- Hertz’s new AI damage assessors are losing it long-standing rental customers.
- The equipment scans rental cars on return and sends the registered driver a bill.
- One renter was charged $195 for a dent, another billed $440 for a scuffed wheel.
Hertz is earning itself a reputation as the nasty guy of the rental world and risks losing some longstanding customers all due to its decision to invest in AI technology. The company’s new digital damage assessors show no mercy when it comes to dings and scratches and rental customers don’t like it.
The AI we’re talking about is equipment from Israeli startup UVeye, which Hertz has recently started using at Atlanta International Airport and will soon begin rolling out to other locations across the United States.
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Returning rental cars are driven through a tunnel featuring lights and cameras to scan their condition and log any damage. If anything is picked up that wasn’t there on the exit scan the customer is immediately sent a bill to fix the damage.
One Redditor posted about their experience with the AI system, and it wasn’t a positive one. The scanners picked up what appears from the grainy supplied picture to be a very small dent on the offside-front fender, and soon after a bill for $195 appeared on the driver’s Hertz smartphone app.
The poster, who claimed they have been using Hertz for “years,” said they’ll be using another agency in future.
“I will no longer be using Hertz,” they wrote in a Reddit thread. “Reached out to customer service and they said they stand by the AI. There are too many other rental car options to stick with one that pulls BS like this, even if I did enjoy the status.”
The disgruntled renter doesn’t seem to dispute that there’s damage to the car, and it must have happened during their rental period for the AI to pick it up. Their grievance appears to be that the damage is the kind of tiny dent that a traditional human assessor either might not have noticed, or would have been willing to overlook as just the usual wear and tear that happens.
Related: Hertz Is Selling Maseratis For Volkswagen Prices
Some agencies ignore damage smaller than a coin, but Hertz’s UVeye application sees things as black or white. The Drive recently reported on another incident in which a driver was charged $440 for a scuffed wheel, comprising $250 for the repair itself, $125 for processing, and another $65 to cover the administrative fee.
Asked by the outlet about the new scanning policies, a Hertz rep sent the following statement: “The vast majority of rentals are incident-free. When damage does occur, our goal is to enhance the rental experience by bringing greater transparency, precision, and speed to the process. Digital vehicle inspections help deliver on that with clear, detailed documentation that is delivered more quickly, as well as a more technology-enabled resolution process.”
While some Redditors commenting on the $195 dent thread couldn’t understand why the poster felt so wronged, arguing they were liable for any damage during the rental, others were shocked and said they’d think twice before renting from Hertz again.
“What else should we get charged for? Sun damage to the paint for being outside?” asks one commenter. “Maybe AI can measure how much of the brake pads have worn or how much oil has burned and charge for that too.”
We think it’s inevitable that this technology – which Hertz hopes will help it cut its huge 2024 losses – will eventually become standard across most of the industry. But maybe the rental companies will need to adjust their damage thresholds if they’re not going to turn customers away. Do you think Hertz was being overly harsh charging $195 for a tiny dent, or should the poster suck it up and stop whining?
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