Hertz is known for being an unethical and customer unfriendly company, plain and simple. Hertz has a history of having its customers arrested, accusing them of stealing cars when they didn’t. Hertz even had to pay $168 million for this behavior.
Continue reading: Hertz “Unlimited” Miles Rental: $10K Charge For Driving Too Much?
Share your questions, experiences, and thoughts below.
What I don’t understand is how a some airport board or authority, who rent space to Hertz as a concessionaire, hasn’t taken action? Likewise, I don’t understand how some state attorney general or a state consumer protection division hasn’t taken action. There have been so many documented incidents here.
I also don’t understand how airlines continue to partner with Delta or companies continue to use Hertz for their employee rentals.
Whenever companies whine about regulations hitting their quarterly earnings, it's important to remember that this is the sort of sh*t they'll do when they aren't regulated.
The renter may win the first round with Hertz. He can challenge the 10k charge with his credit card company, and Hertz won’t be able to support it as a charge permitted by the contract. He’ll lose round 2 if Hertz sues him for breach of contract, alleging that he made commercial use of the vehicle. It probably won’t be hard for Hertz to figure that out with some subpoenas. If he breached the contract, he’ll owe Hertz the diminution of car value plus their attorney’s fees.
Hertz should not charge the $10,000.? The executives at Hertz need to focus their time on capitalizing the corporation as much as possible then transferring that capital to the executives’ personal compensation, then file the next bankruptcy
Hertz looks terrible here.
I had a similar situation with Budget in France some years ago. I reserved a car with unlimited miles, but they "upgraded" me to a smart car, which apparently was in a separate class and didn't come with unlimited miles. I wasn't told this before I was given the car, and was asked to pay some 3K euros for extra mileage upon return. Luckily in the end it was resolved and I didn't pay, but it was quite a stressful situation and the language barrier didn't help.
The only explanation is it was used commercially likely 24 hrs a day (multiple people not registered)
And if the contract says no commercial use allowed then it is a violation- of course it is also impossible the amount of Lisa vibes to exactly 10k -
Most modern cars have gps or otter devices to track location
This doesn't worry me at all, until the story includes Hertz corporate's comment on the case. It's very similar to stories about rogue hotels charging junk fees or refusing to honour elite benefits. I'll say this plainly: if I form an opinion before I know if the Hertz "representative" is rogue, I'm an idiot.
"I am puzzled as to how someone managed to drive 25K miles in 30 days. If he used the car for purposes other than what they were intended then there’s nothing wrong with trying to hold him accountable."
What are you suggesting?
Most car rental companies can track data on their cars. I am sure they can see when and where the car was driven. If the contract was violated, he is going to lose. Surprised hertz doesn't have an excessive mileage limit written into the contact.
Hertz looks fine here. He is abusing renting a passanger vechile for commercial purposes. You dont drive 25000 miles in a month, then get surprised you are being held accountable for violating the contract. I am sure this will be a negotiated settlement between Hertz's attorney and the customer. A front line CSR is not going to be the final resolution.
I rent from hertz regularly, and find their service fine. They get me in/out quickly, rates are competitive, and vechiles are relatively new. I avoid Avis/Budget due to their lines and often older vechiles. Still surprised Avis/Budget uses dot matrix printers.
Yeah I was going to say the same. I rent from Hertz 3-4 times per month and have zero issues.
Can you and your family go to the buffet on Wednesday to drown your sorrows after Kamala loses and stay there for 3 days because it is all you can eat ? Eat through 2 days worth of food truck delivery ? That goes beyond the reasonable premise of all you can eat.
As much as Hertz sucks the renter was not allowed to use the car for commercial reasons and unlimited miles is for leisure or business rental. Not 25,000 miles. It would depend on what the make and model of the car is to determine appreciation which would be several thousand dollars.
The corporate locations are a better choice over the franchise dealers. Also I owned a vehicle that had a faulty odometer and component issues. Unlikely that was the problem here.
Because as Lucky said the contract was for unlimited so would an excessive mileage limit clause not defeat the purpose of unlimited being written in the contract. How can you have a contract that says unlimited mileage and excessive mileage limit?
How do you know for sure it was used for commercial purposes at this point? The commercial purpose possibility was only a guess on the part of Lucky. And then the guy can use the Hertz representative logic by saying you show me where in the contract does it say that it cannot be used for commercial purposes. Do you work for Hertz as you are so taking the side of Hertz?
@Brian W
Well looks like Hertz owes me $40000. Sure they never signed anything saying so, but they also never signed anything saying they don’t owe me that.
"Fair Use" is a common legal principle. Applies to Unlim Data plans on mobile contracts among other things. Common, straighforward, uncontroversial.
Similar thing happened to me. Rented a car from my local airport in California for a road trip to Arizona. When booking it was advertised as “Unlimited Mileage.”
I drive about 2,800 miles in total. No issues at drop off back at my local airport. About 2 months later I see a $1,400 charge on my Visa from Sixt.
I reached out to Sixt and they pointed out a clause in the several page long boiler plate that said “unlimited mileage was limited to miles driven in California. If the car is driven out of California at any point then a 50c/mile charge would apply for all miles driven.”
They knew I had left California because they had a GPS tracker in the car.
I got a refund after several months only when threatening to sue them for tracking me in California without disclosing that they were doing so.
It won't be worth anyone's time going to court for $10k. Most likely Hertz just lets this go.
Hertz would need some sort of tangible evidence that it was used for commercial purposes (assuming this is even a violation of the contract).
I’m not sure you know the difference between a legal principle and your own anus.
Guy needs to find a lawyer. If the contract says unlimited miles then it's unlimited miles. It's up to Hertz to write in verbiage for excessive miles. Personally I have no idea how someone could drive that many miles in one month.
Hertz is the one car rental company. I will never use. Had a bad experience in Arizona a few years ago, where there were all sorts of fees added that brought the total rental for two weeks up to an outrageous price.
Fool me once …
Many years ago we rented a car from Hertz and spent a month road tripping from NY to LA and back. Car had 280 mi on it when we got it, and we returned it with about 10,280 mi on it. Agent was surprised, but we had unlimited miles, so no extra charge. Hertz was also probably a more reputable company back then.
Do they have language about oil changes for high mile situations? Like if the check engine light or oil change warning comes on, are you required to bring it in. That could be an argument here, that the unlimited miles were put on in a way that severely degraded the car beyond just additional mileage.
And good thing the agent didn't even discover yet that the guy took the engine out and replaced it with the one from his own clunker!
How in the world could you drive 25,000 in a month?
You'd have to be driving 12 hours a day at 70 mph to rack up that much.
Interesting that you brought up mobile contracts.
The FTC said carriers mislead consumers by throttling unlimited data plans and took enforcement action. AT&T settled the case for 60 million dollars and now clearly advertise in bold: "Unlimited talk, text, data + 75GB of high-speed data".
It's actually on the rental agreement. Franchise owner's name is who you are renting from. Corporate says Hertz. Corporate locations usually have a larger inventory. Call and ask.
It was obviously driven by multiple people for commercial purposes 24/7.
Hertz need to go after him for breaching the contract by using the car for unauthorised purposes, not the excess miles
while I agree....and your point is quite likely what happened (multiple drivers etc) That point was (at least in the video) never brought up by Hertz.
BUT... Unlimited is in fact Unlimited. And Hertz went from being a great company to a monstrosity.
I’m diamond on Delta and get some sort of President’s Circle BS status - after 3 really bad experiences (ask me about them leaving my 80 year old mother in the airport until 0230 saying her rental car was not available and never would be), I swore off Hertz (Alamo, National & Enterprise are consistently great). I hope every member of their C-Suite enjoys burning in hell because after mismanaging a company in such a cruelly incompetent way, that’s where they belong.
Good news is small claims court covers up to $10k. Should be easy enough to win that, assuming Hertz can't prove he violated some other part of the contract.
The first job employers that I had were corporate clients of Enterprise. I just never had good experiences. Despite eventually getting their top elite status and having a corporate contract, cars were routinely not available despite confirmations, bookings in Europe for an auto transmission were never fulfilled because they didn't have auto transmission cars, or some branches at airports were off-site while the big boys like Hertz were on-site.
I switched to Hertz around 2014 or 2015, when the Delta partnership launched. That gave me President's Circle status. For the first couple of years, it was great. Solid treatment, good cars, etc. I remember getting guaranteed rentals, which was a benefit of President's Circle status. I think you needed 48 hours notice. Several times around 2016 and 2017 I was dropped off at the airport after returning the car instead of taking the shuttle. I even had a 10-month rental in 2020 before and during the pandemic when I was on a project for work.
Thankfully, I've never been arrested or anything, unlike other people with Hertz horror stories.
But Hertz has gotten really bad in the last year. Their rates are absurdly expensive, especially for SUVs anywhere in Arizona, Colorado, Utah or Montana. Likely highway robbery. My name is never on the board anymore and the President's Circle aisle has gone way downhill. Several consecutive rentals have been cars with 40,000-plus miles. SiriusXM is almost never activated anymore, even on premium cars. Everyone is President's Circle these days so upgrades are nonexistent. I don't consider a Chevy Malibu an upgrade. And I've had other cases where I've booked a Chevy Tahoe only to receive a Ford Edge with no rate adjustment.
I tried Avis late last year and early this year when they status matched me. Not even a status challenge. But I had two, one-month bookings where I never received points. That was a lot of points. Customer service was useless. So I've stopped using Avis and went back to Hertz.
Has Enterprise gotten any better?
How can a single driver run 25 000 miles in a month? There is more data behind the story posted above.
Oil changes are important, I'm very surprised Ben made ZERO mention of maintenance on the vehicle. Most reasonable people would put maybe 1500 miles tops on that car in a month. For a rental that might be $1200 for a whole month, Hertz likely had 65% of the tire tread wear down, likely more on the drive wheel tires and any resale value expectation is eroded. 10k oil change intervals are way too high to begin with. The $10k charge is absolutely correct to do.
Yes. Probably multiple people with multiple gig economy apps like a syndicate. Not sure this person wants to be in the spotlight.
Just a data point - I’ve put about 7,000 miles on Hertz ”unlimited miles” rentals over a 30 day period a couple of times (and ~4k miles over 20-25 days several times) with no issues what so ever.
No, you "can't go after someone" if you can't prove it.
If the contract says "unlimited miles", the miles are unlimited.
I once rented a Hertz car in Florida for one week. I drove to Chicago to pick up a girl friend and drove her to Florida where we drove all over the place. The following weekend I drove her back to Chicago and drove the car back to Florida. That was about 5,000 miles for the week. It can be done. Unless Hertz can prove breach of contract, they have no case.
Funny enough an advertisement for Avis celebrated that they were number 2 and not as popular as Hertz so their lines were shorter. Ran in the 90’s as we studied it in marketing class.
How in the world is it correct? He had UNLIMITED miles and NOTHING saying unlimited meant no more than this many miles a day. I would have sat there until the police arrived, then asked the police to press charges for them trying to fraudulently charge my card. My call the next day would be to a lawyer to sue Hertz or at least that store!!
If maintenance is an issue they should not allow 'unlimited' miles. They should, and likely have factored that in already.
There's gotta be more to the story. 25,000 miles in a month is literally Los Angeles to El Paso, every day, for thirty days. Probably some stuff that wasn't permitted in the contract, going on, but that's of course just a supposition at this point.
"The $10k charge is absolutely correct to do."
Not if that's not a provision written into the contract, then it's not.
I agree Ben, presumably there was more use of the car, perhaps for commercial reasons.
Our recent rentals in NJ and NY, we found quite a few drivers wanting to rent cars at the counter, for Uber usage.
In a time in my life, I was on the road alot for my own own personal business (NOT making money)
They also don't say that he could be the only driver. In all of my past agreements I had with this company, I always grabbed the insurance amd checked two drivers nothing in this story said he was a single driver.
Also to get unlimited,YOU PAY for unlimited (Which also) is not in this story
I switched another big name rental company because hertz cars suck bad.
I wonder if the purpose of the rental was to make a cross-country move as cheaply as possible, with the goal of transporting lots of fragile and valuable artifacts (instead of spending a fortune on moving trucks and moving insurance)? With multiple drivers, it's possible to cover a lot of miles during a single day.
Brian W. - I laugh every time I rent from AVIS/BUDGET and see them use those Dot matrix printers. While they are usually the cheapest in our town (we only have Hertz, Enterprise, and them), the thing I hate the most is that when you check their rates, they do not show you the total cost upfront; you have to go to subsequent screens to get the total price.
I have also rented from all the majors plus worked at a rental car company myself when I was first out of college and have always had good experiences with Hertz.
Yeah no. That's not how contracts work. You don't get to retroactively add caveats to an agreement to cover things you didn't have the foresight to consider.
The only recourse Hertz has here is to make the case that the driver had to have used the vehicle in ways NOT actually permitted by the agreement, regardless of the unlimited miles. And that has to be done in a court.
There's likely more to the story here, but that doesn't justify Hertz's action in the moment.
No, you can't go after someone for something the contract clearly permits. You certainly go after someone for something it doesn't.
Without proof, that's tougher to do, but you're also kidding yourself if you think there aren't courts out there that would reasonably accept on the balance of probabilities that driving this much in such a short period isn't realistically possible within the terms of the contract, unlimited miles issue aside (and irrelevant). This is a civil case, not a criminal one, and the burden of proof is far less stringent here.
I am guessing that you mostly fly. As a serious road tripper. I have driven over 833 miles in a day many times. No, I haven't done it for 30 straight days, but I can imagine some people have.
It seems that there are lot of comments on here from people who mostly fly, and are not hard core road trippers. My wife and I are hard core road trippers, and we have had many days over 833 miles. No, we have not done that for 30 days straight, but it is certainly possible. I have personally driven over 1,080 miles in one day just by myself without switching drivers. I think the biggest issue that might "get the guy" is that there might be something in the contract about required maintenance if you exceed "XXXX" miles. It is possible that he stopped for oil changes at Jiffy Lube or something, but we don't know. Brakes are not likely an issue, as there is relatively little brake use on long highway trips. Hopefully he did a tire rotation or 2 somewhere along the way.
I use a limo driver that I know to take me to and from the airport. He only does airport rides within the metro area and he puts 150k miles his car every year just by doing that. It may sound crazy but some people work with their cars.
Hertz is still a cartel and should immediately be shut down. Anybody actively participating in fraudulent acts should be prosecuted.
I won a credit card dispute with them over a fee they decided to make up and wasn’t in the contract, and they still had the gall to send me to collections.
This would have been an easy win for Buttigieg but he had racist bridges to deal with.
@Brian W
You're making an unfounded assumption that he violated the contracted, which we don't know. What we know for sure, is that Hertz promised unlimited miles.
Now let's assume that it is true that the renter violated terms-- even then Hertz looks bad because they need to professionally communicate their policies and their violations to customers without getting angry and threatening to call the cops. That's my opinion in any case
1) You can't just retroactively change the terms of a contract! If it says "unlimited miles" and lacks any caveats, then it's unlimited miles. Not 10,000 or any other made up figure. Yet another example of Hertz' rotten, nasty and hostile behavior.
2) The renter is one of those creeps who ensures that none of us can have nice things. 25,000 miles in a month? Seriously? That doesn't just happen. He clearly set out to take advantage of the situation and made sure to hit it hard. Good for him, sure. But he knew damn well what he was doing. 833 miles per day, every day? Come on. Grifters like this lead us back to the days when everyone was charged by the mile in a rental car (back when I was a kid).
Was thinking the same thing.
Asking a question:
Do car rental franchisees bear the cost of the product (e.g., "cars they rent") ? And if so, do they "care" more if there is higher wear and tear than a typical corporate employee would -- specifically because it hits their bottom line?
Obviously the renter was doing something sketchy. No hertz can't charge 10k on his card but it isn't a stretch that the renter had violated the contract in some other way and could be held liable if its proven.
"Unrelated to the absurd behavior of the Hertz employee, I can’t help but wonder how on earth this guy drove 25,000 miles in a month?!"
Maybe he drove around the world.
Stranger things have happened...
What Hertz did was the purview of the DOJ, which should have put Trump in prison over a year ago, and the FTC, not so much the DOT. But keep trying to pick on a throughly effective politician.
A vehicle can EASILY be driven that much in a month, if it was being used for commercial purposes such as food delivery, ride-sharing, etc. and if it was being shared amongst multiple drivers and used around the clock. I've been picked up by ride-app services in cars that were obviously rental cars (can still see that bar-code sticker on the windshield) and even the drivers admitted as such. They even stated that the car is "shared" to maximize its use.
would be great if this becomes a TikTok challenge a la even going Ferris Bueller style. Let's get to 50k in a month. If I win the lotto I'll buy the car roller things and get to a cool 60k miles, maybe 75 if I can really gun it.
The backstory is crucial here. If the customer drove 25,000 miles in a month for personal reasons, that’s within the realm of possibility. However, if the vehicle was used for commercial purposes, like Uber rides or was shared with other drivers to operate 24/7 for Uber or Eats, this constitutes a breach of contract. In such cases, depreciation should be charged per mile, in accordance with the rates established by the relevant government travel website of the state where this occurred. As per the federal IRS guidelines for 2024, the depreciation rate is 30 cents per mile.
I don't think hertz want more attention to this story. I doubt it's worth it to them to go after anyone. The resources they would need is not worth it. Imagine there actually was a good reason for the 25k miles. While doubtful stranger things have happened. Like what if he was driving orphans across the country multiple times. Think how that will look for hertz. The cost to the right now is wear and tear on a car. Not really a big deal.
Some rental companies make a business of renting to Uber drivers but its a separate program with different rates to compensate for the car being used as a public conveyance.
If he did then he all but certainly violated the rental agreement since every one I've seen prohibits taking the car out of the county (with some exceptions for Canada and Mexico).
It wouldn't require retroactively changing the agreement to assess an additional charge if the renter failed to abide by the agreement, such as by letting other people who weren't authorized to use the car.
However that doesn't justify how the agent went about dealing with the issue. That's a result of poor management that either doesn't have a procedure in place for situations like this or failed to ensure this agent knew and follow them.
Agreed but it was incumbent upon Hertz to make a good faith inquiry of the facts which substantiated that there had been a violation of the rental agreement for which they were entitled under the rental agreement to assess an additional charge before attempting to do so.
It's ~3000 miles coast to coast, so he would have to have made several trips for that to add up to 25k
I love how almost everyone in the comments has said the renter “obviously” and “clearly” violated the agreement by “surely” using the vehicle for commercial purposes. Yes, entirely possible and perhaps likely, but whatever happened to innocent until proven guilty? Frankly, even if you did DoorDash or Lyft 24/7 across multiple drivers, you’d be hard pressed to put 833 miles on a car in a day. The average Lyft/Uber trip in the US is just 8 miles. At a very conservative estimate of 15 minutes per trip, you’d have to do 96 trips a day and you’d barely get to 768 miles. That of course doesn’t leave a single minute for switching drivers, getting fuel, potty breaks, waiting for a late passenger... you get the idea. I suspect on DoorDash the potential daily miles is even lower as the driver is constantly having to stop and go inside restaurants to pick up food, run to people’s doors to deliver said food, etc. Most food is delivered just a few miles from the restaurant of course.
If you do the math on using the vehicle for *that* type of commercial service, it doesn’t add up at all.
I regularly rent cars with my job and it’s not at all uncommon for me or someone on my team to put 500-700 miles on a rental in 2 days. Sure, that’s nowhere near the daily miles driven on this car but it’s just shocking the way people have jumped to conclusions here, seemingly without thinking the logistics through.
I just read this and think that uber-mill was in play, acquire vehicle, a pool of drivers, and a few driver accounts...boom. Do this at scale, maybe you could hit the limit where the car owner says - impossible! Then it is the company that owns the most expensive piece, the metal, hits the pause button.
It’s possible to drive that much when you’re shuttling fake ballots between DC and the various battleground state drop boxes. Unfortunately, this time it was TOO BIG TO RIG!!! God Bless Donald J Trump!
Vulgar, misogynistic and overtly racist comment. Right in line with today's liberal party!
You're right. But no evidence of this was cited in the video; only the agent deciding to levy a $10,000 charge. Hertz can't just do that without something justifying it in the rental agreement. While I agree that the guy is sketchy as hell, Hertz didn't seem to have anything on him.
Oh look! Another dipshit trying to turn a non-political post into a political one.
That's only a little over 200 miles/day. Which is very plausible and not unusual at all. Which is probably why it never sent flags up for Hertz.
Franchise manager probably freaked as that vehicle's value just tanked. He clearly was wrong in arguing with the passenger but should have asked him how he drove so much. Lots of bad press and now Corporate has to apologize but we are all left with questions on how this person drove so much in one month.
There is an "Ordinary Wear" clause and says that if you exceed 3,500 miles driven in a 30 day period, your rental priviledges may be revoked due to excessive wear and tear. But I didn't find whether they can charge you for excessive wear and tear.
It's not realistically possible to put that many miles on a vehicle for Uber/food deliver in a month, even if multiple people are sharing the car to utilize it 24/7. You really have to be hauling a$$ on long stretches of highway without stops to get this type of mileage.
The math isn't mathing. Most ride share/delivery rides are short. You have downtime between requests (especially at certain times of day). If you don't have a ton of downtime, you're probably operating in a large city where you just aren't going to be able to drive especially fast. There's just no way you end up averaging 35mph 24/7 for a month straight doing this.
Hertz irritates me another reason sometimes.
I found that some staff are pushing more than the competition to “upgrade” you of sorts, like pushing you to take a Tesla 3 where, as a then novice to Teslas, I found that one of the dual motors was not working. This left the car driveable, but it was not a Tesla 3 in a fully functional condition a customer would expect. At the same station, I was once actively convinced to change to a similarly sized different car that consumed considerably more gas than the one I had
booked.
It seems that the staff at that station try a bit too hard to push vehicles that sit on the lot for too long. Lessons learnt…
Has anyone confirmed that the odometer malfunctioned. Very possible that it added miles.