Hertz Customer Stuck With A $1,367 Bill For A Car They Never Rented—35 Calls Still Can’t Fix It

A Hertz customer says they rented a sedan for one day in Seattle, returned it, and received the bill they expected. Then Hertz sent a second bill: $1,367.38 for a Jeep Compass they never rented, with a pickup before they arrived in Seattle and a return a week after they’d left. They now say they’ve spent three months and made more than 35 calls trying to fix this. They even have an email from Hertz saying the charge was a mistake and a refund had been processed. But it never arrived, and Hertz defended the charge when they pushed back through their credit card. The traveler says they’ve supplied flight tickets showing they hadn’t made it to Seattle yet when the car was supposedly rented there, photos documenting their actual location, and the records of the car they actually rented. And yet, Every time my bank reaches out, Hertz insists I did rent the vehicle and they will not be issuing a refund. Chase says they therefore cannot do anything about my dispute. Then I call Hertz and they say they HAVE issued the refund and Chase is just holding on to it. It has been 3 MONTHS of this same back and forth. They shared an October 2 email from Hertz customer relations: After reviewing our records, we can confirm that an adjustment of $1,367.38 was processed on September 29 for the removal of the duplicate rental charge that was applied to your account in error. They even uploaded this very email to their Chase dispute, but Chase told them Hertz needed to confirm the refund directly. Hertz calls this a duplicate rental charge. The customer believes somebody else’s rental assigned to their name. The refund still hasn’t arrived even though Hertz acknowledged the mistake. And the customer says they don’t have the cash, and their credit card payment is coming due. Hertz Has Billed For Cars That Were Never Rented The closest precedent is a reader I wrote about in July 2022 who reserved a car at the Austin airport but never picked it up. Hertz sent him a receipt showing he’d driven 100 miles and returned it the following evening. They charged him $91.77. He had evidence that he was in a Lyft, nowhere near the rental location, when he supposedly collected the car. Then there was the Calgary customer charged $436.50 for a red light ticket incurred before picking up their rental. Hertz recorded a 10:30 p.m. pickup as 10:30 a.m., making the customer responsible in its system for a ticket issued that afternoon, while they were still flying to Calgary.Hertz accepted that the pickup time was wrong and removed the extra day’s base rental charge. But they left the ticket charge. A $400 bill for a points rental, charged to the wrong card. A reader redeemed points and supplied a personal credit card. Hertz created a different reservation and billed his employer’s card instead. Customer service responded that they couldn’t apply points to an already completed rental, even though he’d redeemed them before it began. $920 for 96 tolls the renter said weren’t theirs. In the toll tracking case, the renter suspected someone had removed the transponder and used it in another vehicle. Hertz reportedly acknowledged the tolls weren’t associated with the rental, but directed the customer to PlatePass. $277.39 for gasoline in a Tesla. Hertz initially defended the charge on the ground that the refueling service had been provided. After coverage, they apologized and refund it. A $10,000 demand on an unlimited mileage rental. A franchise employee threatened to call police when a customer objected. Hertz eventually apologized and confirmed the customer wouldn’t be billed for mileage. What keeps recurring is Hertz defending a charge because its records say the customer owes it, even when the customer supplies evidence that those records are wrong. Hertz even once said they don’t withdraw false police reports out of fear police would stop believing them. Better Fleet Tracking Hasn’t Fixed Billing Issues Hertz’s most notorious recordkeeping failures led to customers being arrested over cars they’d legitimately rented or already returned. The company agreed to pay $168 million to settle 364 claims in 2022. I’ve written that the false-arrest problem seemed to have been addressed after Hertz brought in Palantir to help track their fleet. Their October 2022 partnership announcement described combining rental status, service orders, location and registration data to improve fleet management. So naturally jokes went to Hertz arresting the customer for not paying twice. Topics on this page