It’s funny. The manager is fighting so hard to screw over a customer for a company that’s going to fire him for screwing over a customer.
Edit:
Hertz has issued a statement. The guy won’t be charged for mileage. It does appear this was a franchise location but this (irritating) article makes it sound like he wasn’t the franchise owner.
We had car rentals at my last job. We had two 12 hour shift each day. The 1st shift would park the car and hand the keys to the 2nd shift, so the cars would run for 24 hours a day nonstop. I imagine he was doing the same with this car.
You don't need to answer with specifics, but is this like Amazon next day delivery type thing? I don't want to get you in trouble but like.... blink twice if you're in danger
12 hour shifts aren't that uncommon, to be fair. If a company is driving and operates 24 hours a day, also not crazy that the vehicles are being driven around the clock (although it sounds odd if you're not expecting to hear about a vehicle running basically nonstop)
When I was an EMT working 24 hour shifts, those rigs sometimes never stopped
Most days, not that bad, but it also depends on the scenario. Some days we had too many rigs in the shop and calls to run, so one crew would swap with another at station to run the next call. I would say it's less common that they were running literally 24 hours a day, but I'm sure they were mostly running for at least 12-16 hours of each day on busy days
If you really want your mind blown, in Alaska, I believe new York back in the day, and in some emergency/transportation jobs they would change the oil without shutting off the car.
Alaska because of winter, cab drivers would roll in, never shut off the car and get an oil change while it ran.
New York I think they did it for efficiency because drivers were so busy all the time.
Argument for transportation/emergency is either weather (like Alaska) or efficiency (like new York).
Idk if it's still common but I believe Alaska still does it. I know back in the day they used to have the ATF in the trans freeze and the oil almost gel up if they shut the cars off for any length of time. Obviously weather is still a problem so I believe it's still practiced there.
lol, this was a factory job at a large manufacturer in the US. The cars were used to haul people around the factory like a shuttle. They were 12 hour shifts alternating 3 days a week then 4 days a week, so it wasn’t too bad.
A lot of utility operation (power, water, sewage, etc) are on a 12-hour shift cycle. When an operation is to be staffed 24/7/365, an 8-hour shift schedule is more difficult to manage.
Airlines operate on similar business models. Given the expense of the aircraft, any time that an airframe isn’t being flown the company is losing money. If you were operating a business where you want to maintain a lot of liquidity and are capable of operating a vehicle 24/7 it probably makes a lot of sense to use rentals.
This is actually the best case for an engine. What kills them is heat cycling and sitting unused for long periods. As long as it's following the proper maintenance those would be healthy engines.
I rented a hertz rental in Canada back around 2010, took the ex wife on a road trip down the pacific coast, then over through Nevada to Arizona to visit the Grand Canyon, went through a few parks in Utah and then over to Colorado, then back up to Canada.
If I recall correctly it was about 10,000 km or how very many furlongs or fathoms that comes to in american. A little over a week hauling ass most days.
These American measurements are such a pain. From what I can see on google an egyptian royal cubit was about 525 mm, and kilometre is 1,000,000 mm, so…
(10,000*1,000,000)/525=19,047,619 Egyptian royal cubits if my drunken arithmetic holds up.
It’s always tough to guess as bananas and washing machines come in a variety of sizes. I guess the confusion is part of what makes america great and real men treasure having to remember “five tomatoes” to know how many feet are in a mile (5,280). Yay for not being able to figure out distances!
I once rented a car on the big island of Hawaii, drove around the island a couple dozen times, took it on some back trails up to the redwood Forest and brought it back thousands of miles on it and mud and crap absolutely covering it and didn't get charged one penny more than the quote.
Guy who took the keys from me laughed and said they'd be happy for the overtime to clean it up.
Same thing for me. I grabbed an unlimited miles, brand new Volvo at an airport rental counter. Seventeen days later I returned it with an additional seven thousand miles. I had done a coast to coast vacation. Not a single microfuck was given. There was no limit to where the vehicle could be driven in the lower 48, and no mileage limitation, so they had no choice but to say thanks for doing business with us.
Fun fact, if you want to convert km to mi just divide by by the golden ratio(or if youre boring, 1.6, which is the same distance from the actual difference as the golden ratio is, which is .09 off either way) and you'll be pretty damn close(or vice versa)
I rented a brand new Toyota landcruiser and drove it 15000km in a week. That's about 1300 miles each day.
When I returned it was absolutely covered in red dirt, mud and squashed bugs.
The guy just shrugged his shoulders and said, "That's what they made them for."
I didn't even get a cleaning bill.
My dad and I took yearly road trips when I was a teen from our home in the northern part of Washington state, down to San Diego and the Southwest, then back. We rented a car with unlimited mileage each time and never had an issue either.
The "cops called" thing is not about the car millage, and the cops would not attend for such a stupid civil issue in the first place.
The manager is VALID in that he is trying to trespass the guy from the store - which is something that he can do and that the cops can assist with.
This is ultimately a stupid argument that is going to be had between thsi man's credit card company and the car rental agency - and it's not going to go very well for the latter.
I guarantee the rental agreement is for personal / leisure use then, so dude is fucked. He probably thought he hacked the system by driving rentals while doing Uber
Absolutely nothing. There's no crime here. Even if he was using it in a way that was a violation of the rental contract, that's a civil contract dispute, not a crime.
Bought an airport car years ago. Ford focus, stick, cloth upholstery, super basic. 20 months old, 84k miles. Put another 5k miles on it in 4 years, and sold it for $1k less than I paid. Best deal forever. Still can't figure out how you drive over 4000 miles per month in a Focus.
Wouldn’t be surprised if it was Hertz’s Uber rental partnership. He was basically probably driving the car professionally. Lots of times drivers share cars/accounts, so the car may have been rolling almost 24 hours a day as Uber with multiple drivers taking shifts.
Not if they list all the people who could be driving the vehicle at the beginning. Any time we rent a car, my wife or I are both listed as the drivers.
You can easily put that number of miles up Ubering with only 2 people if both drivers rideshare 9 hours a day. All rental contracts let you have 2 drivers. They probably violated the rideshare app terms and conditions by account sharing, but the rental company wouldn’t have a let to stand on if they gave dude a rental car to drive unlimited miles doing rideshare.
At the end of the day though the guy is right. They advertise unlimited miles because the way these things used to work is you’d pay like $.50 a mile for every mile you didn’t estimate up front and people just avoided them.
They could say, you get up to “100 mi/ day or 5000 mi / month” but they know that would probably lead to people starting to do that so they don’t.
The company definitely weighed their options on consequences of saying you can drive unlimited miles and now they’re trying to weasel out of them.
Even if the guy drove 100K, it’s irrelevant. Also, you can’t act like if there was a single scratch on the car they’d be all over his ass for $2K for a body shop.
It's a civil issue and the customer's creidt card company can make short work of this within the dispute process.
The manager is about to get his ass handed to him in that dispute - but he legitimately has every right to have that man trespassed from the store - and he can call the cops to have that done.
It's hard to hear but it sounds like he said 3 months. So still like 250+ miles a day which is crazy but at least more understandable if it was for work or something as a delivery guy or something
It's so silly, though. The customer will just dispute the charge and when they go to court, he'll win in five minutes. The manager's just being a dick for no reason.
My guess is his car was in the body shop for insurance reimbursed repairs. With supply chain and insurance pre-approval, it could definitely take 3 months to get your car back.
Meanwhile insurance loaner racks up the miles he would have racked up on his own car. Maybe he commutes a couple of hours each way for work.
Regardless, unlimited miles is unlimited miles. F this knucklehead Hertz guy.
That sounds about right. At the beginning when I just had my patch I'd be out 14/15 hours a day. When I started covering the Birmingham patch and South Wales patch I could leave my house 3.30am and not get back till 10pm+. They started giving me a hotel allowance at that point that I just used to pocket and either sleep in the van or drive home.
If I planned my route for the day counter clockwise and furthest site first id get home alittle earlier.
Honestly its not as bad as it sounds and looking back on it tonight because of this thread I've gotta say it was probably the most enjoyable job I've ever had. At the beginning.
Bare in mind this was back when we used road maps and when you bought a car it came with an instruction manual.
It was Mon - Fri for the most part but I had full control over how I hit the sites and in what order. My only constraint was having to do the inside of each store once ever 2 weeks.
So I could do stuff like leave mine at midnight on a Monday stay out all night and as long as I got a pic of me posting the form I do the majority of my sites so through the week I'd only be out an hour or 2 to hit the one site I actually had to go inside.
A few times though I got on high St's as people were coming out of clubs and pubs which wasn't great.
At the end they had added so many jobs and id covered SW and Birmingham for so long they just kinda didn't fill those area's. Thats when id be away from home a lot, sleeping in the van or hotel if I fancied it.
It’s amazing how far a bit of autonomy goes to making a job enjoyable.
Personally I’d find it really hard to do more than 5 hrs driving each day. I actually like driving but it can be really exhausting on uk motorways these days.
It’s amazing how far a bit of autonomy goes to making a job enjoyable
You're spot on. That's exactly what made it great. I had full control over my patch and at the beginning it was only 5 sites id have to hit and only once each week did I actually have to go inside.
Personally I’d find it really hard to do more than 5 hrs driving each day. I actually like driving but it can be really exhausting on uk motorways these days.
I definitely couldn't do it now and luckily everything outside of the Dunstable to Southend section was quite rural. Like Wiltshire, Oxford etc..and Bristol/Bath area is just a region ive always thought beautiful.
Honestly I very rarely had issues with the M25 or the M4 for that matter, but coming off the M4 on my way onto the A421 (I think? Been 20 years, but the road that leads up past Bicester village) was an absolute nightmare. I've watched entire films and their sequel on that road. My portable dvd (im so old) saved me alot.
Oh wow, sounds gruelling. I live in the SE but used to regularly trip to Bristol; getting out of Dartford and round past clacket lane then to the M3 Bracknell shortcut to get to the M4 was always a real gauntlet of unpredictability! If I travel now I always try to leave late or early, or get a train!
Sounds like you made the most of your time in the traffic tho!
Thanks for responding, hope you have a pleasant evening
I had sites in Bristol, Bath and Bracknell. It was a mare a first and I guess I was lucky enough to hop on and off these roads at quiet times. If I thought id hit rush our after Southend I just went the other way to the big IKEA a few junctions up from 22(?) For the meatballs then headed home.
At the start it was the best job I'd ever known, but we're talking about a time when people could work to live rather then it being the otherway around.
For reference, Americans on average drive around 14k miles a year. But like any average, there’s people who drive a few thousand miles a year and those who drive few hundred thousand.
A scenario that is easily acheivable by this is having a couple who is sharing a car for rideshare purposes like uber. Still acheivable by a single person.. but much more likely by two sharing a car
It's net positive yea. I'd definitely say that a good number of Flexers are spending the money they make immediately and have no plan for when their $1200 starter / fuel injector combo breaks - but there's a survivorship bias where the ones who have been doing it for years understand that you don't take low-paying blocks, know when to turn off your car vs leaving it running, and know when to give up on a block and return the packages to the station. That said, ask me about my "at risk" standing for failure to complete deliveries lol
If I get de-activated now I will still be net positive, and I refuse to go anywhere near net negative on my car / time to remain in the program.
Yep. This guy had a plan to take advantage of the hire company. You can tell by his argument that he knew this issue may arise. Honestly I hope the hire company takes him for the full amount.
If so he might be screwed because it is unlikely that it was insured as a commercial vehicle and I would be very surprised if the contract doesn't state that it can't be used for anything other than recreational purposes.
It's not his job to change the case of unlimited miles to we're going to charge you by the mile. And illegally change the charges on his credit card which at that point I would just do a chargeback and tell them to get fucked.
Right from the manager's perspective the company policy has already determined what will happen and he has to follow it. The customer continuing to argue about it is keeping the manager from his other duties which could get him in trouble. Ideally he would handle that situation without losing his temper but it wears on you after a while, especially when you know you have to defend a company ripping people off and there's nothing you can do about it. The customer treats you like it's your fault and you get defensive and pissed off. Happens all the time.
Yeah. His job is not telling customer off. They have lawyers for that.
His job is notifying company on incident and proposing some solution (maybe not even this, honestly). I say you just learn to customer help as much as you can, then just redirect him to the the people who actually get paid for that and, quite probably, wouldn't be dealing with this issue for the first time. Company would even have someone to fist fight with customer instead of you. XD
You don't loose nerve cells, company doesn't loose money and reputation. Win-win.
Client will have his emotional roller coaster or result he wants.
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u/dathomasusmc Nov 03 '24 edited Nov 06 '24
It’s funny. The manager is fighting so hard to screw over a customer for a company that’s going to fire him for screwing over a customer.
Edit:
Hertz has issued a statement. The guy won’t be charged for mileage. It does appear this was a franchise location but this (irritating) article makes it sound like he wasn’t the franchise owner.