Connect Hertz Vent

Simon11

For thoughs that don't know, Hertz Connect is a car sharing scheme who have a range of cars in London and other world wide cites. Below is the e-mail, I have sent to them.

I would be interested to hear what you have to say about them or about the e-mail.




Dear Customer Service at Hertz Connect,

I'm really starting to loose my patience with your company. I've been a member of your scheme since September and have had nothing but problems.

I have decided to list the problems faced so far with my experience at Hertz,

-First trip in a Hertz car, I had issues with reversing. Contacted customer call centre who had no knowledge of how the car works and had no access to the car manual. After 15minutes of talking with the customer services, I figured it out, by lifting the gear stick. Surely all customer services call operators should have basic knowledge of how to drive the car?

-A couple of times when booking online in September, I would book the car at 3pm, then after going through the booking process, the computer would change this to GMT+1, so therefore the car would be booked an hour later at 4pm. This was very confusing and I had to speak with your customer services numerous times to sort out the issues when a wrong booking had been made. I also had to contact the customer service after I had been overcharged £10 due to cancelling the session as you had made a mistake with the booking times.

-When booking the car 2 weeks ago, the key wouldn't start the car. So once again had to call up customer services and after a while was informed that it was due to the vehicle locking system and I would therefore need to turn the steering wheel in order for it to work. More hassle and time lost…

- I’d also like to note that every car I have drive has been dirty with cake, rubbish and mud inside.

While all these issues have been sorted, there has still been a huge time involvement in sorting this unnecessarily hassle out. Do note that I’ve only booked a car on 7 occasions……………..

The actual reason for writing this e-mail is due to the problems I had when hiring a Fiat car from ****** on Monday 22nd November. Note beforehand there are 2 fiat cars at this site along with a semi auto fiat.

On Monday 22nd November, I booked the regular Fiat at 5.28pm with the hour session starting at 5.45pm.

5.28pm receive a text saying my regular Fiat is waiting for me. Fantastic I thought!

5.30pm I receive a text saying my car has been changed to a semi auto. I refuse to drive this car, as I have never experienced driving a semi auto and wish to drive a car I have driven before. Note that:
-In the text there wasn’t given a reason for why my booking had been changed. Nor do I understand why It couldn’t have been swopped to use the other regular Fiat.
-Why didn’t customer service contact me via the phone to inform me of this change? Surely it’s only polite?
-Finally, It would be very unusual for a car to go out of service in 2minutes, so why therefore was the car still available to book?

Refusing to drive the semi Auto, I proceed to call up your customer services on the 0870 number. While on the phone I was waiting outside, shivering in the cold…….

Now; this phone call to your customer service department took over 13minutes and this has cost me over £5.17 on my phone bill. Great, so you switch the cars without my notice and decided to double the cost for hiring the car.

So I’ve now paid £3.95+£5.17= £9.12


However, that’s not it………………. Not with Connect Hertz!




A Fiat costs £3.95 an hour, so therefore I expect my bill to be £3.95

Nah, I get charged £4.95 with the extra £1 due to “Reservation made by a Manager” I assume this “reservation made by a manager” is due to the customer service changing my car to what I had originally wanted in the first place?

The grand total to drive a Fiat for an hour comes to a mighty £10.12

:mad:

vikingaero

I think it's a balance of poor service and your own issues as a driver.

Simon11 wrote: »

First trip in a Hertz car, I had issues with reversing. Contacted customer call centre who had no knowledge of how the car works and had no access to the car manual. After 15minutes of talking with the customer services, I figured it out, by lifting the gear stick. Surely all customer services call operators should have basic knowledge of how to drive the car?

Most reverse gears are lift or push down to get into reverse. Not rocket science.

A couple of times when booking online in September, I would book the car at 3pm, then after going through the booking process, the computer would change this to GMT+1, so therefore the car would be booked an hour later at 4pm. This was very confusing and I had to speak with your customer services numerous times to sort out the issues when a wrong booking had been made. I also had to contact the customer service after I had been overcharged £10 due to cancelling the session as you had made a mistake with the booking times.

Agreed web developers being paid in crack cocaine and not testing their systems.

-When booking the car 2 weeks ago, the key wouldn't start the car. So once again had to call up customer services and after a while was informed that it was due to the vehicle locking system and I would therefore need to turn the steering wheel in order for it to work. More hassle and time lost…

I've driven hundreds of hire cars over the years and every one has a steering wheel lock that you jiggle. I don't know of a modern car that doesn't have this feature.

- I’d also like to note that every car I have drive has been dirty with cake, rubbish and mud inside.

That's the nature of these city car operations. They don't get cleaned as often.

The actual reason for writing this e-mail is due to the problems I had when hiring a Fiat car from ****** on Monday 22nd November. Note beforehand there are 2 fiat cars at this site along with a semi auto fiat.

On Monday 22nd November, I booked the regular Fiat at 5.28pm with the hour session starting at 5.45pm.

5.28pm receive a text saying my regular Fiat is waiting for me. Fantastic I thought!

5.30pm I receive a text saying my car has been changed to a semi auto. I refuse to drive this car, as I have never experienced driving a semi auto and wish to drive a car I have driven before.

A semi-auto is just a manual car without a clutch. Just 2 pedals - push n go. It's even easier than an automatic for most people. If you can't drive a semi-auto then you really need to evaluate your driving abilities and licence.

Simon11

"Most reverse gears are lift or push down to get into reverse. Not rocket science."

Funny that, because the operators didn't have a clue... I've only driven 2 cars before I drove that one, so how am I suppoed to know? Previous ones just slotted in like other gears.

The fact is that I paid to hire a manual car, and they at first failed to deliver. Then it cost me money to sort the issue out, even though they had the equivlant car there.

Bass_2

"First trip in a Hertz car, I had issues with reversing. Contacted customer call centre who had no knowledge of how the car works and had no access to the car manual. After 15minutes of talking with the customer services, I figured it out, by lifting the gear stick. Surely all customer services call operators should have basic knowledge of how to drive the car?"

As someone who used to work for a car hire company, most fleets are made up of over 50-60 different makes and models of cars. You can't expect a customer service agent (who may not even drive) to know everything about every car on their fleet.

While you might have some valid issues in your complaint, I can't see this being one of them!

Simon11

Thanks Bass

I would take a guess that there are around 5-10 different types of cars in the fleet, however the main two are the fiat 500 and Alpha Romero. I can now understand why they wouldn't know much about the cars, but they should at least have access to an online car manual?:o

Steer73

I doubt that the dumb staff have even heard of the "Alpha Romero"!!!

Simon11

Been called by the customer services today. They were very nice and have refunded my last journey plus given an extra £10 as a gesture of food will