To: Customer Service, Hertz Rent A Car
Late Saturday evening, September 13th 2003, I received news at my home in New York that my step-father had died suddenly in an accident. I spent the next day scouring the internet for airplane tickets and rental car reservations so that I could get to my mom in rural Texas the next day. I found a reasonable, one way fare for myself, my husband and my four year old son to Houston, a four and a half hour drive from my mom. I proceeded to investigate rental car rates and was pleased to find a situation with Hertz where I could drop off the car in Waco, the closest city to my mom's home. I bought the plane tickets and then made the rental car reservation online with my credit card and received a confirmation number. I was very pleased with the open ended arrangement that this afforded us because I didn't know how long my family would need to stay.
When we got to Houston, we were horrified to find that our MasterCard, issued by our bank, would not be accepted by your company. We were hundreds of miles from our final destination, travel-weary and mourning the loss of a loved one.
My complaint goes in two directions. First, I should not have received a confirmation number for the car rental if my credit card was unacceptable. If I had any doubt about the legitimacy of my reservation, I would have made completely different travel plans.
Second is my disgust of your discrimination against bank issued cards. My family makes a conscious decision to not involve ourselves in debt. Your policy insists that your customers engage in an activity that is financially unwise and often damaging to personal finances. It has nothing to do with a person's ability to afford to rent a car and everything to do with the politics of debt and finance. We had plenty of money in our bank account to cover the car rental and any security deposit that you might have required.
Another company got our business, but we got no satisfaction from it. We were forced to pay four times the amount of my original reservation with Hertz in order to keep the car for a week because no other rental company had a drop off available in Waco. We were forced to limit our stay and leave earlier than we would have liked. We were forced to buy another one way ticket out of Houston, so that we could return the car, rather than a closer airport in Austin or Dallas. If I had suspected that any of this was going to happen, I would have paid more money to fly into an airport closer to my mom.
My husband has renamed your company Hurts Rent A Car.
Comments
Great letter, Christy.
I hope you also sent this letter to them. Both emailed and on paper. Luv you.
shit, i'll send them a letter too damnit, reminding them that every unsatisfied customer tells at least ten other people about their negative experience.we've made the same decision not to hold any credit cards. i use a direct debit card for any purchases that require a credit card.needless to say, Hurts Rent A Car ain't getting any of my business any time soon.i'm sorry you had to deal with that on top of a family tragedy.
:( you should call us if you ever need a ride. we're less than two hours from the big houston airport ... and not much more than that from yr mom's place ... luv*
Hey Liz, we would have called you if we couldn't get a car at all - but I certainly didn't want to put you through all that with no notice at all if we didn't have to. I didn't exactly think to have your phone number on me either. Not to mention that I couldn't think clearly at all through the rage and irrational desire to throttle the person behind the Hertz desk (I know she's just a drone and its not her fault, so I controlled myself)
**ouch**or as Ella says, "thats a hurtie"
I hope you'll let us know if they respond to your complaint!
I can tell you *why* they do that discrimination. It's because of customer complaints.Picture this scenario, using your MasterCard "Debit Card" or "Check Card", whatever your bank calls it.- Rent Car for $50/day- Hand Over MasterCard- Card is authorized for, say, $3000 (which they do, so that if they have to ding you for damages when you return the car, they can just hit your credit card)- You have, say, $4000 in your account- Only $1000 is now "available"- Your $1500 rent check hits your bank- Your $1500 rent check is now NSF- Your rent check bounces- You return the car- The authorization is removed from your account- You come home to a landlord who's tacked a "get out of the apt. you deadbeat" notice to your door.This has happened *many many* times. People pay regular monthly bills from their checking account, and don't tend to do that with their credit-cards, so, there's no significant risk of the rent-check bouncing because they over-auth'ed the credit card, but it can definitely cause problems with the debit-card style mastercard/visas.Not saying they should have handled it the way they did, I've known rental car places that would say "Hey, I'll take the card, but FYI, I'm going to auth it for $LARGE_SUM, and it's not my problem if that causes you issues"
Do you know this for a fact, or is this speculation? I'm wondering because when we did find a company that would take our card, they didn't charge us anywhere near this amount of "security". Additionally, how many people have this much available credit on their credit cards? When I had credit cards, I had excellent credit and I rarely had that kind of money as available credit.
Comments
Great letter, Christy.
I hope you also sent this letter to them. Both emailed and on paper. Luv you.
shit, i'll send them a letter too damnit, reminding them that every unsatisfied customer tells at least ten other people about their negative experience.we've made the same decision not to hold any credit cards. i use a direct debit card for any purchases that require a credit card.needless to say, Hurts Rent A Car ain't getting any of my business any time soon.i'm sorry you had to deal with that on top of a family tragedy.
:( you should call us if you ever need a ride. we're less than two hours from the big houston airport ... and not much more than that from yr mom's place ... luv*
Hey Liz, we would have called you if we couldn't get a car at all - but I certainly didn't want to put you through all that with no notice at all if we didn't have to. I didn't exactly think to have your phone number on me either. Not to mention that I couldn't think clearly at all through the rage and irrational desire to throttle the person behind the Hertz desk (I know she's just a drone and its not her fault, so I controlled myself)
**ouch**or as Ella says, "thats a hurtie"
I hope you'll let us know if they respond to your complaint!
I can tell you *why* they do that discrimination. It's because of customer complaints.Picture this scenario, using your MasterCard "Debit Card" or "Check Card", whatever your bank calls it.- Rent Car for $50/day- Hand Over MasterCard- Card is authorized for, say, $3000 (which they do, so that if they have to ding you for damages when you return the car, they can just hit your credit card)- You have, say, $4000 in your account- Only $1000 is now "available"- Your $1500 rent check hits your bank- Your $1500 rent check is now NSF- Your rent check bounces- You return the car- The authorization is removed from your account- You come home to a landlord who's tacked a "get out of the apt. you deadbeat" notice to your door.This has happened *many many* times. People pay regular monthly bills from their checking account, and don't tend to do that with their credit-cards, so, there's no significant risk of the rent-check bouncing because they over-auth'ed the credit card, but it can definitely cause problems with the debit-card style mastercard/visas.Not saying they should have handled it the way they did, I've known rental car places that would say "Hey, I'll take the card, but FYI, I'm going to auth it for $LARGE_SUM, and it's not my problem if that causes you issues"
Do you know this for a fact, or is this speculation? I'm wondering because when we did find a company that would take our card, they didn't charge us anywhere near this amount of "security". Additionally, how many people have this much available credit on their credit cards? When I had credit cards, I had excellent credit and I rarely had that kind of money as available credit.