It Hertz

[fbhjr]

Back in March when we drove down to Florida for the Gulf Coast Ren Faire in
Pensacola, we rented a van.  That trip we had tires blowing out all around
us, including mythfish’s van as he drove home.
It seemed like any time that perrin_o_ravnos or I would say
“Bam!” some sort of bad car thing would happen in our vicinity.

As we drove back home, I was driving my wife’s Subaru.  I hit one of the
many pieces of debris in the road and it bounced up and hit the VW rental
van in the front grill.  I didn’t think much of it at the time, but 400
miles later, we noticed the little VW symbol was missing from the grill.

When I returned the van, I pointed it out to the guy at the Hertz place and
he said that they would send me a bill to replace it.

Three months later.

Yesterday I get this six page long letter from Hertz.  It goes on at fairly
long length about how they are very sad that the vehicle I rented was
damaged while they trusted me with it.  How, they’re sorry, but since I
declined their damage insurance I was going to have to pay for the repairs
myself.
They were long winded enough about this, that they didn’t actually get to
the amount I owed them until page 2.
As I read this, I was getting more and more worried.
“How much could a VW symbol be?” I asked.  “Was there more damage I didn’t
see?  Could the radiator have been damage behind the grill?  Did that VW
symbol clip some other component when it fell out so the engine melted the
day after we gave it back?”
And, they mentioned a big “gotcha” in it that I hadn’t thought about.  Not
only do you have to pay for the damage, you’ve got to pay them for the lost
rental time.  So, if it takes a week to fix it, you pay the week rental
plus the repairs.  I can see how that could really add up to a lot of money.

Then, I turned the page.
With great regret, they explained that I owed them:





$46.07

What?
Their insurance was $50 a day!  I had the van for 6 days!  I saved $253.93
by NOT getting their insurance.  No wonder they regret it.  They would have
cleaned up if I had taken the insurance!

Maybe you’re thinking: “But, Frank, you got lucky this time.  It could have
been much worse.  You could have really damaged the van and then you’d be
stuck with a lot more of a bill.”
But, I am not a total moron.  I did get rental insurance on it.  But, I got
it through a 3rd party so it cost me $75 instead of $300.  Granted it has a
$100 deductable so it still won’t help me here.  But, that still leaves me
more then $175 ahead of what Hertz wanted.