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An act of civil disobedience that I absolutely wouldn't condone might be causing significant damage in the parking lot before you get to the outbound scanner, or after you pass through the inbound scanner. How would they handle that?
An act of civil disobedience that I absolutely wouldn't condone might be causing significant damage in the parking lot before you get to the outbound scanner, or after you pass through the inbound scanner. How would they handle that?
An act of civil disobedience that I absolutely wouldn't condone might be causing significant damage in the parking lot before you get to the outbound scanner, or after you pass through the inbound scanner. How would they handle that?
The ultimate goal is to intimidate renters into purchasing as much insurance (Collision Damage Waiver, Liability, etc.) as possible, effectively doubling the cost of a daily rental.
Exactly, companies favorite thing thing to sell is nothing at all. Subscriptions, insurance, service fees...
For that matter, the car rental firms routinely bundle damage waivers/insurance products into their volume/corporate contracts and still arrive at prices below the retail base rates.
I don't think it's the insurance itself that's being sold here at all. It's more more predatory than that: it's the kind of price discrimination that squeezes a premium for "peace of mind" from the segment of their retail trade who are nervous, inexperienced, risk-averse, or financially unable to accept the small risk of an expensive event. Like a payday loan—it's spectacularly expensive to be poor.
This is being framed all dystopian, but I'm not so pessimistic. The current process is ridiculous - a random teenager in a vest with 15 minutes of training inspects the car when you check it out, and then you get a former drill sergeant when you check it back in. The current process is no less fair and Hertz is no less evil - but in this case its at least impartial and the scans are transparently available.
I don't think it's impartial: the implication here is that the same technology is not available to the renter, so Hertz can easily claim damage that was already present at checkout that an ordinary customer picture can't refute. That asymmetry seems bad to me.
The ultimate goal is to intimidate renters into purchasing as much insurance (Collision Damage Waiver, Liability, etc.) as possible, effectively doubling the cost of a daily rental.