I travel quite a bit for both business and personal reasons.

This means I'm driving a rental car for 100+ days a year.

I've tried all the major rental brands and Hertz is a terrible experience even when they're not calling the police on you by mistake. Their systems don't work quite right, there's a bunch of hidden fees, and their customer service is lacking at best.

I swear by Enterprise and purchasing the extra insurance to cover any damages. They've done right by me as a customer across many different cities and locations.

I know that some people are always going to just buy whatever is the cheapest or whatever deal gets them the most points with credit card or whatever. And that seems to be where Hertz makes their money.

But for anyone willing to pay a little more for a good experience and less stress Enterprise is my recommendation.

These stories are awful - this wasn't just an administrative headache for people, they served real time and has real consequences.

Filing a false police report is a crime, it would be nice to see that enforced against the company in one way or another.

Once we rented a vehicle from them with a flat tire. Also, it had been electronically limited so that it could not drive at freeway speeds.

When I called customer support to deal with the issue, they hung up on me three times. (Typical conversation:

- Sit on hold for 15-45 minutes

- Hello, can I have your rental number?

- 12345-XYZ

- <click>

I told the fourth person I'd be issuing a chargeback and dumping the vehicle in front of the locked gate of their parking lot if they also hung up. They directed us to a location that couldn't accept the vehicle.

We ended up paying for one day rental or something, but at least I didn't go to jail.

As other commenters said, multiple people (probably management, execs) at Hertz should be serving time in federal prison.

From the article:

In its release, Hertz says they believe “a meaningful portion of the settlement” will be covered by insurance so ‘no big deal’ to them what they did to customers, at least for investors. Meanwhile their CEO shrugs in an included statement saying they “will not always be perfect.”

Atlanta Black Star has a nice writeup including some of the more egregious examples. One of the criminal cases didn't even get dismissed despite public statements that it would be, apparently it was finally dismissed when it went to trial in October.

https://atlantablackstar.com/2022/12/04/hertz-false-stolen-c...

A long time ago I was in a relationship where my SO took my car and refused to give it back. I called the police to report it stolen and they said that since I had lent the car to her in the past, this was a case of someone not abiding by an agreement, and it was a civil matter and I would need to retrieve the car or a PI would. This was California, so other states probably have different laws, but I would have to think for a major corporation this should be in civil court first.

This is so awful it's hard to even believe. It does feel like there needs to be some threat of a company being completely dissolved in cases like this or Equifax or other problems this big that the organization has shown no interest in stopping

Let's compare this to China where 2 executives were sentenced to death (and others to life sentences) for their role in selling tainted formula (resulting in infant deaths) and concealing it [1] or Jack Ma (of Alibaba) who just disappeared for 3 months [2].

It should be a legal requirement that a human review and sign off on any complaint about a stolen car to police. That personal (and company) should be held criminally liable for making false police reports in addition to any civil damages (including significant punitive damages) they should pay.

[1]: https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna28787126

[2]: https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-56448688

Paying fine doesn't seem enough.

Someone needs to go to jail.

> pending 30 days in jail, where she suffered a miscarriage.

Ok this is horrific, and Hertz should be ashamed of their behavior. Now, we dont have any proof the arrest or jail time caused the miscarriage, but to the extent we believe it did, can we also talk for a minute about why our executive branch/jail system is so hard on people (of both sexes btw) such that physiological distress occurs such as miscarriages or suicides?

It's completely unnecessary, I'd dare say detrimental, to getting rehabilitated.

Issues like this is why I now have high status with Enterprise/National and I will never again use Hertz. I don't care how much I get discounted, Hertz is not worth dealing with. Their entire business seems to be constructed on financial trickery and malfeasance with a side effect of sometimes renting a car to someone. They should have been fully liquidated during their earlier bankruptcy rather than allowed to continue operating, and I look forward to the day their corporate charter is revoked.

I travel a LOT, and there are very few businesses in that industry I hate, Hertz is one of them. My only times using Hertz have all ended in disaster.

This. https://viewfromthewing.com/hertz-has-the-most-insane-reason...

Really? Hertz HAS $168M?

> 364 claims

while this is indeed 364 too many, this number is still absolutely tiny. there is going to be lots of confirmation bias in this thread -- of bad interactions. whereas the very very large majority of customers are probably happy with hertz. i always have been.

don't get me wrong, someone at hertz should go to jail for this. but your chances of being one of those 364 seems absolutely tiny doesn't it? they must do a billion rentals a year.

>an average of just over $460,000 per customer.

Says a lot about law enforcement practices when being wrongly accused by them is considered so terrible, that compensation is 10 years of average income in the country.

The US is capitalism-porn come true.