Complaint Review: Hertz Corp - New Jersey Select State/Province

The Hertz Heist San Jose Costa Rica May 7th 2014

First I want to say I am in the business of knowing or at least keeping track of what is going on around me and with my Wife Michelle in a strange country I just practice basic awareness.

We landed in San Jose CR on the 6th of May about 7PM and made our way to the Trapp Family Hotel about 1.5 miles from the airport. We had reservations and spent a nice quite night there. Up in the morning we asked duty manager for the Hertz ride to come and pick us up, that took 45 minutes he said. It was more like an hour and forty five minutes. I mention that because the driver for Hertz I think is part of the crime. So was the Hotel involved, I don’t know.

The driver had black curly hair and blue eyes. 20ish in age and an “A” type personality. He took all the risks in driving in traffic. If he waved a car in ahead of him then he would speed up to keep it as close as possible. (He is a person of interest)

We do the deal with the car agency and buy all the insurance possible and get the GPS (this is interesting later). We were told that if any damage to the car occurred we would be covered. He also said “If you damage a tire just buy a new one and we will give you the cost of the tire back (interesting as we move forward).

The counter person asks that I call my bank and clear my credit card so he could put a $1,200 deposit on my card. “My Mistake” I offered to pay for the deposit in CASH and he wanted on the card so I made the call….the blue eyed driver was in the room.

We finished with the paperwork and we were outside going over our rental equipment and the person helping us was the driver from the hotel. The counter person had preset the GPS to Sugar Beach and back to Hertz in San Jose for us. The driver (that person of interest) spent 5 minutes working with the GSP when it was already set. I asked him what he was doing he said this will take just a moment (I did not expect what was about to happen) and after a moment he was done with the GPS.

The driver did a quick walk around the car with me even mentioning “should we a flat tire, here’s the spare tire and you can change it yourself” There was extra focus on the spare tire.

Now I am ready to pull out of the Hertz lot and I pull in front of a fast moving van so I just pull to the shoulder and let them pass (my bad). The car behind slowed and let me back into traffic, so I waved thanks to the Silver Nissan with the 20 something year old wearing a baseball cap with a white front and reflective silver sunglass, aviator style. During the next hour I would see this person a number of times and realized there was   another person in the back seat with a hat and glasses like the driver.

In the first 15 minutes I made a wrong turn and when I came to a traffic light I quickly got into the left hand turn lane. That is then I saw the same Silver Nissan that was to my right made a U turn from the far right lane to follow me. I did not say anything to Michelle at this point, but I knew nothing good was going to come from what had just happened.

I had no intention to let the Silver Nissan next to us I intended to speed up to put enough distance between us and maybe find the police (you know that would work “Old Gringo is worried” and the police say sure, sure we got it, been there done that.

I was a couple of miles ahead and Michelle did not like my driving so after the Silver Nissan caught up after 2 Toll Booths I mentioned it to her and said the plan was still speed.

About an hour from Hertz we get a BLOW OUT (wow what a cawinkidink) I pull over to the right and the Silver Nissan goes by and did not stop, maybe I was wrong?

We got out of the car and set to getting the tire changed (just like I was told at HERTZ!!). In about 5 minutes from behind us comes a well dressed woman in sunglasses and a hat from out of nowhere and offers to help. All three of us are trying to get the thing fixed when she says we need carpet from under the suitcases. She walks around the passenger side to the driver’s open door and leans inside, at that point I tell her to come back around and she does. (She had just had the chance to see what was there for the taking). We were still working on the car and I look up and on the other side of the road about 300 yards ahead is the Silver Nissan. I have a knife and a tire iron so I am not going to panic but I am concerned. The girl says she lives across the road….there were no houses across the road. A mound of dirt and weeds, and will go get help (her finger nails have a $50 job on them if from the USA.

I look up after just a couple of minutes and the Silver Nissan is now 100 yards away but on our side of the road. The driver in the glasses and hat is out of the car and about 50 yards away when I say to the girl and Michelle”that is the person that has been following us from San Jose.” I now have the tire iron in hand and a knife on my belt, the girl hears this and says she will go talk with the person but heads off running the other way. He sees me moving his way and returns to his car and leaves. During all this excitement the girl manages to steal our back pack.

 As we look up the girl crosses the road, the Nissan drives by and picks her up. WOW how stupid was I? We finish up the tire and throw everything back into the car. At that point here comes the Highway Service Truck (not much help at that point).

We are in the car hot and sweating form tire change and everything comes together about the morning, we were set up as far back as the Hotel and for sure the HERTZ Dealer. ***interesting NOTE she did not take the $100 + valued HERTZ GPS WOW***

Now we do inventory and that split second we lost focus on the girl she has taken a small black back pack. Thank God she did not get the brown one that was under all the luggage (Passports, DL’s and a bunch of cash).  So in hind sight she could have flipped it behind a rock or something to go back and get it later.

Well, when we finally got our head around what had happen the next time we saw police we were in a 5 mile back up due to a traffic death and they did not want to have anything to do with us or our story.

Inventory & Value of the Little Black Backpack:

$400.00 cash (Michelle likes cash)

$800 est. in silver bracelets and earrings

$40 est. vitamins

$700 in prescription eyewear (one of mine and one of Michelle’s)

$XXX the experience

$45 Backpack

$250 Samsung G3 Phone

$350 Nikon Range Binoculars

$75 North Face Jacket

$25 Roll up hat

$125 est. AT&T WIFI Hub

$175 Airfare Liberia to San Jose

$275 est. AT&T Samsung Galaxy 3 Smart Phone

$12 3 pounds of Jelly Bellies, we give them away as thanks you gifts

$100.00 some sort of drop off fee from Hertz I would think, I will pay it

We will not be going back to the Hertz in San Jose. We will fly from Liberia to San Jose then stay at a name hotel and fly out on the 16th of May. We lost over $3,000 in replacement dollars that I say should be the responsibility of Hertz Car Rental.

With all this happening we did not have the experience we were hoping for our first time in Costa Rica. We would have liked to have seen more and taken advantage of the side trips here. I am not going to buy a new tire and wait for the refund on it; we will just run on the spare. I am taking photos of the tire and will leave it with Hertz.

We will contact Hertz to see they reply and if it does not meet our needs we will post the outcome to everyone, no matter what.

As an adder we did get out and see some of the items of interest, but not that far from the Hotel. We did get to meet Walter that was set up by Victor from the Sugar Beach Hotel and had a chance to fish. We did get out with Walter the next day and Michelle and I were on Kayaks. When I got off my shorts caught and in the ocean goes our video camera and the rental car keys (O SHIX), Walter finds the camera in the surf in about 5 minutes GREAT!!!!. NOW THE KEYS, I DID NOT WANT TO CALL HERTZ, have you ever thought of being afraid or at least apprehensive to call a USA company for help. We held off, Walter said he left out the kayaks to mark the spot and at 9PM that night Walter calls and says he has the keys (does anyone know how much time he must have spent or at least was going to spend JUST TO HELP US. He could have had the car and no one would have known but Walter - GO WITH WALTER and talk with Victor at Sugar Beach Hotel.

Signed by:

Brent & Michelle

Sugar Beach, Costa Rica / Houston, Texas

5/12/2014