Nightmare with Hertz - can anyone help?

Dannyboy83

Updating this thread, I received a reply from Chris Diviney today.
Note the difference between Chris Diviney's responses and a customer service agent's response.
i.e. Chris Diviney doesn't appear condescending and actually makes you feel as though you're complaints are being taken seriously.

Dear Mr. -,

Further to our conversation last week as promised I am just emailing to let you know my investigation is going and will take another few days. I hope to be in a position by Friday to have all the facts and respond to you with a final and comprehensive answer to your query.

Thank you for your patience.

Kind regards
-

-
Manager Customer Service
Hertz Europe Service Centre
Swords Business Park
Swords
Co. Dublin
Ireland
PH: ---



Anyway, I'm hoping she will come through with a result and make it easy on both of us and I can put this thread to rest.
Otherwise this thread will likely go on for months while I go through the European courts to get my refund.

Climate Expert

There was talk of getting some europe wide small claims court going which would really help in cases like this.

What sort of European court are you going to use?

Dannyboy83

Exactly that mate, it was in the Sunday Times Business section last week - new European small claims court.

I have to make up my mind wheter I go with my solicitor here or my girlfriend's mother's solicitor in Lithuania.

My brother is a solicitor himself so free legal advice at least:D

Climate Expert

I didn't think it was up and running yet. You should do it without a solicitor, thats the whole point. Keeps the costs and complexity down.
Most companies will just concede when they get the first letter in from the court registrar.
They didn't in my case but sadly for them they lost during their day in court.

derry

To the best of my knowelege credit card companies are very much able to reverse charges and reinburrse your account if they so wish to.If the company that overcharged you wishes to contest it and get the funds returned they can pay a penalty charge of typicaly ~€30 just to inquire the issue.All the CC account holder has to say is fraudulent activity and that usuly makes the fund return to your account.If the funds are returned to your account then cancell the account and take new one with another outfit .Best to have as many tpyes of CC as possible so you can lose a few in these messes

Saves all the leg work .Bummer is less likely to work against the big outfits like Hertz

Are you sure the piture is of the same car that you rented .Its easy to get in another same colour same make from another branch outfit with a damage and ask them to piture it.Then email the pic to the the branch where you left in the car and they can claim your car was damaged.Both branches win in the scam .Could be good for you if several people in the same time period were all shown that piture and all charged for the same damage .Pop the piture up on other forums like germany consumer rights in case they have the same photo up for similar scam


Best CC for disputs they say with rented cars is AMEX who seem to take the CC side of the story of the punter

Sounds to me every which way you got scamed by HERTZ

Unfortunatly Joe Duffy doesnt for sure take every story presented to him as there are scams every where and also eastern europe doesnt rate very big with the Irish for holidays and car rental

Sounds to me you need to drop the car back one day earlier than you fly out so you can ensure there is a open attended office to drop the car to.

I will se what info I can find out from my sources some of it I might have to PM you as might be to traceable where I got it if put on the public net


anyway good luck and hopefully it works out good for you

Derry

WicklowRacer

I travel a lot to Croatia/Slovenia and I always try to schedule my flights so that I can fly into Italy, rent a car there and drive over the border into Croatia/Slovenia. The reason being is that my perception of the car rental business in these countries (for all franchises) is inherently corrupt and its only a matter of time before I get seriously ripped off.

I had always thought (naively probably) that by using a global brand like Hertz that I would have better customer service in the event of dispute. Fair play to the OP for not rolling over on this and its great to see Hertz getting a well deserved shafting from cyber people power.

As a marketing exec., I am grimacing at the damage this thread is doing to the Hertz brand :eek:

busman

For the indo on Jan 2nd.

http://www.independent.ie/business/personal-finance/latest-news/ripped-off-in-europe-heres-how-you-can-fight-back-1589235.html.

Looks like it is the same as making a claim in Ireland. Just fill out form and fill it with the registrar of your local District Court!

The article states the Denmark is the only EU country that has opted out.

Climate Expert

derry wrote: »

To the best of my knowelege credit card companies are very much able to reverse charges and reinburrse your account if they so wish to.If the company that overcharged you wishes to contest it and get the funds returned they can pay a penalty charge of typicaly ~€30 just to inquire the issue.All the CC account holder has to say is fraudulent activity and that usuly makes the fund return to your account.If the funds are returned to your account then cancell the account and take new one with another outfit .Best to have as many tpyes of CC as possible so you can lose a few in these messes

Saves all the leg work .Bummer is less likely to work against the big outfits like Hertz

Are you sure the piture is of the same car that you rented .Its easy to get in another same colour same make from another branch outfit with a damage and ask them to piture it.Then email the pic to the the branch where you left in the car and they can claim your car was damaged.Both branches win in the scam .Could be good for you if several people in the same time period were all shown that piture and all charged for the same damage .Pop the piture up on other forums like germany consumer rights in case they have the same photo up for similar scam


Best CC for disputs they say with rented cars is AMEX who seem to take the CC side of the story of the punter

Sounds to me every which way you got scamed by HERTZ

Unfortunatly Joe Duffy doesnt for sure take every story presented to him as there are scams every where and also eastern europe doesnt rate very big with the Irish for holidays and car rental

Sounds to me you need to drop the car back one day earlier than you fly out so you can ensure there is a open attended office to drop the car to.

I will se what info I can find out from my sources some of it I might have to PM you as might be to traceable where I got it if put on the public net


anyway good luck and hopefully it works out good for you

Derry

In my case I thought you couldn't issue a chargeback if its passed the time of your cc bill but I might be wrong on that. And CC companies in Ireland like AIB are very reluctant to issue chargebacks and will tell you to dispute it with the company.

If anybody has an Amex card then these lads are meant to issue chargebacks very quickly.

In future if I was renting in a dodgy place I would always take pictures of the car, any messing with the bill email the pictures wait for a few days and then go straight to the CC company and forget the hassle of dealing with some scammers abroad.

Dannyboy83

I don't have a chance to reply to the latest posts as I'm at work at the moment, however, I just wanted to briefly Thank everyone for such strong support here.

I'm really surprised to be honest, I expected a lot of people would be indifferent, but I seem to have such huge support behind me in the real world and here, so many people are really hanging on the outcome with Hertz to see if they will do the honourable thing and refund the charges, or if they will let it go to court.
Their reputation really has taken a big hit in Ireland and the UK boards too.


I was thinking if I make a webpage about this, I will need a name, here are some of the ones I was thinking about last night:
Hertz
Hertz help
Hertz hell
Hertz nightmare
Hertz kaunas
Hertz Kauno
Hertz Lithuania
Hertz Car Rent Lithuania
Hertz Scam
Hertz Rental
Hertz Fraud
Hertz Extortion
Hertz Specialūs pasiūlymai
reservations@hertz
hertz.lt
Hertz Sveiki atvykę

Lithuania Scam
Lithuania Rental
Lithuania Fraud
Lithuania Extortion

Car Rental Scam
Hertz Rent a car
Hertz value
Hertz Car Rent Lithuania
Hertz Car Rent Baltic
Baltic Car Scandal

dahamsta

Go with the old reliable, hertz-sucks.com. It's available.

(Bizarrely, Hertz used Mark Monitor to register hertzsucks.com, but not hertz-sucks.com. How stupid is that?)

adam

Dannyboy83

Good Evening Ladies and Gentlemen ,

I just received a telephone call from Chris Diviney, Head of European Customer Service.

I'm going to be receiving a full refund for the "damages" of which I was wrongfully accused.
I'm also going to be receiving complimentary voucher for my next rental due to all the drama and the stress, I think I'll donate the voucher to a charity raffle as I don't fancy renting any more cars for a while but I do appreciate the gesture nonetheless.

I want to give a massive Thank You to Boopolo for pointing out that the photographs were taken 5 days after the rental ended.
I knew I was innocent but I had started to doubt myself until the camera trick was pointed of to me and I would have had a very hard time trying to prove my innocence without that evidence.

I want to give a massive Thank You to Sharkman for providing me with Chris Diviney's details.
If I had to deal with the customer service anymore, I would have lost my mind and definitely have sued.

And lastly, I want to give a massive Thank you to Chris Diviney, the Manager of Customer Service for Hertz Europe Service Centre for personally overseeing this matter and for helping me to resolve it without having to go to court.
Chris is the reason that this issue has been resolved and that I'm not going to court.
Hertz should be grateful that they have her in management, she is a true professional and it took a huge weight off my mind when I was speaking with her because she was completely fair and at no stage condescending or dismissive.

I made my point clear to Chris that the primary reason I chose Hertz was to avoid this type of drama as I had been warned by friends and family in Lithuania about the dangers of this thing.

Lastly and above all, I want to thank all of the readers and contributors who have read this journey and supported me along the way.
This journal on boards.ie and all of you who contributed here had the main impact in ensuring Justice was served.


I'm glad I can finally put this thing to bed.
Before I finish, I want to say:
1. If you rent a car, be certain that you have Zero excess, I had (expensive) daily insurance on the car which was bypassed completely.
To be honest, it should be mandatory with any car rental.
Even though I've never been in a car accident, I'll never again leave myself exposed like that. There is just as much risk "off" the road, as there is on the road;).

2. If you rent a car, ensure there is an agent or representative present at the desk and ready to inspect the car and sign off on it before you return it. Otherwise, you are completely vulnerable to exploitation.

3. Take pictures/film of the car and fuel guage before you return it.

4. Don't underestimate the power of the internet

Our man in Havana

Well done and fair play to hertz ireland for resolving the matter.

Mr E

Well done.... perseverance paid off, and if anyone googles Hertz Lithuania, they'll find this thread. Job well done! Great result.

mimmi

Just read this whole thread - what an eye opener. As an occasssional car renter, I assume I have been lucky but then I have only hired in the UK and US.

No fear, next time - who ever I book with, I will take onboard all the advise from this thread.

Greenman

Dannyboy83 wrote: »

1. If you rent a car, be certain that you have Zero excess, I had (expensive) daily insurance on the car which was bypassed completely.
To be honest, it should be mandatory with any car rental.
Even though I've never been in a car accident, I'll never again leave myself exposed like that.

Well done, you were like a dog with a bone, I'm the same.

This Zero excess, what is the cost per day?

Thanks.

Davy

Greenman wrote: »

Well done, you were like a dog with a bone, I'm the same.

This Zero excess, what is the cost per day?

Thanks.

this might be of interest to some people.

http://carhireexcess.com/ from €2.99 a day or €59.99 for an annual policy

Dannyboy83

Just a quick update to this.

Last week I received a letter informing me I would receive
- a $100 voucher
- full refund of the damage charges

Enclosed in the letter was a $50 voucher

As of yet however, there has been no refund to my credit card.

Does anyone know how long these things generally take?

Dannyboy83

Greenman wrote: »

Well done, you were like a dog with a bone, I'm the same.

This Zero excess, what is the cost per day?

Thanks.

If I recall correctly, the Zero excess costs 16 Euro per day.
This is for a cheaper rental of course.

If you rent an expensive vehicle, your looking at upward of 25Euro per day I would guess.



Rent a car at Kaunas is 73 Euro per day
So for 7 days, it is 416 Euro
Pay the Zero excess (Super Collision Damage Waiver) and it costs E566.92
So the zero excess costs 150.92 for 7 days or 21.56 per day on an Opel Astra

Paulw

Dannyboy83 wrote: »

As of yet however, there has been no refund to my credit card.

Does anyone know how long these things generally take?

As far as I know, a refund to a credit card takes 3-5 days.

Dannyboy83

davton wrote: »

this might be of interest to some people.

http://carhireexcess.com/ from €2.99 a day or €59.99 for an annual policy

Wow!!
E3 per day, Hertz charge 700% more than that per day!?

That is amazing

Have you used this service?

Dannyboy83

Paulw wrote: »

As far as I know, a refund to a credit card takes 3-5 days.

Hmmmm..that strange.

I will leave it until tommorow and if there is no refund, I will ring Chris Deviney.

Thank you Paul.

jor el

Dannyboy83 wrote: »

As of yet however, there has been no refund to my credit card.

Does anyone know how long these things generally take?

Ring the bank and ask if there's anything in the pipeline on your card. If it doesn't happen within a few days, use the letter from Hertz promising a refund, to get the bank to intervene on your behalf.

Zynks

I would say there is a lot of admin involved in this case. Surely they don't do much reverse transactions of this kind.

craichoe

WicklowRacer wrote: »

I travel a lot to Croatia/Slovenia and I always try to schedule my flights so that I can fly into Italy, rent a car there and drive over the border into Croatia/Slovenia. The reason being is that my perception of the car rental business in these countries (for all franchises) is inherently corrupt and its only a matter of time before I get seriously ripped off.

I had always thought (naively probably) that by using a global brand like Hertz that I would have better customer service in the event of dispute. Fair play to the OP for not rolling over on this and its great to see Hertz getting a well deserved shafting from cyber people power.

As a marketing exec., I am grimacing at the damage this thread is doing to the Hertz brand :eek:

You have to inform them if your doing the part in bold, theres an extra charge for the insurance as theres an more cost involved in the process in the event of an accident.

Dannyboy83

Received my refund today from Hertz on my credit card.

At last, finished with this nonsesne.

I'll have to write a letter of Thanks to Chris Deviney.

Thanks to all

Bluetonic

Good stuff

com7

real eye opener of a thread ! shows the power of forums well done for staying with it

Zynks

Congratulations. I hope many people have followed this thread and feel inspired!

mudbingo

If you have a mastercard,Try contacting the Mastercard-" Charge Back " section-Phone them and then send in details of the Hertz problem -by post-I have a Hertz Overcharging problem from Hertz of Faro airport-hreservas@hertz.com

Dannyboy83 wrote: »

Hello Ladies and gents,

Apologies if I have posted this in the wrong section, this is my first time on the board. I signed up here as I feel I've been taken advantage of by Hertz and was hoping someone could give advice/share experiences.

My story in short:

I was recently in Lithuania on holidays, visiting my girlfriends family. I rented a car at Kaunas Airport through Hertz for 8 days, totalling to approximately 400 Euro.
I have never been involved in any type of road accident in any country where I've driven, for example I drove in Poland 2 years ago which I would consider to have a more complicated road system than Lithuania, so I took Theft and collision insurance.
I did not take the super collision insurance which would have reduced the excess to 0, as I felt the price was highly excessive at 16 euro per day, almost half the cost of renting the car per day, given that 8 days cover in Lithuania would be equal to 1.5 months in Ireland where I do substantially more travelling.

Charges were deducted from Credit card prior to my arrival in Lithuania and I signed for the car when I landed at the airport.

I travelled a distance of approximately 650km over the course of the 8 days, was never involved in any collision of any sort and returned the car to the airport a few hours prior to the scheduled time, depositing the keys and form at the Hertz desk like all other customers as the Hertz desk is unmanned on a Sunday evening.

About 2 weeks later, I received an email from the help desk in Lithuania, regarding the terms of the rental. I assumed it was just a courtesy note as there was no notification in the subject line of what was to follow.

When I read the agreement, I saw that I was going to be charged over 260 Euro for unreported damages to the car. Photos were sent on my email of the unreported damages. An accompanying charge sheet written in Excel was sent with the agreement, but it was written only in Lithuanian.

I rang the Hertz office in Kaunas Airport and made enquiries. I informed the assistant that I hadn't been involved in any collisions and told him that I could not understand the charges as they were sent in Lithuanian only.
I asked to speak to a manager and there was no manager available.
I explained that I only spoke English, Polish & Russian and did not speak any Lithuanian so I asked for the charges to be translated from Lithuanian into English, the assistant agreed and said a damage sheet which I had signed prior to my rental would be sent on my email on the next working day, detailing the existing damage on the car prior to my rental, and it would be accompanied by an English translation of the charges against me.

Needless to say, the translation never arrived. In the subsequent days, I received a garbled email stating that it was neither the assistant's duty nor Hertz's responsibility to have the charges translated into English. Futhermore, it was an Opel dealer (name/number not given) who had repaired the car and Hertz Lithuania appeared to have no insight into the process.

I asked my girlfriend to attempt to translate the charges into English, but she was unable to translate them, as she said the charges didn't seem to make any sense, and some of the terminology appeared to be specialist.
She suggested to me that coupled with the unco-operative nature of the assistant, it seemed to her like some kind of outrageous stealth tax (Paddy tax for want of a better word)

In the meanwhile, I checked my bank account and saw that I had been charged E305 extra from my credit card by Hertz. They had charged me without even giving me a chance to understand what I being charged for, regardless of disputing the charges.

I immediately rang the help desk, asked to speak to a manager and was told none was available. When I questioned the substantial charges made against my credit card - without my approval - the agent developed comprehension problems. I said I was going to contact my solicitor and was told 'do whatever you have to do'.

The assistant did not appear even remotely interested to hear that the 'unreported damage' to the car most likely occured AFTER I had returned the car to the airport car park from where I had collected it, as other rental cars were being parked in the adjacent spaces.

The charge on my credit card was E305 which would according to my Lithuanian friends would amount to a month's wages in Lithuania, it would be the equivalent of charging a client E2,500 in Ireland to fix a scratch on a car.


I've been told to ring my credit card company to prevent Hertz taking any more money for unauthorised charges, but to be honest, I'm not sure what the impact of this will be....perhaps I will be acting illegally in this situation.

I am unsure of what my next step should be now and would appreciate any advice.
I'm guessing my only step forward at this stage will be to contact Hertz Ireland and try to get some understanding of the charges etc.

I'm not sure if this is how business operates in Lithuania or perhaps it is just Hertz business culture, but I hope at the very least even if I never receive an apology, any other person who may consider taking a car from Hertz will think carefully after reading this post.

dudara

Please do bring old threads back to life.

Thread locked

dudara