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A.I. Is Making Sure You Pay for That Ding on Your Rental Car

nytimes.com

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Re: A.I. Is Making Sure You Pay for That Ding on Your Rental Car

#51

Post by jppj »

pbbbt wrote: post #44
josephg wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> in this case its at least impartial and the scans are transparently available. Whenever I rent a car, after getting the keys I walk around the car and take photos of it on my phone from every angle. If I notice any scratches or dents, I tell them. But I still keep the photos, just in case. Then I do the same when I return it. That way if - at any point - they say I damaged the car, I have timestamped photos. It fee…

I do the same, but it didn't help me - Hertz charged me for several hundred dollars while I was flying back home, the same day after dropping off the car. Turns out, you can send them all the pictures you like - all they did was send me a work order for scratches + repaint in a poorly specified location, with no comment on the pictures. No amount of emails or phone calls asking them to indicate where on the car was s…

It's always good to have that paper trail for if it indeed does end up as a real dispute. Not car rental but a similar experience with eBay where a scammer shipped an item to an address in my city but not mine, apparently a common technique. I had DHL's email confirming this, and if thinking I doctored it it isn't a difficult call to DHL to verify, but all claims to both ebay and Paypal were denied despite definite proof. More than half a year later I finally got the charge back presumably thanks to having the paper trail for the credit card company.

Naturally I closed both accounts after this experience (the whole point of PayPal was to have protection in these cases...) but I suspect almost all companies are optimized for reducing support costs even if it means just a few lost customers.

Re: A.I. Is Making Sure You Pay for That Ding on Your Rental Car

#52

Post by atq2119 »

anonym29 wrote: post #45
c0nducktr wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't worry, they'll probably make signing up for binding arbitration part of the rental agreement, conveniently having the arbitration decided by someone who sides with the company 99% of the time. It's all good though. They're certainly not scamming you.

What's weird is not that companies would want to try to be greedy, but how society has socially normalized not even reading important, binding legal contracts with real consequences, and just signing them without much, if any, serious consideration of the ramifications of what we're agreeing to.

What's actually weird is how society normalized binding contracts that are far too long to be reasonably read by the people they are supposed to be binding to.

A well functioning legal system would throw out everything in those contracts on that basis alone.

Re: A.I. Is Making Sure You Pay for That Ding on Your Rental Car

#53

Post by esseph »

tekla wrote: post #48
woodruffw wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Is basic ass covering weird? The point was that basic ass covering isn't good enough; my visual scan and phone photos aren't going to match what a machine designed to find defects can do. (I think everyone does - or at least should do - what you do. I certainly do.)

I would need examples of the defects that this machine would find that a) would matter enough to bother with and b) not be something a human could bring up arbitrarily too if they happened to not like me.

In theory if the success rate is high enough, it will find more than most humans will.

Edit: And as another poster said, this means they get to double dip by depreciating the asset and charging the customer for that wear.

Re: A.I. Is Making Sure You Pay for That Ding on Your Rental Car

#54

Post by zippyman55 »

I had the automatic insurance and got a flat ten miles outside of anchorage. Before cell phones. No way was I getting out of the car as it was dark and I was worried about things like a large moose. I drove the car back with a very smoking rim and happily turned the car in.

Then 20 yrs later, I rented from hertz a car with balding tires with the steel belts showing thru the worn tires. I did not catch that, as the garage I reviewed the car was DARK. Unfortunately, my destination did not have a nearby Hertz location. My mother in law entered the picture and after several “may I speak to your supervisor” we escalated pretty high and the next day, a flatbed truck showed up with a car for me and they took the other away.

Re: A.I. Is Making Sure You Pay for That Ding on Your Rental Car

#55

Post by ashoeafoot »

remram wrote: post #31

How does that hold up? If I return the car, the attendant inspects it, and I go home... then later I receive a bill about a scratch that the attendant didn't point out and that I cannot possibly inspect on the car... why would I possibly pay up? How could anyone litigate if I disagree and the car has been rented again? It would make a lot more sense to scan the car immediately when I return it, point out the damage,…

Why not do it via cellphone ?

Re: A.I. Is Making Sure You Pay for That Ding on Your Rental Car

#56

Post by const_cast »

c0nducktr wrote: post #41
remram wrote: post #31

How does that hold up? If I return the car, the attendant inspects it, and I go home... then later I receive a bill about a scratch that the attendant didn't point out and that I cannot possibly inspect on the car... why would I possibly pay up? How could anyone litigate if I disagree and the car has been rented again? It would make a lot more sense to scan the car immediately when I return it, point out the damage,…

Don't worry, they'll probably make signing up for binding arbitration part of the rental agreement, conveniently having the arbitration decided by someone who sides with the company 99% of the time. It's all good though. They're certainly not scamming you.

Lately it feels like the most reputable and large companies are even running scams. The US feels filled to the brim with incredibly convoluted scams. We're innovating new ways to scam people out of their money every other day.

Man, just sell a product or service and be normal.

Re: A.I. Is Making Sure You Pay for That Ding on Your Rental Car

#57

Post by const_cast »

tcoff91 wrote: post #47
pbbbt wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do the same, but it didn't help me - Hertz charged me for several hundred dollars while I was flying back home, the same day after dropping off the car. Turns out, you can send them all the pictures you like - all they did was send me a work order for scratches + repaint in a poorly specified location, with no comment on the pictures. No amount of emails or phone calls asking them to indicate where on the car was s…

Your mistake was renting with Hertz. This is the same company that literally got their customers arrested for grand theft auto due to negligently reporting cars stolen that had in fact not been stolen.

All rental car companies devolve into poorly-run scams. My pet theory is they're actually renting the cars at a loss to stay competitive, and then they need to con the money back to stay afloat.

Re: A.I. Is Making Sure You Pay for That Ding on Your Rental Car

#58

Post by woodruffw »

tekla wrote: post #48
woodruffw wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Is basic ass covering weird? The point was that basic ass covering isn't good enough; my visual scan and phone photos aren't going to match what a machine designed to find defects can do. (I think everyone does - or at least should do - what you do. I certainly do.)

I would need examples of the defects that this machine would find that a) would matter enough to bother with and b) not be something a human could bring up arbitrarily too if they happened to not like me.

This is a lot more complicated than assuming that a machine will find things more consistently than a ~minimum wage employee, especially if the latter isn't motivated to screw you.

(It's also far from the original point, which is purely about symmetry.)

Re: A.I. Is Making Sure You Pay for That Ding on Your Rental Car

#59

Post by user32489318 »

remram wrote: post #31

How does that hold up? If I return the car, the attendant inspects it, and I go home... then later I receive a bill about a scratch that the attendant didn't point out and that I cannot possibly inspect on the car... why would I possibly pay up? How could anyone litigate if I disagree and the car has been rented again? It would make a lot more sense to scan the car immediately when I return it, point out the damage,…

IMO this is exactly how it works without the Ai already. I have had a pleasure of renting a plentitude of cars all over the world, and would say that in 10-15% cases there will be reason to withhold or try to withdraw money for “various car damages”, “traffic violations”, “empty gas tank”, .. It doesn’t matter if this is pre-war Ukraine, spain, turkey, small company, large corp,.. Now they just have a tool for that.

Psa: in most places they would try to scam you by removing a small piece of trim (under the rearview mirror, below bumper,..) and on your return claim it as a damage. That’s why you need to take a video and pics while taking the car. This trick saved me probably tens of thousands of dollars by now.

Re: A.I. Is Making Sure You Pay for That Ding on Your Rental Car

#60

Post by josephg »

pbbbt wrote: post #44
josephg wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> in this case its at least impartial and the scans are transparently available. Whenever I rent a car, after getting the keys I walk around the car and take photos of it on my phone from every angle. If I notice any scratches or dents, I tell them. But I still keep the photos, just in case. Then I do the same when I return it. That way if - at any point - they say I damaged the car, I have timestamped photos. It fee…

I do the same, but it didn't help me - Hertz charged me for several hundred dollars while I was flying back home, the same day after dropping off the car. Turns out, you can send them all the pictures you like - all they did was send me a work order for scratches + repaint in a poorly specified location, with no comment on the pictures. No amount of emails or phone calls asking them to indicate where on the car was s…

If it went to arbitration, the photos would have helped. At the end of the day, it’s not really up to hertz whether hertz is breaking the law. It’s up to the small claims court. (Or whatever it’s called in your part of the world).

Whether you can be bothered or not is of course another question.

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