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It Hurts To Rent From Hertz - $2,036 for 65 Miles

It Hurts To Rent From Hertz - $2,036 for 65 Miles

Old May 17th, 2014, 05:05 PM
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It Hurts To Rent From Hertz - $2,036 for 65 Miles

Our son didn’t do the right thing and returned his car (on time – no damages) at a different Boston Hertz facility 65 miles away from where he should have.
Hertz provided no receipt – stated everything was okay – then took an additional $2,036 out of his credit card account with no warning.
Details are in our BBB complaint - also filed with the FTC this is:
1)No receipt, communication or indication there was an issue – had our son been informed he would have taken the car back to the right facility
2)If same happens on a 1 day rental for the 2 facilities involved, the overcharge is $100 – not $2,036 – Hertz raised this only because he had a 2-month rental
3)None of this is in the rental contract, web site, emails, FAQs or any communications that Hertz provides when renting a car
4)The bill submitted by Hertz is doctored to hide an audit trail of the above
5) Estimate has forged signature.

Our claim is that this vendor is operating in a highly dishonest manner and hiding audit trails of their billing practices. The length of rental has nothing to do with additional charges for drop off and Hertz has no contractual or other written documents to this point. Our son rented a car in good faith for an extended period and it appears this is now being used against him. We are posting this to advise other travelers about this fraudulent practice.
We can provide documented evidence of fraudulent billing.
RandyASteinberg is offline  
Old May 17th, 2014, 05:07 PM
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Why did he return it to the other place?
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Old May 17th, 2014, 05:30 PM
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You should stay away from these " fly-by-night" companies.
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Old May 17th, 2014, 06:41 PM
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I had an issue with Hertz in Australia. Different to yours, in that they charged me for pre-existing damage, and debited my card for $4065. It took about 6 months of complaints, but eventually they refunded every cent. Keep on them is my suggestion, keep your paper trail in order, and don't let the b.....s win.

Good luck.
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Old May 17th, 2014, 06:42 PM
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Why are you filing complaints if you are not the aggrieved customer? Also, what part of Boston is 65 miles from some other place in Boston? I am not fully understanding your story..
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Old May 17th, 2014, 07:06 PM
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kayd, well Randy being brand new to Fodors may explain that, first post and all.
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Old May 17th, 2014, 08:48 PM
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The extra fee was not a one-time-charge for returning the car to a different location. When he returned to an unagreed-upon location, he broke the contract. So now his original rate was invalid.
His original rate may have been $15 per day, but the one-way car rate may be $45 per day. That should all be quite clear on the receipt.
Please let us know how Hertz Customer Service ends up handling this. I have never returned a Hertz car when the agent didn't say to me "your total is"....so your son should have questioned it at that point. But I understand that he...well, probably was busy on his cellphone or whatever. Live and learn.
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Old May 18th, 2014, 02:15 AM
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I have never returned a Hertz car and did not get an instant print-out showing the required total. However, I am wondering if the person involved used a drop box of some sort which would explain the "non-receipt" assertion.

Hertz, like other travel-related companies, does all sorts of things to generate extra revenue. In some European locations,m for example, Hertz (the company which pioneered the practice, BTW) has dynamic currency conversion written into their rental contracts as just one example. This #1 Club Gold member has been through that one.
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Old May 18th, 2014, 02:37 AM
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Mom and Dad,

Butt out.

If he is old enough to have a credit card that will accept a $2036 charge, he is old enough to deal with this himself. He won't learn -- hasn't learned -- if Mom and Dad helicopter in every time he falls off his tricycle.

I am a parent. I know it is tough. But you aren't doing him any favor.
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Old May 18th, 2014, 03:16 AM
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I like to be sympathetic to people's complaints, but this is so hard to follow:

The estimate has a forged signature? "Estimate" for what? Are you saying there was a fake estimate saying there would be a $2K charge for different drop-off?

No receipt? I have rented hundreds of cars and always received a receipt upon return of the vehicle. If he didn't get one, he should have asked.

I hope your complaints to regulatory officials are better detailed.
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Old May 18th, 2014, 03:30 AM
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We just got home and had a problem with Hertz in Belgium for an extra $125, not a tragedy but unethical and of course will start a fight.
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Old May 18th, 2014, 03:43 AM
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I always love when someone "doesn't do the right thing" and then complains about how the person or business they abused is now abusing them.
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Old May 18th, 2014, 05:18 AM
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clarkgriswald is right. OP's son rented a car for 2 months and brought it back to a different location that was 65 miles awe from the original rental location (obviously someplace in the "Boston Area", not necessarily in Boston proper. The extra $2,036 comes to $34/day extra which is probably the difference in the daily "same place return" rate and the "Different place" return rate.

Sorry, nothing sinister here - just a mistake on the the part of an uniform consumer. This probably could have been easily dealt with by OP's son at the time he returned the car if he was paying the least bit attention to the transaction when he returned the car.
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Old May 18th, 2014, 05:26 AM
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We use Hertz for every rental we do (special corporate discount) - traveling in the US and europe - and have never had any problems at all.

When you return the car (to the place agreed upon at time of renta) they always double check the numbers, give you a receip and say can I keep the charge of $ on the credit card you used at rental.

If he wanted to leave the car at an office in another city he should have called them and found out what the additional cost would be.

He should not have left the office without his receipt with the correct amount on it. And he should have listened when they said what the charge should be.

If he had this receipt there would have been no doubt about the cost - and anyone waking out of a rental office without a receipt (which you don;t sign) is incredibly careless.

So now you - his parents - are in the middle of a he said, she said with Hertz because your son - and why isn't he handling this - apparently managed to screw up the whole transaction. Perhaps this should be a lesson to him to pay more attention to what he's doing.

I have no idea why Hertz is charging so much extra but I would suggest if the return to the wrong city was the only problem they would have told him and he could then have taken an hour and just driven the car to Boston.

Seems to me there is more going on here.
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Old May 18th, 2014, 05:39 AM
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There was no at the Hertz office at Antwerp rail station, even though it 3 PM and there was supposed to be. And the instructions as to where to leave the car were so convoluted that it took 1 1/2 to find the appropriate parking area and drop off the key was no where near the vacant Hertz office.

We have been using Hertz for years and I am also Gold Card member and I have rented cars in many different countries and states, so we neither novices at this or children.

Actually I have stopped renting from them, even with the corporate discount, in Manhattan because their rates have become outrageous.
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Old May 18th, 2014, 08:11 AM
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This story has been on another forum. Here's the deal-the rental was from Manchester NH airport. Due to be returned to same. Was returned to Logan instead. Check the Hertz reservation site and do a random reservation for 2 months from MHT, returning to same. Then do the same, same dates, returning to Logan instead. It's several thousand $$ higher. Basically, they were charged what it would have cost, and what they would have been quoted, had they reserved MHT-BOS initially. There is no reason for anything in the contract to have listed prices for dropping it off somewhere else.

As for no receipt, no communication-your son may have just handed the keys to someone, he checked the car, saw no damages and said it's fine and your son just left.
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Old May 18th, 2014, 08:27 AM
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Yes I'm sure it hurts to pay $2000 more for a rental car than you were expecting. But your son should take the brunt here, not Hertz. Unless it's true that they didn't print him a receipt which would be bizarre at Logan. I imagine Hertz response will verify that a receipt was printed at return time. Maybe the BBB can help you out with your son at that point.
Car rentals are loaded with ifs, ands or buts such as refueling options, insurances, late fees etc....perhaps you should have prepared your son for such things but maybe you aren't a seasoned car rental veteran like most fodorites.
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Old May 18th, 2014, 09:19 AM
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Is it against a policy to name the forum where the identical OP has been discussed for over a month and is 7 pages deep? The poster returned a half dozen times to add more details but his stance that Hertz cheated his son and forged paperwork to cover it is intractable. The actual event occurred last year. Not sure why he repeating the story here.
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Old May 18th, 2014, 10:49 AM
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Why here?

Because nobody sympathized with him there?

If accurate, what weimarer writes seems pretty conclusive to me.
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Old May 18th, 2014, 07:27 PM
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Well, it's an educational thread, for me, anyway. I wouldn't just drop a rental car at a different location, but I didn't realize that doing so would cause the whole rental rate to change--so thanks, clarkgriswold, I learned something!

As for the OP and his-- I mean, his SON'S--complaint, why do people so often make the mistake of exaggerating their claim? "Our claim is that this vendor is operating in a highly dishonest manner and hiding audit trails of their billing practices. " is absurd!

The best approach, IME, is the most direct: "Hey, Hertz, my idiot son made a big, expensive mistake out of sheer ignorance. Can you help him out by not charging him the full $2000+ dollars? Maybe we can meet in the middle? I'd sure appreciate it." and so on. Of course, that would require an admission of wrongdoing on the part of the genius offspring...
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