Hertz Vienna Austria BEWARE - WARNING - Car Hire Fraud

Cris2fer

We hired a car from Hertz Vienna for the day. hertz wien innere stadt kärntner ring
(Aug 22nd 2012)

On signing for the car they told me there was some minor damage to the rear bumper and I signed to agree that this was prior to my hire period. With Hertz being such a large company, I never suspected it would come back to haunt me.

The car was parked on the street and I was told to return in there when we had finished.
There was no damage to the car when we returned the car the very same day, but 2 weeks later we have been billed £600, a £50 admin fee and received photos of a scratch on the rear of the bumper

We are now fighting the case as we didn’t take their insurance, but we do have an independent insurance. It's total fraud, as we only travelled a few miles and never at any point was the car involved in any form of scrape to cause any damage at all.

I will give you the Hertz UK Customer Relations email address which I initially struggled to find. customer-relations-uk@hertz.com
Hertz UK advised this branch is a franshise and they need to take it up with Hertz Austria
I also called the local Hertz Store in Vienna but they would not help me

WARNING! – Always make sure when returning the car, the store sign to say it has no damage. Take photos with date and time stamp when returning your hire car and keep all paperwork.

Takecareofthepennies

Have you pointed out to them that the prior damage was documented on the check-out report?

Usually, they only mark the area on a sketch of the car and then there will be a general description (e.g. "scratches on bumper"). It will not say "one 2 cm scratch at right rear of bumper" or anything as detailed as that. Therefore, it would be up to them to prove what additional damage was caused by you - which they will find pretty hard to do.

Cris2fer

Hey Takecareofthepennies

Thanks... yes I did point that out. hertz UK are doing an investigation, and it will take 2 weeks. In the meantime they have taken our money (over £600)

I posted on another forum and found 2 more people fighting the same battle. One of them replied saying they used the same Hertz branch just days after. I've emailed my car details to see if its even the same car

Apparently this is common with franchised stores... people certainly need to be aware.

Luckily we do have independent car hire insurance, which was £49 for 12 months, this saves a lot of money than taking the car hire insurance, so we will get our money back, but I still want Hertz to know what is going on so other people (who maybe didn't take the CWD Insurances) dont get ripped off

Thanks for your post

Chris

frankie

Cris2fer wrote: »

Hey Takecareofthepennies


Luckily we do have independent car hire insurance, which was £49 for 12 months, this saves a lot of money than taking the car hire insurance, so we will get our money back, but I still want Hertz to know what is going on so other people (who maybe didn't take the CWD Insurances) dont get ripped off

Thanks for your post

Chris

I'd be interested to see how your independent insurer deals with this. Please keep us informed.

I would have thought that your own indy insurer would be taking the stress out of this incident and act against Hertz on your behalf?

Mudgley

I too am in dispute with Hertz - this time Hertz at Barcelona airport who added Super Cover insurance without asking or telling me. I even asked the sales man to confirm what all the chares were on the contract before I signed as I do not read Spanish. At no point did he mention this, it was a real shock to get the invoice later through the post in English (an additonal 198 Euros for the insurance). Hertz customer service has taken over a month to answer my complaint - their service levels is 10 days. Today they came back with their response - you should have checked before you signed, the contract is binding. I'll never use them again, like you I thought they were a reputable company.