This is our PSA to the world! 🤗
We hope to make this world a better place by saving YOU, dear readers, from having the hellish experience SO MANY PEOPLE have had!
If you’re reading this and proceed with a Hertz car rental for yourself or your family, you have no excuse if it happens because you have now been officially notified!⚠️
We did attempt to contact Hertz a number of times and as mentioned further below, their response was fluff/nothing helpful.
Matt and I have used ALL the major car rental companies (not to mention all the local ones in various countries like Madeira)…
…and we learned the #1 rental car scam of this decade is Hertz!
After being given a faulty car…
I didn’t know—did you?!
Apparently The Hertz Scam…it’s A Thing!
We’re now wiser and we’ve seen 100s of customer stories (and there might be 1000s and 10,000 of hellish experiences out there, I haven’t had time to read them all!) all saying the same thing:
- Hertz will take your credit card and charge you extras without your permission.
- Hertz will give you faulty cars that blow out tires while you’re driving (or worse)!
- Hertz will waste your energy and time. They pretend to respond via customer service on their social media or email, but it will never be resolved.
HERTZ CAR RENTAL REVIEW
“What happened and how can I avoid it?”
For all you lovely readers, I will ONLY share the high points of the long, horrible, day-and-weeks-and-months-long story of our experience with Hertz so you don’t have to read it all! (You’re welcome!🤣)
- Hertz gives customer car with faulty tire light.
- Customer notifies Hertz of faulty car tire light.
- Hertz gives the runaround and forces customer to waste 10 hours of vacation time on the phone, writing emails, and driving to shut-down Hertz locations.
- Hertz car blows a tire while customers + children are driving on a remote road in a foreign country.
- Hertz takes hours to eventually resolve the situation in any way. (And if you’ve ever sat on the side of a road in a death trap car for HOURS WITH SMALL CHILDREN (and over dinnertime with zero food) you will know how very uncool that is.
- Hertz secretly charges customer credit card used physically at the location (clearly the CC numbers of which they did not erase but saved somewhere, which is also incredibly unsafe for customers) for things like the tire repair that they had refused to fix in the first place.
- After customer returns the car, Hertz starts charging customer more than they originally quoted for the car fiasco.
Welcome to Car Rental Scam Hell! How does that sound?😂 (Your tears will be real.)
FAQs:
“Does this happen all over the world?”
Yes! You’ve got it! There are THOUSANDS of stories like this posted.
(And yes, in the United States too! While it happened to us in Europe, we’ve now seen the endless stream of U.S.-based complaints.)
So if you too have heard of this Hertz Hell, perhaps from a friend or on social media, Matt and I are here to validate the news for you!
HERTZ CAR RENTAL REVIEW
“What happens if I ask Hertz to refund my money?”
When we absolutely asked for refunds, Hertz refused. They will try to “offer” you (like they did us) 1-2 days of a free car rental (with limitations) which as you know is SO not making it right. (Plus, why would we EVER want to get into another Hertz Death Trap again without any assurance of help?)
All your emails, phone calls, etc with their “Executive Customer Service” will feel like talking to a wall.
HERTZ CAR RENTAL REVIEW
“How do I avoid losing my money?”
Our #1 tip is simply to not play Russian Roulette and risk it with them. Just don’t use them at all and you’re good as gold! 🙂
They appeared like a convenient deal at the time but now we users know it’s turned into a scam business.
HERTZ CAR RENTAL REVIEW
“When does the alert come on?”
The exact same thing can happen to you!
You will literally be in danger and they’ll know about it. (As well as any loved ones traveling with you.)
Our tire light conveniently popped on the day after pickup, after we were deep in the middle of almost nowhere), yet…
…according to the car’s memory system, it reported right there in the log that HERTZ KNEW ABOUT IT—and purposefully turned off!—FOR TWO MONTHS straight!
(And before being knowingly given to a family with two children riding in it!😮😮)
HERTZ CAR RENTAL REVIEW
“Who should I use instead?”
EXCELLENT RENTAL CAR COMPANIES we’ve had safe and ethical experiences with are
- Avis ✅
- Budget ✅
- Enterprise ✅
We know all our readers and followers trust us and we take that seriously, so we HAVE to let you know that all this Hertz Scam is 100% true. They’re literally stealing your money and not sticking to written official agreements.
So you want to gamble away $$$$$ of your money and 100s of hours of your time, by all means go with Hertz! So much fun!🤣
So sad and dangerous with a brand people think they recognize and is therefore safe.
Hopefully this helps all of you, from today on, recognize it as the brand to AVOID!
Here for you!
– Jess and Matt
PS: To catch up on our latest travels, go to this “Adventure” page!
