is it beyond the wit of man [or Hertz] to ensure that there is a car there to fulfil that contract? At best it seems to me to be brinkmanship on their part to rely upon someone else not only getting the only car back on time that morning, but also that they will have it cleaned and serviced in time for me to collect it when the office opened, as the OP says she'd booked to do. She didn't want a lot of extra cars, she just wanted one car, so i don't see how garage space comes into it. it seems to me that the ONLY way they were going to meet her booking was by having the car there the night before.

and I don't get your point about airport surcharges - you mean that the car hire company doesn't get those? really? I've never seen them referred to as a tax - as you might have a tourist tax at a hotel.

As mentioned above this situation could occur anywhere and happens regularly in the US. But it seems that in addition to being annoyed about not having a rental car ready you had a "typical" french customer service experience. No "sorry" or what more can I do for you?" something that you might expect.

But from this experience you have realized that when you book a car for a certain period of time and tell the rental car agency that you will return it at 3PM on Monday, and you don't there is a distinct possibility that someone else who was expecting a car that afternoon will be without one. The rental car firms, big and small, fully intend to rent all the cars on their lot. With the down economy the rental car companieshave downsized their inventory/fleet. They stock enough vehicles to meet the usual demand.
They don't typically oversell cars (unlike the airlines) but it can happen,but the usual reason that a car wasn't available when you booked it, is that a car wasn't returned on time.

<i>you mean that the car hire company doesn't get those? really? I've never seen them referred to as a tax - as you might have a tourist tax at a hotel.</i>

These are local taxes also levied when picking up a car at the train station in smaller cities--even if there is no city location whereby one can avoid the tax. However, this tax is usually lower than the one-way charge levied by Herz or Avis.

Kerouac....you did make me laugh....how many moons are there on your planet?

Still drowning the fish, Byshhe?

Byshhe, you decided to re-open both of your negative threads after a month. Just get out of jail or miss the attention?

Byshhe: BEWARE - HERTZ CAR HIRE - NICE (AVE GUSTAVE V)

Me: WHY ARE YOU SHOUTING? (AGAIN)

"I never said that the person should not be angry ..."

Well Kerouac, yes you did, sort of.

"I recommend a divorce as soon as possible, because this is the sort of event that makes loving couples break out laughing."

Or maybe loving couples break out laughing when they are angry?