Charging a "gas fee" *for a car that doesn't even have a gas tank* is blatant and explicit fraud. If I didn't know better, I would think that Hertz is TRYING to get sued!!!
It is "refueling" not a "gas fee." Either way the guy paid to not have to pay a "refueling fee" and he returned the vehicle with the same state of charge that it had when he left.
heh a buddy took his bmw in for service to a bwm dealership. got it hack in a hr 1\2 but was charged for 3 hrs of labor. sorry sir that's what the book says on how long it takes. dealership refused to budge. (edit) Amazing how many people are trying to justify time theft with mental gymnastics. Try punching in a time clock then not working. You'll be fired for cause. No wonder dealerships are going under
@@rhetorical1488I’ve been told they had to put multiple employees working on my car. I guess they had 6 techs spend 1/2 hour on it. 😂😂 realized the things they do are not hard. never again back to a dealership unless it’s warranty claims
Hertz use to have O J Simpson in their commercials. They should have rehired O J, after he was convicted for theft. That way he properly represented the company.
There was an update on this, from Jalopnik: Hertz’s Customer Care team reached out to Mr. Lee to apologize and refunded this erroneous charge. All it took was some public flogging for justice to be served, apparently.
@@chivalryremains9426 I would argue that a refund and compensation are justice, and punitive damages are a corrective measure against future cases of the same sort.
There are business case studies out there telling companies there is no ROI on good customer service. The cost per new customer is less than making the existing customer happy, so onto the next sucker who hasn't read the news stories
Possibly, but credit card issuers aren't always the greatest about that. They can have some rather interesting interpretations due to getting a slice of every transaction you put on their card.
I mean, you could theoretically calculate what the absolute best possible energy conversion you can get out of a gallon of gasoline is. There's your gallon of electricity.
I actually use that phrase, as a PHEV owner. My Prius Prime holds 11.something gallons of gasoline (10 usable if you don't want an ulcer with it telling you the tank is at zero) and 1/2 gallon of electricity. Every night that I plug it in, I "make a half gallon" for the price of 6.6 kWh. If I drive it in a manner to get 50mpg on gas (driving terribly, or going a steady 72mph) then I can go 25 miles without the engine coming on. If I drive to get 70mpg (driving very well, or going a steady 52mph) then I can go 35 miles on the electricity.
@@MrBlueBurd0451 That's basically what MPGe represents (miles per gallon equivalent) in the EPA website for gas mileage. No conversion losses though. It's a raw joules-to-joules conversion. Because different regions get their electricity from different sources, it's impossible to predict what conversion losses are involved when generating the electricity. So it's not exactly a fair comparison with gasoline. But the point of the mileage ratings is to provide a common base for comparison between cars (or EVs in this case). So the conversion losses don't matter (unless you're comparing an EV to to a gas vehicle).
Rented a car from Hertz in FL, I asked about tolls and the agent said don’t worry about it we will just bill you. What they didn’t say was there is a $15 surcharge for each toll, so a for 75 cent toll I was charged $15.75. Hertz even convinced my CC company that it was a legitimate fee. I eventually filed a complaint with the FL attorney general and a year later got my money back.
Good for you for following through with that. Too many people (probably including me!) will just not bother to fight the issue through to the end. And then Hertz continues to get away with it.
Never trust anyone who says "We'll take care of it." Find out exactly what they mean. In the case of a rental car, read the contract. The company we rented a car from in Florida explained on their website how they handled tolls. At the time, there was more than one toll company in the state, as I recall. But the rental company (not Hertz; something costing less Dollars) had a way to make arrangements in advance to cover the various tolls. We did that, and had no problems.
Your story about the leasing company claiming falsified damage to their car reminds me of a story I read where a guy got scammed by a rental car company for alleged damage to the car he rented. The guy then rented from them again, and bought the "no liability for any damages of any kind no matter what reason" insurance package from the rental company. He then did his trip, and just before returning it, he took a hammer and smashed all of the panels on the car and cracked a window. The rental company then realized what insurance he had bought, and invited him to find other rental accommodations in the future.
News agency where I used to live once did one of those investigative journalism pieces on rental companies. They would rent a car, go through the walk around and sign for it, and then leave the car on the rental lot and take the keys with them, never even entering the vehicle, only to "return" the rental vehicle the next day. They did it with like 5 rental company locations, and 3 of those locations charged the news team a "cleaning" fee, accusing them of smoking in the vehicle, as well as the refueling fee, even though the car never moved from it's parking spot, and no one even entered the car other than the associate that checked them out to get the milage and fuel state. Of course, those three rental locations waived the entire rental costs once the news story aired, but they argued the costs were owed all the way until the day the news crews showed up with the cameras and mics shoved in their faces with evidence that the car was never moved from its original spot.
God that reminds me once I was staying at a hotel and someone from the hotel came and knocked on the door to tell me I had been accused of smoking and they were just letting me know I would be charged extra and to please stop smoking. I asked him what he was talking about who accused me and what did someone accusing me have to do with the hotel? He just repeated himself. So I invited him into the room asked him if he smelled smoke or anything like that and pointed out that people accuse people of all sorts of shit that isn't true. I asked him of he was still going to charge me based on someone's suggestion that I was smoking when he was literally in the room and could see no smoking was happening? He apologized sheepishly and rushed out. I was not charged but man did that ruin my day.
@@DJdoppIer This was back in like... 2006. RU-vid had just became a thing, so I don't know if there is a video for it. I'm sure other news companies have done something similar though.
Hertz in australia was charging for not returning the EV's at > 90% charge, when they had set the max battery level to be 90% so basically no car could be returned at that status
@@otsigo Do Teslas burn more often than other electric cars, or is it just because there are so many that when an EV burns up it is just statistically likely to be a Tesla?
Yea, last time I had a problem with a company it was DHL. A package I had shipped was attempting to enter the country without certain documentation. The agent left a voicemail on my phone (this was 2005), I called them back on more than one occasion and got their voicemail every time. When they finally deigned to call me back, it was the day after the customer deadline and they wanted me to pay them more money to ship it again. I asked to speak to a supervisor and was hung up on. I called back in to their customer line and eventually was talking to a very senior person who took care of it for me at least, but that kind of behavior by the lower level agent just soured me on the whole company.
I just want to see what happens when one of their poorly repaired vehicles are in a serious collision. The body repairs on their cars is... uh... questionable at best. Source: know a guy that worked in a body shop that repaired fleet vehicles for a short time.
They’re practically out of business now. The president resigned after no one wants to rent an electric car, and he bought thousands of electric cars. So I guess they figured they’d make it up by robbing people with this nonsense?
@@dmdx86 I rented a van from Enterprise several years back and it had ~14 wrapped bricks of mexican marijuana stowed away under the seat compartments. Wouldn't even comp or credit me for the hours wasted time dealing with police. Every rental company is on my do not rent from list.
Avis and Budget have the same parent company and my husband’s company has a corporate deal with Avis (specifically). He can rent for family and for personal use with a similar rate, and it’s super helpful for us. A few years ago we were on Hawaii Island (aka Big Island) and when we went to return the rental to Avis, that side was closed, with a sign indicating to return it to the Budget side. We did, and the attendant walked around the car, checked the mileage, and handed us the receipt. We of course double-checked with him that we were supposed to returnit to Budget since Avis was closed, and he said yup, you’re all set. 2 days or so after we got home we got a notice (can’t remember if it was a phone call or email) that we hadn’t returned the car. My husband called Avis, spoke with a human, and explained what happened. He provided the receipt from the attendant, and after a little bit of insistance, they let it go. They must have eventually checked the Budget side of the lot and found it because we haven’t had any issues since then. We still use Avis.
In 2024, it’s like you can’t rely on a paper receipt to provide proof. I would have took a picture or video of the sign. I’ve learned to now always take a walk around video of the car when returning it. I do the same thing before driving the car off the lot. Been accused twice of returning a car with so called damage, but had a video showing that a bumper was already scuffed and one where a large door ding existed.
There’s been an update to story. I read this yesterday also, in Jalopnik, and at the end of the story they said that once the news got involved that Hertz reversed the charge. At the end of the day this is just another reason to NEVER rent from Hertz and the last time I had to rent a car I purposely avoided them even if they were cheaper.
It's insane to need the news involved in a situation like this! The guy is a loyal customer and you can easily see that the charge is bogus yet they doubled down on it?!
I can't imagine a credit card company that wouldn't reverse that charge when contested. And the Federal Trade Commission needs to be contacted as well as the state's Governor's Dept. of Consumers Affairs.
Idiocy quotient test applied. CEO hits 2 million idiot points,! flipping around this means his intelligence quotient is minus 67, ie everyone around him loses 67 IQ points until he leaves.
Lol you really think this was due to lack of intelligence? They know they can get more money out of customers, they know they won't face ANY consequences and they're nearly a monopoly. They're just playing the game the way the game is made to be played unfortunately.
Don’t know about other states but in California there is a fee for reporting to the police that a stolen car has been recovered and for a repossession that has been paid . It’s around 40 bucks to file the paperwork so you can legally drive the vehicle again .
Sounds like a law written by someone who has never thought about the actual results of their policy, only the fees their department directly collects, unless they are also counting on the government making a profit from any mix-ups by fining people significantly more than what is wasted by police dealing with "stolen" vehicles that aren't actually stolen.
I would guess the fee is a government reaction to abuse of a poor stolen car Statute being abused. Sooner or later some AG or even local DA is going to add up the charges due to the arrests (arrest, court costs, towing and impound, etc.) and go after the rental companies involved. They don't have to pay the fees right away, they just can't allow any vehicle that also has "stolen" plates on the road until they do which means no rental of that particular car until they DO pay the fee to restore road status.
I agree with you on Enterprise too. Never had anything but a good experience with them. And most of the times I've rented from them, it was at the Newark airport, and still never had to deal with BS about not being able to get what I requested, or overcharging or anything. The only time I ever get an additional charge from them, it's for using the Fastpass since I'm going into NYC. And that is perfectly fine and accepted.
Wanna bet? Albert Einstein - "There are two things that are infinite. The Universe and Human Stupidity, and I'm not sure about the Universe." He was a smart man.
@@jilbertb Very convenient for you to blame the youngest generation that has had the least amount of influence on the state of the world for the state of the world, boomer.
At this point, the upper management needs to face criminal fraud charges. What they have done and continue to do is well beyond, "just a mistake". Corporate fraud like this is dictated from the top! Get rid of their corporate shield against personal liability. As these corporate criminals continue their fraud against their customers, they are living up to their name: HURT Z!
this. not just hertz, it's happening at so many companies it's making life in general worse, and what do we have government for if not to make life better?
Hold on. Before I watch this video, I just wanna share a brief story about when I rented a car from Hertz: It was a 2023 Chevrolet Bolt EV with 4000 miles. I was an Über driver for 1 hour. I rented the car, drove down to Santa Monica, made 3 trips, and earned $17. On my 2nd hour, 4th trip, all Hell broke loose. Guy was 1 minute away. I missed a turn and the Über app couldn't reroute me to him. I got lost for 10 minutes! I finally called him, and turned onto the correct street, when a speeding minivan collided with my left side while the guy was on the phone! Hertz's EV turned right into the curb. The minivan flipped upside-down and slid 100 ft into another car. Both cars were TOTALLED. The third car suffered minor dents and drove away. Everyone is fine! Everything is fine! Hertz won't rent to me anymore though. 😢 Oh well. It was fun! Resuming video!
I went on 2 business trips to Dallas last year, my company REQUIRED me to rent from Hertz. Was terrified I'd get locked up for being in a "stolen" car the whole time.
Budget rent a car definitely charges for a refill regardless of how you turn it in. At Denver Airport there is literally a gas station right down the street from the rental car drop off. I filled up and drove a mile, and was still charged for topping off the tank. Interestingly, the paperwork showed they filled the tank to more gallons than the tank is rated to hold.
I hope Hertz is studied in Business School. It used to be the number Rental car company, but some idiot CEO at some point must have really did a hatchet job on it. Should be full of good lessons on NOT what to do in business.
Since he accepted the "gas up to go" option, it is chargeable??? My guess is their system can't tell the difference between cars types on it's standard hire contract by make or model, so maybe a court case or two is necessary to affect change in either contract, or personal???
I have heard of Hertz doing this in the past, and the story has always been that the customer didn't understand that they can't leave the Tesla on the hotel charger all day/night without risking the idle penalty fees that come from Tesla when you block a spot when the station is at 50% capacity. $277 is low, I have read and heard Hertz/Tesla charging well over $1,000 when this happens. The "fueling" bill always comes after the fact as well. The last story I heard, Hertz also waived the fee because the customer didn't choose the EV, it was all that they had, and the agent didn't inform the EV newb customer about charging or the possible penalty fees for blocking a charging spot.
Unfair comment. Most of Boeing's supposed problems are caused by the mechanics at the airline, not with Boeing. Boeing is being trashed for a lot of problems that they did not cause.
"The truth Hertz, doesn't it? Oh, sure, maybe not as much as jumping on a bicycle with the seat missing, but it Hertz!" -Lieutenant Frank Drebin, Police Squad
"He WAS a loyal customer..." We just LOVE those idjit hertz people. Just wait until they send a bill for a rental you never got from them since you always watch Lehto's Law. PS I also love Enterprise car rentals.
The last car I rented was from Enterprise as well. They went over the car with me when I picked it up and when I dropped it off. No issues at all. Mind you I rarely rent a car, but I have been using Enterprise without any issues ever.
Always good to get a hard copy of the lease agreement. I got a rental car in South Carolina when I flew from Illinois to Columbia for my daughter’s graduation from Fort Jackson boot camp. I got a flat during the week I was there. I paid for the repair and gave the receipt to the leasing agent. They were very good at reimbursing me for the flat tire.
So many companies have replaced their customer service with automated service making it impossible to logically resolve problems. Hertz has simply taken this to a new level.
Amazon. I received a padded envelope which had been sliced open and was empty. There is no way to report something like this to their automated "customer service" robot. They have a menu of possible delivery problems, but no option for "something else". And this was at one of their "Amazon Locker" which I use to protect against porch pirates. Fortunately, it was probably a small, inexpensive item and not worth the hassle of trying to contact a human.
IKR, I remember being on a chat with customer care a while ago for a subscription renewal that I hadn't been warned about and the agent just reiterated the policy without actually addressing that they were required to provide me with notice prior to charging my card for the renewal, not after and that they had to give the money back. To which the agent just quoted back their policy. IANAL, but I have had business law and your policy doesn't get to ignore the law in most cases. There are relatively specific things that you can do with a company policy and they don't permit fraud.
I never had a problem renting from Hertz. So, I decided to work for them recently (I'm no longer with the company) , and the hiring process was so disorganized and messed up like this. It was ridiculous. It seems their whole company needs work. They also own Dollar and Thrifty.
Damn you, Steve! As a Canadian I had to pause the video to do the conversion from gallons of electricity (assuming US gallons vs Imperial gallons) to litres of electricity. It's my Saturday morning, I slept in and don't need math problems like this.
Classic availability heuristic. Hertz rents over a million cars every month, and while it may be true that they have a disproportionate number of awful stories like this, that's a far cry from this being a common occurrence. The reality is that you could probably rent a new car from hertz every week for the rest of your life and never once have your rented car reported stolen nor have them apply such an absurd charge.
Hertz used to be the #1 car rental agency. Expensive, but top tier service. All the fortune 500 companies had corporate accounts with them. But they were floating a lot of debt, and had spent a lot of money upgrading their equipment just before the pandemic hit. That left them unable to make their debt payments, and they filed for bankruptcy in 2021. (Similar story with Pan Am actually.) What remains now is just a shell of a rental car company going through the motions (since they already had the infrastructure and name recognition). Good lesson in not having too much debt, which our government is now learning painfully. (Interest on the national debt now exceeds the Defense budget.)
I used Enterprise for a few years from around 2014 to 2016 and didnt exactly have any problems, but for as much as i rented, didnt get many points toward free rentals in the future. It used to be very lucrative previously, but just seemed to go away. When i was traveling a LOT for military duty, friends told me that Hertz was very good and also had great upgrades and free rentals from high points rates. I started using them from 2016 to 2019, LOT!!! I had zero problems with them and actually had fantastic service at many Hertz sites around the country. I wasnt presidents circle, but was Gold level i think. I actually never heard about any problems with Hertz until sometime after 2020 and then pretty much only through this YT channel. It makes me wonder if they had some change of corporate leadership or something to result in such a drastic change. Just listening to what the online response is, it sounds like an AI type of response. Id ask to specifically talk to a real person and a Supervisor to resolve this matter.
I rented a Tesla M3 for 30 days last summer from Hertz in LAX. Replaced it after 20 days because of a cracked windshield in LAS for a MY, free of charge. I had an absolute blast renting from Hertz, everything was without an issue. EXCEPT when I returned the Tesla with 76%, I got hit with a $30 recharge fee (even though it was >70%). They eventually removed it, but still, scummy.
I don't get how Hertz hasn't been legally shut down by the authorities yet. When regular people file a false police report they go to jail. But when Hertz does it, no problemo?
The police report was not false, per se, when they filed it. When the car returned or was recovered the report should have been amended but that many changes might have caused states to amend the definitions of "stolen car" to not accept rental car company claims so quickly. And that would have crippled recovery rates on unreturned rentals.
Update May 9, 12:45 p.m. ET: After this story was published, Hertz informed The Drive that its Customer Care team would be "reaching out to Mr. Lee to apologize and will refund this erroneous charge."
I have always rented from Enterprise. I have rented from them dozens of times and have never had any issues. They are really excellent but a little more expensive but worth it.
The sign of a good company is how well it takes care of their customers when a problem occurs. Before I retired, I had complementary Hertz Gold because of the company I worked for yet I still normally used other companies. Like Steve, I had pretty good experience with Enterprise but there were a couple of others that did pretty well also. With Hertz, I just found that it rarely went as seemlessly as it was supposed to.
I would never rent from Hertz ever since they let a guy sit in prison for murder, due to mistaken identity, because they didn't want to turn over a record of him renting which was a solid alibi. (they ignored several court orders).
As an employee of a competitor of Hertz, I have 2 things to say. 1. The whole charge if you bring a car back with less battery percentage could be exploited if those clowns were smart enough to do it. They could have every ev at 100% charge. 99% of the customers wouldn’t be able to return it at 100% thus costing them the recharge fee. 2. Our refueling fee per gallon is usually right there with the local price. Within a dime usually. I’ve seen times it has been up to a quarter less then the current price. That’s when I was asking to buy gas from the branch for my personal car lol
Gotta wonder if the person detailing the vehicle pumped gasoline into their own car. I have to wonder if this would be a small claims court case eventually if Hertz doesn't back down?
This makes some sense in this senseless case. If the company has receipts of actual fuel being pumped, it wouldn't surprise me if an employee attached their bill to the paperwork. Or an employee attached the receipts to this Tesla renter's paperwork from another vehicle return.
@@davidtsang4949 none of this makes sense. They literally should have different check boxes for different types of vehicles they rent. Just a shoddy operation all around.
On Maui, I took a video walk around of the car upon pick up. Lot attendant said that was smart. Turned the car in and a different attendant pointed out damage to the rear quarter panel. "That was there when I picked the car up, here's the video." No note. Good thing I had the video.
Many years ago, I got a curtesy car, and when it went back, I got a bill for a tiny scratch on the bumper, luckily for me, the previous person left their condition report in the car. I sent that to the company, and never heard from them again.
I rented a brand new Ford pickup from Enterprise for 7 days, unlimited mileage. I put almost 3,000 miles on it. (Hated the truck BTW) Before I returned it, I took it to the local car wash, and had it detailed, inside and out. Cost me about $90. I refilled the gas, literally, across the street from the rental office/lot. The clerk was nice, but a little "miffed" because there was NO DIRT inside or out, and the tank was so full, you could see "wetness" when you opened the tank. The truck was cleaner than when I got it. I loaded up that truck with my Mom's things she left behind when she moved to Fl. It was my Husband, me, and our Jack Russell AND my black cat.. We are BOTH smokers. Screw rental car companies, ALL OF THEM! For the price of a detail, we had a nice trip, we didn't have to worry about our pets or having to pull over to smoke. F*ck-em if they can't take a joke! 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
a Ford F450 has a 48 Gallon tank which at the current US average rate ($3.63) would cost $174.24 to gas it from completely empty. Using that same F450 tank size a fill costing $277 would be a price of $5.77 a gallon, which is high even for inflated airport prices and would likely get a state's AG looking at you. Should also note most cars the size of a Tesla are going to have a tank around 16 gallons, so the charge is even more insane when talking in terms of "even if the Tesla used gas", using a 16 gallon tank size they're asking for $17.31 a gallon........
Sad thing is, 5.77 would be a totally normal price here in California. They (state taxes and regulation costs) really stick it to us here. When Steve said "they would charge a $5/gal fee" I was thinking "Deal!"
