A “longtime” Hertz customer says he is “done” with the car rental company after he claimed that the AI-powered damage detection system improperly flagged a nonexistent mark on the vehicle — even though video that he filmed immediately afterward appeared to back up his claim.
When angry customers sought to dispute the claim, they were unable to immediately reach a customer service rep.
“The link they send you does NOT allow you to submit a dispute. Calling customer support? Useless. They said they can’t do anything, even when I told them I have clear video evidence of the car being undamaged at the exact time the damage was claimed,” one customer said.
No matter how the inspection is performed, it should not be done without the customer present.
Also if the car is moved after the customer returned it, the damage could have happened while the car is moved. Or for other reasons after the customer returned the car.
I don’t see how an AI scanning or even a human evaluation at a later point in time can be legally binding?
I bet this shitshow doesn’t happen in EU, because I don’t think it would be legal here without the customer present.
It might. I rented a car for one day in Belgium from. A week after I got back to the US I got a letter saying I had badly scraped the rims and was being charged $1500. I emailed them and challenged it, and they said, “oh that was a paperwork error on our part, don’t pay it.” Not sure what would have happened if they had tried to fight me.
Could even just be their policy to try that all the time (or some random % of the time) and just back down any time a customer pushes back. Which is fucked up, but they might have never actually fought you on it because it was just meant to get free money from those who wouldn’t push back and just pay it.
Every type of insurance company does that BS. Always fight it. When they push back, fight even harder.
And the less regulation, the more this shit happens and people don’t have the time or energy to fight it. Probably never happens on their corporate accounts, because then it’s retained corporate law firm vs retained corporate law firm.
But standard retail customers? Even if only 10% don’t fight back, huge profits, and the CEO can buy a bigger jet.
Reminds me of this
https://creators.yahoo.com/lifestyle/story/new-smoking-sensors-are-triggering-500-fees-for-non-smoking-hotel-guests-210033335.html
“Alternative revenue streams”
Weird. This sound awfully like fraud. Cause if I was tell companies to bogus charges, I would get charged.
What, we all should do is incorporate and use corporations to scam other corporations. It’s just a civil matter than.
definitely sounds like these rental companies are trying to scam people, if they scam enough people, and most dont try to fight it, they profit from it.
Maybe they can make the claim, but I doubt it is legally binding for the customer.
The difference being that just making the claim may be illegal in EU.
We have way stronger consumer protection than USA, and as you state, you received the claim in USA.