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Hertz Charging a Tesla Renter for Gas Was Not an Isolated Incident

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Re: Hertz Charging a Tesla Renter for Gas Was Not an Isolated Incident

#81

Post by discordance »

TulliusCicero wrote: post #45
DangitBobby wrote: post #2

Half of the stories about billing for unused gas are clearly just theft. Why do consumers have no recourse against companies that steal from them? If I made charges to someone's card for services that weren't rendered, I'd probably go to jail.

As a general rule, people stealing or otherwise breaking the law via companies get cut way more slack than random individuals. Like, Wells Fargo set up millions of fraudulent accounts for its customers, and zero people went to jail. Even if you accept the premise that upper level management somehow didn't know, a certain level of negligence should absolutely lead to prison time when the impact is this is large.

Another classic example is from the 2007–2008 financial crisis, for which there were only two people who were actually charged for their wrong doing:

Kareem Serageldin got a 30 month sentence, and Lee Farkas got 30 years but only served 9 and was released because of his "susceptibility to COVID-19 while incarcerated at the Coleman low-security prison in Wildwood" [0][1].

Talk about a lack of culpability.

0: https://www.nationalmortgagenews.com/news/mortgage-fraudster...

1: https://www.mortgagefraudblog.com/lee-farkas-released-from-p...

Re: Hertz Charging a Tesla Renter for Gas Was Not an Isolated Incident

#82

Post by smohare »

gravescale wrote: post #32
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I generally agree with your premise, the problem is that when companies realize they can make more money through "old big company incompetence", at best it means they have no incentive to improve, and at worst in means they can maliciously overcharge and then just blame it on "incompetence". I really think government needs to enact laws that make companies compensate people for their time when they have to deal…

Yes. This is why I find Hanlon's Razor annoying (" Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity"), as it doesn't consider the higher order effect of what happens when the malicious are aware of the adage and willing to pretend to be incompetent. One obvious example: OneTrust cookie banners. They're nearly all misconfigured to have the "Reject Cookies" button greyed out or missing (or a li…

[dead]

Re: Hertz Charging a Tesla Renter for Gas Was Not an Isolated Incident

#83

Post by mbesto »

reaperman wrote: post #69
mbesto wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a huge feature of CCs that most people don't recognize. You're paying an extra ~3% to credit card companies in exchange for the ability to dispute a charge. If a merchant (in this case Hertz) accepted cash, you would get an invoice in your hand that you could dispute on the spot and just simply not pay. The reverse would be true for Hertz who could try to sue you for not complying.

They'd end up doing something like you pay $2000 in cash upfront and then you get the unused portion back at the end, and GDP would lower significantly because most people can't afford to give businesses a line of credit like this.

There'd be no market for $2000 cash upfront.

Re: Hertz Charging a Tesla Renter for Gas Was Not an Isolated Incident

#84

Post by mgerdts »

janice1999 wrote: post #5
DangitBobby wrote: post #2

Half of the stories about billing for unused gas are clearly just theft. Why do consumers have no recourse against companies that steal from them? If I made charges to someone's card for services that weren't rendered, I'd probably go to jail.

It could be worse - Hertz falsely accused hundreds of people of stealing cars which lead to felonies, arrests and jail time. https://www.npr.org/2022/12/06/1140998674/hertz-false-accusa...

I rented a car from Hertz at SFO. After my trip I tried to file my expense report and found I didn’t have a charge on my credit card and it wasn’t listed in my Hertz account. Looking at the paperwork, I saw they rented it to someone else.

Thankfully I had no interactions with the police while driving that car.

Re: Hertz Charging a Tesla Renter for Gas Was Not an Isolated Incident

#85

Post by pests »

mbesto wrote: post #29
grugagag wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was too busy to fight it off, initially called my CC and put stop on charges. Eventually they got my money.

This is a huge feature of CCs that most people don't recognize. You're paying an extra ~3% to credit card companies in exchange for the ability to dispute a charge. If a merchant (in this case Hertz) accepted cash, you would get an invoice in your hand that you could dispute on the spot and just simply not pay. The reverse would be true for Hertz who could try to sue you for not complying.

But then don't you get that back as cashback and such?

Most complaints are people who don't pay with CC are paying a premium.

Re: Hertz Charging a Tesla Renter for Gas Was Not an Isolated Incident

#86

Post by mbesto »

saagarjha wrote: post #72
mbesto wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a huge feature of CCs that most people don't recognize. You're paying an extra ~3% to credit card companies in exchange for the ability to dispute a charge. If a merchant (in this case Hertz) accepted cash, you would get an invoice in your hand that you could dispute on the spot and just simply not pay. The reverse would be true for Hertz who could try to sue you for not complying.

If you refuse to pay they're probably going to send you to collections…

Sure, but collections for something they have no justifiable reason to collect on? To be clear, what I'm suggesting is (a) hypothetical to understand the business rationale and (b) is under the premise that what is on the bill matches the service you retained. In my theoretical scenario, the onus is on the merchant to prove they've provided the service you've paid for.

The reason car rentals provide the convenience of charging your credit card without the immediate authority of you reviewing the charges is a feature of credit cards over cash, and a benefit to consumers. The other feature is that you can dispute those said charges if the merchant is also charging you for services/goods you never received (e.g., gas for an EV).

Re: Hertz Charging a Tesla Renter for Gas Was Not an Isolated Incident

#87

Post by mbesto »

pests wrote: post #85
mbesto wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a huge feature of CCs that most people don't recognize. You're paying an extra ~3% to credit card companies in exchange for the ability to dispute a charge. If a merchant (in this case Hertz) accepted cash, you would get an invoice in your hand that you could dispute on the spot and just simply not pay. The reverse would be true for Hertz who could try to sue you for not complying.

But then don't you get that back as cashback and such? Most complaints are people who don't pay with CC are paying a premium.

> But then don't you get that back as cashback and such?

Huh? You mean in the example scenario if I charge $500 for a car rental and get 2% cashback from my CC. I find out the car rental is charging me an extra $100 for gas that I never used. I'd complain because I'd lose out on the 2% * $100 difference for the $100 that my CC company gave me back as a result of the dispute charge?

Re: Hertz Charging a Tesla Renter for Gas Was Not an Isolated Incident

#88

Post by IG_Semmelweiss »

DangitBobby wrote: post #2

Half of the stories about billing for unused gas are clearly just theft. Why do consumers have no recourse against companies that steal from them? If I made charges to someone's card for services that weren't rendered, I'd probably go to jail.

This is small potatoes.

Hertz has been actually triggered false arrets of its own customers -some going to jail - due to poorly implemented software logic....[1]

And no one at hertz is going to jail [2]. They are settling as usual.

[1] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/hertz-claims-false-arrests/

[2] https://www.npr.org/2022/12/06/1140998674/hertz-false-accusa...

Re: Hertz Charging a Tesla Renter for Gas Was Not an Isolated Incident

#89

Post by coleca »

Hadn’t rented from Hertz in many years until last week. Made sure to fill the tank back up as high as it would go just in case. Get thru security at the airport and already had a $26 charge for fuel. Still working on getting this fixed. Funny how they can charge within 5-7 minutes but they take 5-7 business days to process a refund.

Re: Hertz Charging a Tesla Renter for Gas Was Not an Isolated Incident

#90

Post by Aurornis »

DangitBobby wrote: post #2

Half of the stories about billing for unused gas are clearly just theft. Why do consumers have no recourse against companies that steal from them? If I made charges to someone's card for services that weren't rendered, I'd probably go to jail.

> Why do consumers have no recourse against companies that steal from them?

Stuff like this is easy to charge back with your credit card company.

But in this case, the article makes it clear that the people were able to get the charges reversed by talking to Hertz. It wasn't necessarily convenient, but the funds were returned when a human saw the mistake.

> If I made charges to someone's card for services that weren't rendered, I'd probably go to jail.

If you entered into an agreement with someone to do business and then accidentally charged them the wrong amount, you would not go to jail. That's what happened here, as annoying as it is.

I know this is HN and we're supposed to get our pitchforks out any time a company makes a mistake, but your analogy doesn't hold. Legally, intentional theft is a higher bar than a mistake. You're right that you'd be in trouble if you just started charging random people's credit cards fraudulently, but you're not going to jail if you're doing business with someone and you occasionally make a mistake about the amount when it's time to bill them. (FYI: Billing mistakes happen all the time at scale)

If you could prove that someone in Hertz was diabolically masterminding a scheme to knowingly milk money from customers by charging EV drivers for gas, you could have a case. But if Hertz is just accidentally charging a couple people here and there for gas (as appears to be the case from the article) then that's not "stealing". It's just a mistake.

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