- Hertz agent tells car-rental customer “unlimited mileage” doesn’t mean 40,000 km per month
- The employee wanted to stick the customer with a $10,000 mileage charge for the excessive travel
- Video of the confrontation between the two shows the agent even threatening arrest
It seems the term “unlimited mileage” might not mean what we think it does — at least, it doesn’t to one particular Hertz rental in the States. According to reports, a customer picked up a vehicle for a one-month rental and returned it on time after putting – an admittedly staggering and borderline unfathomable – 40,000 kilometres (25,000 miles) on the clock.
Video uploaded to social media documents the customer arguing with a belligerent Hertz employee about the prospect of being charged an extra $10,000 for the excessive mileage. At one point, the rental agent even threatens the customer with arrest.
One would assume a giant corporation like Hertz would take a situation like this on the chin and have the customer go on their merry way. Sure, 40,000 clicks in a month is excessive bordering on physically impossible, but the contract clearly stated an unlimited number of miles were permitted during the rental period.
Anyone toiling at Hertz should know the rental industry is a game of averages; some customers will rack up huge sums of mileage while others (this example) will hardly touch the car whilst it is in their possession (my senior parents who rented a rig whilst in Florida for a month).
It is worth unpacking what the customer was doing with the vehicle to pack on 40,000 kilometres in the span of just one month. Figuring a 30-day month, that works out to maintaining highway speeds for a solid 12 hours of driving per day. Even in a 24/7 scenario, which would suggest a delivery service or similar, which is generally not allowed in a standard Hertz contract, they’d have to average 50 kilometres per hour. Still, there is no proof whatsoever the car was being used for commercial purposes.
Of greater concern is the attitude of the Hertz rep, a person whose actions eventually pushed the company to issue a statement saying the customer in question wouldn’t be charged the $10,000 after all. Hertz also provided an apology to the customer, and said it’d address the employee’s conduct. Remember, this is a brand which has also asked customers to pay for gasoline upon returning an EV; and has falsely accused renters of stealing its cars.
Sign up for our newsletter Blind-Spot Monitor and follow our social channels on X, Tiktok and LinkedIn to stay up to date on the latest automotive news, reviews, car culture, and vehicle shopping advice.