A Man Who Hasn't Smoked In Over 25 Years Was Hit With A $400 Smoking Fee From Hertz

[mahatmakanejeeves]

A Man Who Hasn't Smoked In Over 25 Years Was Hit With A $400 Smoking Fee From Hertz

Workers Claim They Smelled Smoke When He Returned The Car

Lawrence Hodge
Yesterday 1:48PM

Rental car companies put people through a lot of bullshit. I’ve been through it many times myself. A lot of their policies or things they do are head-scratchers. From payment policies that seem to treat those with debit cards with suspicion over credit users to weird vehicle classes that don’t follow what actual car classes are, it all can be annoying. One man might have to seek a lawyer though as the LA Times reports that Hertz charged him a smoking fee, even though he doesn’t smoke.

The man, Sean Dungan, recently flew back to LA after being in Boston. Of course, he returned his rental car to Hertz at Boston’s Logan International Airport before heading home. A few days later he received a bill in the mail. Hertz had charged him $400 for smoking. Dungan, now 49, says he hasn’t smoked since his early 20s. So what was really going on?

Hertz’s smoking policy says that a customer will be assessed a $100 cleaning fee if the vehicle is returned and believed to have been smoked in. How would Hertz know? Its policy says that it determines if a vehicle has been smoked in by having an employee either:

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Dungan is still disputing the charges and refuses to accept them. As a consumer protection site that Dungan reached out to pointed out, instances of smoking fees seem to have increased after Hertz’s bankruptcy filing. Hertz is more likely taking a harsher, zero-tolerance police towards potentially dirty cars than looking to charge erroneous fees, however.

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[Firestorm49]

1. Weed?

[mahatmakanejeeves]

2. He hasn't smoked in decades. But Hertz is hitting him with a $400 smoking fee

Column: He hasn’t smoked in decades. But Hertz is hitting him with a $400 smoking fee

By DAVID LAZARUS BUSINESS COLUMNIST
JUNE 11, 2021 6 AM PT

Customers may not always be right, but it doesn’t hurt to give them the benefit of the doubt, especially as businesses struggle to recover from the pandemic. ... At the very least, you don’t want to call your customers liars.

Yet that’s basically what rental-car giant Hertz is telling a member of its Gold Plus rewards program after slapping him with a $400 charge for smoking in the car. ... Sean Dungan, a professional photographer, recently dropped off a Hertz rental car at Boston’s Logan International Airport before flying back to Los Angeles.

A few days later, the bill arrived via email, including the smoking fee. ... Here’s the thing: Dungan, 49, says he doesn’t smoke. ... “I did a long time ago,” the Highland Park resident told me, “when I was maybe 22 or 23. Not since.”

He said no smokers joined him on his five-day business trip to the Boston area, and nobody lit up in the rental car. No cigs. No vaping. No weed. No stogies. ... “I was the only person in the car,” Dungan said. “I don’t smoke.”

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[Goonch]

3. ;-{)

[regnaD kciN]

5. Maybe they can ask him to search for the REAL smoker...?

[Goonch]

7. ;-{)

[mahatmakanejeeves]

4. Car rental smoking fees are on the rise. Here's how to avoid them

Car rental smoking fees are on the rise. Here’s how to avoid them

By Christopher Elliott | June 2, 2021 | Updated June 17th, 2021

{snip}

e best solution to late charges is to use a burner card. Try Privacy.com, which lets you generate a unique credit card number for each transaction. Some restrictions may apply for car rentals. There’s a reason none of the so-called travel experts recommends Privacy.com: You can’t earn points or miles with a burner. But you can turn off the card to avoid a late charge, avoiding a $400 car smoking fee or other junk charges.

Bear in mind that you can’t use this strategy if you’re a member of a car rental or hotel loyalty program. The company will find you and send you a bill. If you don’t pay, you could lose all of your points or get blacklisted from renting from the company or staying at one of its hotels. But denying a company a chance to charge you a $400 car smoking fee is worth it.

*Looking for more Hertz shenanigans? Here’s another outrageous car rental tale.

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[Jirel]

6. Hertz is simply the worst.

NEVER rent from them. They will try this garbage.

I once rented from them - my only time in over a decade - and was surprised by a $3,000 bill from them for trunk damage. Oh hell no. It was returned without a scratch, and the airport cams would’ve shown it from the return checkout. At first they wouldn’t tell me what the $3,000 was all about, just playing cute and saying “Of course you know.” So I made a special project of them, and told them to review every minute of security footage while it was at their airport lot.

I got a voicemail apologizing, and saying of course they’ll cancel the charge.

Then I got another bill for it 2 weeks later

Same routine, different filter.

Never, ever rent from them.

[captain queeg]

8. So they went bankrupt? Now trying to turn a profit by scamming their customers?

I don’t really pay attention to who I rent from, don’t do it very often. But I’ll remember this and stay away from Hertz.