Hertz Rent A Car Washington D.C. Dulles Airport Incompetent, lying, rude employees at the D.C. location Washington District of Columbia
On the Dec 23, 2008 I had the misfortune of walking into a Hertz car rental location at the Dulles airport. I waited in line for about 15 minutes and finally got to someone to check out my reserved car. Little did I know the fiasco that these people had in store for me...
The first guy was just plain rude. In addition to his rudeness he sent me and my girlfriend out to a car a the end of the freezing cold lot which we drove to the front gate. The man I the front gate took it upon himself to also be rude while telling me I was in the wrong car. I told him this was in the space that the rep sent me to to which he repeated "You're in the wrong car", told me to turn around and go back, turned around and walked back in to the booth. We put the car back in the spot and walked back, waited in line again and got a second rep who sent us back out to the end of the freezing cold lot to a car whose battery was dead. I walked back in to the station, waited again and got a third different rep who "upgraded" me to a "better" car. Their definition of better = faster and way less fuel efficient by the way. 3rd time's a charm though because this car actually worked and was acceptable to the "gate master".
Everything seemed to be ok with the car. I returned the car on Dec 29, 2008 between 4am to 5am as per my reservation time, did what the announcer said; took the mileage, left the keys in the ignition, gathered all of my belongings and waited for a shuttle to the airport terminal. After about 15 minuted of standing on the curb with a few other customers, staring at a broken down shuttle right at the pickup curb and two "out of service" shuttles with their drivers just sitting in them...a shuttle with a surprisingly pleasant driver showed up. I thought I was finally finished with all of this, but...
About a week later today I realized I was being billed about $63 a day from Hertz. Thinking something was wrong I contacted my credit card company to inquire. They said I needed to contact Hertz. Within an hour of talking to them I got an automated call from Hertz asking me if I still wanted to keep the car out past the week that it was already overdue...I was confused. I turned it in and recorded the mileage on the 29th like they said to do. I called Hertz customer service and finally got someone after being on hold for 15 minutes. He said I needed to talk to the Dulles manager where I rented the car...
After about 3 calls and 2 messages left on the Dulles direct line I finally got someone around lunch time who put me on hold a few times and then accidentally transferred me to the front desk. They told me they were going to look for the car on the lot and then call me back shortly. I never heard back...what a surprise. I called and left a few more messages until 6 pm PST. I finally got a hold of A person in the parking lot who told me the manager had left already and that he, of course, could not help me and he proceeded to give me the manager's info during my enraged yelling. I was absolutely beside myself. By the time I will be able to call in tomorrow morning Hertz will have already posted the 8th false charge to my credit card.
I absolutely cannot believe how ridiculously incompetent these people are. I have never dealt with a whole branch of a company that has been this purposely infuriating. I will most definitely be filing a claim with the BBB against these people for this horrendous experience and will NEVER do business with Hertz again. I exhort others to think very long and hard about their future business with these people because from what I've heard this isn't an isolated incident.
Ac_slater
foothill ranch, California
U.S.A.
1 Updates & Rebuttals
Ac_slater
foothill ranch,California,
U.S.A.
Hertz Rent A Car Washington D.C. Dulles Airport Incompetent, lying, rude employees at the D.C. location Washington District of Columbia
#2Author of original report
Wed, January 07, 2009
On the second day of this issue I tried to contact the manager of the office like the parking person told me to do. He never picked up, and never called me back even though I left messages. I called Customer Relations and sat on hold for about 30 minutes until I got through to someone. I pleaded with them to help me. The rep was very pleasant and had actually told me the car that was in question had already been rented back out on the 3rd. THE 3rd!!!!! That is exactly 2 days before I even started to call these people. They were trying to "find" the car on the lot so they could stop the pending charges (not posted charges as I previously stated, but still obnoxious none the less) piling up on my credit card when they new full well the car had already been rented out again. The Customer Relations rep also gave me the name and number of the regional manager over the guy that refused to call me back. I called him, of course I didn't get an answer, and left a message. However, this guy did call me back after about 30 minutes. Said everything has been fixed and that the charges would be erased and quoted me an final charge $30 over what the amount should have been. I hung up without thinking about it but realized the amount was way off. I immediately called him back and amazingly got a hold of him right away, asked him why the extra $30 charge to which he said "did you bring the car back with a full tank?" Without even knowing that I returned the car, they were by default charging me for a full tank of gas plus their ridiculous "service fee"...basically they charge you 8 or 9 bucks to have someone put gas into the car. I told him I most definitely had and he adjusted the charge to the proper price. I will never do business with these people again...and I'm going to make dang sure no one I know ever does either!