Hertz car rental rip off

paperlady

Has anyone had a problem with Hertz and can they advise me how to get my money back?

I paid £260 for car rental from Naples airport. On my return, my credit card had been charged an additional £344.

While I agreed to pay for an additional driver (which annoyingly was not available on the website when booking the car so incurred an additional local service fee), I also agreed to an additional €30 to upgrade the insurance. I asked the woman on the desk if this was per day and she kept replying, no, its only €30.

Hertz are saying that because I signed the contract, I am liable and there is no fault on their side.

I have used Hertz many many times previously and have never come across this scam before. Normally they run through the contract but this time it was rushed, the woman kept shouting at us and the office was extremely hot. Instead of the previous contract on foolscap sheets, this was on a small white card which was blurred and very difficult to read.

Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated.

whatusername

Car hire unfortunately is littered with pitfalls.

You dont say how long you rented for but i do know hertz cost per day for additional drivers can be £8.00/£10.00 so if away for a week then theres approx £56 + £25 (in round figures converted from euros) = £81.

I don't think you have been ripped off maybe your cost isn't what you thought it might be.

To add sometimes you have to pay for your tank of fuel too.

stoneman

So are you saying that after examing the contract it indeed did say that the insurance upgrade was 30 euro per day? And what was this upgrade in insurance for, the added driver? If so seems rather steep but if it's possible can you scan the card, upload it to Imageshack and post it up here.
Edit: Whatusername answered while I was typing. Yes it is common now for most companies to charge for a full taknk of fuel. Can we see a breakdown of the costs.

whatusername

Sorry I misread, an addition £344. That can't be right at all unless your upgrade is £30 a day.

Unfortunately you are the mercy of Hertz if you have signed the paperwork agreeing to the charges.

zagfles

paperlady wrote: »

Has anyone had a problem with Hertz and can they advise me how to get my money back?

I paid £260 for car rental from Naples airport. On my return, my credit card had been charged an additional £344.

While I agreed to pay for an additional driver (which annoyingly was not available on the website when booking the car so incurred an additional local service fee), I also agreed to an additional €30 to upgrade the insurance. I asked the woman on the desk if this was per day and she kept replying, no, its only €30.

Hertz are saying that because I signed the contract, I am liable and there is no fault on their side.

I have used Hertz many many times previously and have never come across this scam before. Normally they run through the contract but this time it was rushed, the woman kept shouting at us and the office was extremely hot. Instead of the previous contract on foolscap sheets, this was on a small white card which was blurred and very difficult to read.

Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated.

Sounds like "Super CDW" - this is a complete rip-off and I would imagine car hire staff get targetted to sell it, or maybe get commission. There's often pressure to take it, helped by the massive excesses on the basic CDW. I wonder if this led to the "misunderstanding"?

In future get an excess insurance from the likes of insurance4carhire, usually about £50 for a whole year.

I had the small white card in Italy (Milan) when I hired from Hertz, though surprisingly there there was no pressure to take the SCDW at all there...

Good luck with Hertz but I doubt you'll get anywhere. Might be worth trying the "I've written to the consumer editor of <national newspaper> who are interested in doing a story as they've heard of similar incidents at the same office".

Bob_the_Saver

Did you read the contract, if you couldn't understand it why did you sign it?

paperlady

Thanks for everyone's feedback.

I didn't read the contract, because:

1) I've never read the contract when renting from Hertz before
2) When I tried to read it after seeing how much I'd been charged, I couldn't! The type face is so small and the print quality so poor that it is really difficult to decipher.
3) Hertz have always gone through the contract item by item in the past. Because we were being rushed, I didn't realise that hadn't been done.

More fool me.

This is just not the level of service you expect from a market leader.