Hertz/Thrifty takes reservations for cars it doesn't have, stranding customers; worse, that's the business model

I've been locked in pre-litigation combat with Hertz Corp. for almost a year, and I'm tapping out.

The problem is simple: The Thrifty Car Rental (Thrifty is a Hertz company) at Memphis Airport (MEM) has been renting cars that it doesn't have. Customers get stranded for hours, until a car comes in, rolling the problem forward. And Hertz is OK with it.

Frustrated Thrifty customers wait hours for cars in Memphis (Mar. 2023).
There's not even seating. RJ Peltz-Steele CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

Here's a rough timeline.

● March 2023: I show up for a car rental in Memphis with a time-sensitive work schedule. They're "out of cars." Lots of people are milling about in the same predicament.  Hours later, I get a car, not before my work plans are screwed up. A check of online reviews reveals that this is business as usual for Thrifty MEM.

● Later March 2023: I complain to Thrifty and the Tennessee AG and ask for just one day's refund and that the deceptive practice be abated.

● May-June 2023: Hertz Executive Customer Service reaches out to offer $50 off a future rental and pledges that what I experienced is not Hertz/Thrifty's normal mode of business. In exchange for the coupon and assurance, I drop the matter with the Tennessee AG.

● October 2023: I discover that the $50-off coupon is a sham.  The coupon can only be redeemed at the rental counter.  Premium for paying at the rental counter: $50.  I ask the Tennessee AG to reopen the matter. 

● Also October 2023: I investigate online reviews of Thrifty MEM and discover that they still are renting cars they don't have, leaving customers stranded for hours or longer. I report my finding to the Tennessee AG. The Tennessee AG suggests I also report the matter to Hertz's home jurisdiction, Florida. So I forward the report to the Florida AG.

● November 2023: In response to my reopening of the settlement with the Tennessee AG, Hertz says take a hike. The Tennessee AG closes the matter, because, you know, what can you do.

● December 2023: I send Hertz a demand letter, alerting the company that sending a sham coupon to a Rhode Island resident and knowingly doubling down on the sham renders the company liable for treble statutory damages of $1,500 under R.I. consumer protection law.

● January 2024: Hertz gives me 1,900 "Gold Plus Rewards" points for one day's car rental, in place of the $50 coupon.  I find out the points are just as useless when I need a rental from IAD to BWI; points can't be used on one-way rentals.  Meanwhile, Hertz replies angrily to my report to the Florida AG, accusing me of seeking unjust enrichment by complaining in multiple states. Oh, and Hertz tells me again to go take a hike.

That brings us to today.

---

Feb. 12, 2024

Hertz Corp. d/b/a Thrifty Rental Car
Attn.: General Counsel
8501 Williams Rd.
Estero, Fla. 33928

Open Letter

Dear sir or madam:

I write in regard to the matter originating in a car rental reservation with Thrifty at the Memphis International Airport on March 28, 2023; your subsequent proffer of a sham coupon for a subsequent Thrifty rental; my demand of Dec. 17, 2023, for compensation accordingly under Rhode Island consumer protection law; and your subsequent award of 1,900 “Gold Plus Rewards” points.

I accept your award of the points in abeyance of my demand.  I have grave doubts that the points are of any use to me.  I already have discovered that I could not use them for a one-way rental from IAD to BWI; they cannot be redeemed on one-way rentals.  And I don’t foresee a need in the future for a one-day car rental anywhere, certainly not before the points expire.  Nevertheless, I choose to see the award as a gesture of good faith.

In return, I ask just one more thing of you:  Hear me out on the following points.

(1) I never wanted from you money, coupons, or points.  I demanded the sum of only one day’s rental cost as nominal and symbolic. What I really wanted was simply that you stop your Memphis MEM Thrifty provider from accepting car reservations for cars they do not have, leaving customers stranded.  Ms. Walsh of Hertz Executive Customer Service wrote that that was not the business practice of Hertz and Thrifty (nor, one presumes, Dollar). That assurance was false. My investigation of online reviews revealed that the deceptive practice continued unabated at MEM. I subsequently rented from another company at MEM and saw the usual crowd of distressed travelers camped out at the Thrifty counter. Shame on you.

(2) A “$50 off”-at-the-counter coupon when you charge $50 more for transactions at the counter is a sham, plain and simple.  I reiterate, I didn’t want your coupon.  I would’ve dropped the matter if you simply abated the deceptive practice.  I decided to redeem the coupon only when it became clear that you were determined to continue to allow deception in your business at MEM.  Even to buy me off, you could not even make an honest offer. Shame on you.

(3) I informed the Tennessee and Florida AGs of the ongoing deceptive business practice at MEM.  Authorities should be informed, even if, as usual, they do nothing.  I forwarded the notice to the Florida AG only because the Tennessee AG bid me do so.  I did not ask for anything in Florida; I did not want dispute resolution in Florida.  The Florida AG, whether for incompetence or willful indifference, entered the notice into a private-dispute resolution system. Ms. Walsh responded in Florida with something like outrage that I had dared to complain about you in another jurisdiction. Let’s be clear: Your MEM provider was engaged in a deceptive business practice.  I notified civil enforcement authorities in that jurisdiction.  They urged me to notify civil enforcement authorities in Hertz’s home jurisdiction. So I did. I asked for nothing from or in Florida. Don’t accuse me of some kind of profiteering off of your poor choices.

You know as well as I do that you can get away with deception at MEM, and anywhere else you want to, and with your profound commitment to stick your head in the sand about it only because antitrust and consumer protection enforcement in your industry is a joke.  I wish I could say I’ll never rent again from Hertz companies. But of course I will. I won’t have a choice.

I understand how you get away with deception and subterfuge, but what I cannot understand is why.  It would be so easy simply to run an honest business.  Don’t accept reservations for cars you don’t have.  Don’t tell customers you’re doing one thing and do another.  If you give someone $50 off, give someone $50 off.  I’m sure Hertz is big and successful enough to stay in business without relying on deception.

Is it really so hard just to be honest?

Sincerely,

/s/ Rick J. Peltz-Steele

Cc: [Ms. Walsh]; [Tenn. AG]; [R.I. AG]; [Fla. AG]

Gunshots are the soundtrack of America

A shooting range features at Elvis's Graceland.
Adam Fagen via Flickr CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

'Tis the season for gunshots and sirens.

The last weekend in October, I spent the night at a Memphis hotel near the airport to catch a 5 a.m. flight homeward. I pulled up to the hotel on Elvis Presley Boulevard in the Whitehaven neighborhood to see people running and chaos at the restaurant across the street, Tha Table. Before long, police came streaming in, sirens blaring. A fire engine and an ambulance followed.

Two men were shot and killed. One was the owner of Tha Table; it looks like he came out into the parking lot to confront would-be car thieves, one of whom shot him with an automatic weapon. The other person killed was a bystander "in the wrong place at the wrong time," Fox 13 Memphis said, merely driving by with his three young children in the car on the way to a park.

A man arrested in the shooting, police say found with weapons including an AR-15 and a Glock with switch (converting the pistol into an automatic weapon), blames his companions for firing the fatal shots, Fox 13 reported.

When I left the hotel later that night, to go to a gym in West Memphis, I had to ask police to let me drive out and back under yellow tape that had cordoned off the block.

That shooting occurred as I arrived at the Red Roof Inn at about 3:30 p.m.  Just eight minutes later, two-and-a-half miles down the same road, a 15-year-old was shot at an Exxon station. According to WREG, he was selling water at the side of the road at the time. He was transported by a private car to the hospital and reported in critical condition.

When I came back from the gym, I fueled up at that Exxon, to return my rental car full the next morning. I didn't know about the second shooting until I got back to my room and checked the news about the first shooting.

About 60 hours later, a 19-year-old sitting in his car at a gas station in West Memphis was fatally shot multiple times by another customer, KARK reported. I was long gone, but that shooting took place 500 feet from the gym I had gone to, just around a corner. I learned of that third shooting when I checked the news to see if anyone had been arrested in the earlier two.

It happens that while I was in Memphis and Arkansas, I visited an old friend and mentor I had not seen in many years. He retired in recent years from work in Memphis and told me he wants to move away. He's tired, he said, of having to worry every day about being car-jacked.

I also visited my aunt and uncle at their home in south Little Rock. They've been renovating, and their place looks great, homey. They're very happy there, my uncle said, except only for the unwelcome ring of gunshots at night. Sometimes the shots ring so close to the house that they fear they're being targeted. My uncle, a Vietnam vet, lamented of the contemporary life of youth in the Little Rock neighborhood: "I'd rather be judged by twelve than carried by six."

When I boarded my plane home from Memphis, I overheard one flight attendant telling another that she's looking for a new apartment. She was working through the calculation of finding lower rent, but having to hear gunshots at night.

As I rejoined the world that Monday, I learned about the Lewiston, Maine, shootings, and that the suspect was found dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. He had killed 18 people and injured 13 just before I left home for Memphis. Ensconced as I was in my business away, I had not known the details. It was a kind of blessing, I figured, that I didn't know what was happening. While the suspect was at large, I did not know to worry about my wife in Rhode Island or a friend's son at university in Vermont.

I'm not a gun control advocate. I believe the Supreme Court got it right when it said that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to bear arms. I'm informed by the Second Amendment analysis of my constitutional law professor, William Van Alstyne. I believe that the Second Amendment anticipated the possibility that revolution might one day again be necessary.

At the same time, I don't want life cut short for me, my family, or my friends just because I drove to the park at the wrong time, or a stray bullet pierced the walls of my home. The price of the Second Amendment cannot be that gunshots and sirens are the soundtrack of American life.

Sorry, if you read this far thinking I'd have the answer; I don't. 

I want to be prepared to revolt when the time comes, because I think that corrupt politicians already have aggrandized an excess of power; that they now represent corporations, not constituents; and that the federal legislature has become perhaps irretrievably dysfunctional.

I also want the people I love to be safe against meaningless violence. I don't want to live in the Wild West of the movies.

I want my tres leches and to eat it too.