I turned in a rental car at the Monterey, California airport, my flight left before their office was open so I dropped the keys as instructed and left. This was May 14, on May 27 I received a notice from them stating that my credit credit had been charged $104.00 to refuel the car. This worked out to 13 gallons of gas at $7.47 per gallon, plus tax. Less than 12 hours before I put 9.5 gallons into the tank, and spent the night in my motel room.
In the morning I drove the car a total of less than three (3) miles to the airport and left as described.
Yesterday May 28, I called Hertz's billing number and after a 9 min delay explained my problem. The lady I spoke to was quite willing to drop the charges, and to credit mycard for the total sum.
There appears to be a pattern here, if you are on a company trip you might not either notice the additional bill, or it might go to a central processing department. I was on vacation however and had prepaid my entire trip. Is Hertz playing the percentages charging everyone who uses express drop off, in the hope that they will have at least some of these charges paid? They would have to be very stupid to assume that I would drop off an empty car after being informed of their really high fuel charges.
As it stands, Hertz has lost my patronage, limited as it may be and in the process taught me a valuable lesson, NEVER TURN IN A CAR TO A KEY BOX, HAVE A LIVE PERSON CHECK THE CAR, EVEN IF YOU HAVE TO GET A LATER FLIGHT.
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