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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

#171

Post by saligne »

grugagag wrote: post #9

Rented a Hertz and got charged $90 a day for easy pass service whether I drove the car or not (I was camping for a week) and had no way of fighting the charges, some fine print tricked me. For such scams I vowed to never give my business to Hertz again. Ever.

avis does the same thing: they ask you if you want the ez pass to be activated and if you say yes, they put abbreviations in the fine print that indicate you agreed to their ridiculously priced "unlimited tolls" package, even though there are other cheaper ez pass related services, and because you sign the rental agreement in order to get the keys, you don't have a leg to stand on if you dispute it later. because the charge is abbreviated, it took 20 minutes between the invoice and their website to even decipher what the charges were for. if hertz and enterprise are doing it, must be an industry-wide scam.

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

#172

Post by epcoa »

listenallyall wrote: post #170
epcoa wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Furthermore in states with pay by plate as a fall back like NY and IL you can register the rental car plate for the duration of the rental. https://www.tollsbymailny.com/vector/videotolls/paytollnow/s...

This is an area where the governments are short-sighted and it's very hard to blame individual renters. Many of these states have no option to pay cash tolls anymore. Further, not everyone in a rental (often in a strange place) knows they will use a toll road, so you really can't blame people for failing to register ahead of time (either the plates or via E-Z Pass) -- plus the fact that you don't know the plates unti…

> it's not like you can pre-register a week in advance

True, although you usually have a 48 hour window to post register. Not saying this is the most consumer friendly setup, but the fees are avoidable.

> Further, not everyone in a rental (often in a strange place) knows they will use a toll road

When I end up in a such a state I reflexively register (actually use a checklist, can take care of this in the hotel room in the evening for instance) regardless of whether I plan to use a toll road or not. There’s no guesswork to this other than knowing what states I’ll be in.

Always make sure the rental car either does not have a transponder or that it is closed in its shielded box.

If you’re dealing with an agent always make sure every add on service is declined.

> Google & Apple Pay as a cashless alternative for people without an EZ Pass.

But how would that work with open road tolling?

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

#173

Post by sneak »

throwaway2037 wrote: post #127
sneak wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Stuff like this is easy to charge back with your credit card company. That's not actually true. This sort of "oh, you never have to pay for services not rendered" is mostly just a fiction. I've had multiple issues with major credit card issuers who refused to persist chargebacks when vendors screwed me. The other issue is that, even if you successfully chargeback against a vendor, oftentimes that vendor is a monopo…

> The other issue is that, even if you successfully chargeback against a vendor, oftentimes that vendor is a monopoly or duopoloy, and they will terminate your account and ban any new accounts using the same name or card number, and you'll be screwed. Did you tell that (by letter) to your district or state attorney?

What are they gonna do? Uber or Hertz don’t owe me service. It’s completely legal to fire problem customers, I do it all the time.

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

#174

Post by vkou »

jen20 wrote: post #27
vkou wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because overcharging someone isn't actually theft, and rarely rises to the level of fraud.

Why is it not theft?

Theft is physically taking your money against your will. Unless they are grabbing cash out of your wallet, or physically grabbing and swiping your card, it's not theft.

Fraud is you giving them your money under false pretenses. They falsely claim a service has been provided to you, and are charging you for it, per the agreement that you've entered.

Theft is trivial to prove and cops take you straight to jail for it. Fraud is a lot harder, because by the time it gets to the courts, they need to dig through the weeds and determine if it is deception, or just a disagreement about a contract.

(It's, uh, also called theft of services when you do it against a service provider. You may want to get in touch with your local legislative body about the unfair nature of this sort of asymmetry, but you'll be wasting your breath.)

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

#175

Post by pquki4 »

plorkyeran wrote: post #154
SoftTalker wrote: post #92

When people suggest owning an EV for daily use and renting a gas car for occasional long trips, this is exactly why that's not a attractive idea for most people. Even in the best case scenario, renting a car is a time-consuming hassle and you have to navigate high pressure tactics on buying upgrades, fuel, insurance, etc.

My typical car renting experience is that I pull out my phone, launch the app, walk to where it tells me the car is, and then get in the car and drive away. That’s for short term rentals that aren’t priced for multi-day things, but going up to ten minutes of overhead for a week rental is still only a minor annoyance. I have never encountered any sort of high pressure sales for rentals, and all of my negative car rent…

You are lucky if you can get a car in 10 minutes. Almost every time the agent would be helping other people and I would just wait for at least 10 min.

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

#176

Post by fmobus »

saligne wrote: post #171
grugagag wrote: post #9

Rented a Hertz and got charged $90 a day for easy pass service whether I drove the car or not (I was camping for a week) and had no way of fighting the charges, some fine print tricked me. For such scams I vowed to never give my business to Hertz again. Ever.

avis does the same thing: they ask you if you want the ez pass to be activated and if you say yes, they put abbreviations in the fine print that indicate you agreed to their ridiculously priced "unlimited tolls" package, even though there are other cheaper ez pass related services, and because you sign the rental agreement in order to get the keys, you don't have a leg to stand on if you dispute it later. because the…

I went to the US last year on business, and rented a car out of the airport.

Not only they could not tell me in advance how much it was going to cost, but also everything in the final invoice was abbreviated and laid out in a nonsensical way. I tried summing the values in every possible way, and it never got to the total they charged.

I'd be absolutely pissed if it was my money.

Funnily enough, rented from the same company in Germany, and the experience was completely different. Clear value, fees, easy to understand invoice.

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

#177

Post by dylan604 »

falseprofit wrote: post #143
dylan604 wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have there been any convictions in any of these false cases due to poorly written software? I get being arrested and detained in jail for any length of time is total bullshit. Unless these people cannot post bail after being arraigned, that should be the end of it. Once a defense attorney challenges the case, the DA should be dropping charges. If the DA continues to prosecute, what jury is convicting? So this "going…

What gave you the impression anyone was confused about that? You just think being taken to jail is no big deal?

"Ultimately I'll point the fault at the district attorney,"

For it to be the DA's fault, lots of other things have failed first. So I don't really see how the DA is that relevant. If devs failed by making software that doesn't work in a way that the company using it cannot keep track of their inventory in a way that makes it look like their customers have not returned items in a way that looks like it has been stolen so that they can make a report to the police who cannot properly investigate which results in someone being arrested but never charged does not make any sense for a DA to receive any blame in this situation at all. (jeebus that must be the longest sentence I've ever typed).

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

#178

Post by mbesto »

pests wrote: post #97
mbesto wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

> You're paying an extra ~3% to credit card companies in exchange for the ability to dispute a charge. I was responding to this. I also don't understand after re-reading where the "extra ~3%" comes from. If I go to the store and spend $100 on my CC, I'll get $2 cashback. I can pay the $100 off immediately with no interest for a savings of 2%. How are they getting 3% extra from me? I know I get at least 2% back on all…

The "~" is important. Most merchants are incurring anywhere from 3~6% on charges made via CC. Likewise, your actual cashback varies (for example the highest I'm aware of is BoA's 2.65% cashback) and the average consumer is likely only getting about 1.5% cashback. So there is your delta.

FYI - For people who work in payments, they know it's not as simple as this, but the point is that there is a delta between the two, and it does help pay for both of the convenience AND the ability to dispute.

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

#179

Post by listenallyall »

epcoa wrote: post #172
listenallyall wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is an area where the governments are short-sighted and it's very hard to blame individual renters. Many of these states have no option to pay cash tolls anymore. Further, not everyone in a rental (often in a strange place) knows they will use a toll road, so you really can't blame people for failing to register ahead of time (either the plates or via E-Z Pass) -- plus the fact that you don't know the plates unti…

> it's not like you can pre-register a week in advance True, although you usually have a 48 hour window to post register. Not saying this is the most consumer friendly setup, but the fees are avoidable. > Further, not everyone in a rental (often in a strange place) knows they will use a toll road When I end up in a such a state I reflexively register (actually use a checklist, can take care of this in the hotel room…

Yes, technically they are avoidable, but it sounds like you are an outlier - doubtful that lots of people spend precious travel time (especially if with family/kids) registering on government web sites. Very doubtful that many people have checklists for this purpose.

> But how would that work with open road tolling?

For one, both companies also operate GPS services so perhaps it could all be integrated. Or just have one or two lanes available for people to slow down and tap to pay (still benefit from no staffing the toll booth). Or you could have a pull-off area right after the tollbooth with QR codes to pay by PayPal, Venmo, etc.

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

#180

Post by pests »

mbesto wrote: post #178
pests wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You're paying an extra ~3% to credit card companies in exchange for the ability to dispute a charge. I was responding to this. I also don't understand after re-reading where the "extra ~3%" comes from. If I go to the store and spend $100 on my CC, I'll get $2 cashback. I can pay the $100 off immediately with no interest for a savings of 2%. How are they getting 3% extra from me? I know I get at least 2% back on all…

The "~" is important. Most merchants are incurring anywhere from 3~6% on charges made via CC. Likewise, your actual cashback varies (for example the highest I'm aware of is BoA's 2.65% cashback) and the average consumer is likely only getting about 1.5% cashback. So there is your delta. FYI - For people who work in payments, they know it's not as simple as this, but the point is that there is a delta between the two,…

I thought your original post made it seem like only CC users get the extra 3~6% for the ability to dispute. My point in the thread was everyone pays it and it ends up being cheaper for the CC holder due to cashback.
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