Also obligatory:
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It likely is, but how much would it cost to get justice?
Companies willing to do this are also willing to spend a hundred times as much to fight being brought up short over it as it would have taken to solve it.
Bet there’s an arbitration clause in the contract as well and all sorts of cutouts for the company to escape any liability or duty to perform.
Ever really read a car rental agreement? They tend to be longer than the contract for your home loan.
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I had my first interaction with Hertz recently. They were awful. I will never use them again.
A driver rear-ended me and totaled my car and their insurance company got me a rental through Hertz. I got my confirmation number, paid $55 for a Lyft to downtown Portland, and when I got there, they told me “We don’t have any insurance rentals available. Only cars for people with reservations.” I gave them my confirmation number showing a valid reservation, but they refused to help me and kicked me out. It was 11:30 on a Saturday and they would be closed the rest of the weekend, so I paid $60 for a Lyft back home.
Imagine my surprise when, after an hour on hold on Monday morning, I was told they now had a car for me. They had been closed in the interim, but a car had magically shown up. So I paid another $55 for a Lyft downtown and the same guy who refused to help me on Saturday morning gave me a car on Monday afternoon.
I called and complained and they promised to escalate the issue to a manager, but I never heard back. I filled out a survey they sent me asking for a return call, but never got one.
They are terrible.
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I’ve always been wary of Hertz. They seem to always be tremendously more expensive, and I always figured they’re more for the corporate account set, for all the traveling salespeople out there.
We had our own experience with Hertz over the Thanksgiving week (just last week), but honestly, it was pretty decent. We picked up at the airport in San Diego on Monday evening, had it all week, then then dropped it off at the facility at LAX on Friday afternoon. Didn’t have any troubles at all, even with the different drop off location. Reservations were made a month ahead of time.
Someone here mentioned the agreements. I kept mine, just looked at it and it seems to be pretty standard stuff, printed out on 3x8 inch card stock, what used to be used for boarding passes, it seems. Of course, being in the USA, there’s a section for arbitration, but… HOLY SMOKES! It allows us to opt-out! And you can do it for up to 30 days after receiving the contract! It also says that if you previously submitted the opt-out, you don’t need to do it again. Now_that_ is rare! Doing it now…!
I kinda wish I had my own horror story to share, but I feel I dodged another bullet.
ETA: Reservation was made a month before the trip, and it seems it was paid at that time, too. No way for me to know, but maybe that made this into a solid contract that they couldn’t fuck with, since payment was already issued?
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It always struck me as odd that renting a car for a couple of days seems to involve way more paperwork than buying one.
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The idea of overselling despite availability sounds real familiar to me, I’ve experienced something similar, just in a different industry. I at one point worked as dispatch support for Geek Squad, you know, the tech people Best Buy sends out to install stuff for their customers. It was pretty often that I had to really scramble to find someone to work a job that had been forced on to a tech’s schedule that would be impossible for them to get to or complete given the other jobs they already had assigned. Over scheduling was rampant.
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I’ve rented from Enterprise fairly exclusively over the years and have never gotten a run-around, bait-an-switch or price gouge. If they don’t have the size car I reserved, they provide a car in the next size up for the same daily rate. It doesn’t have to be a scummy experience. 
@anon81034786: Your chart explains why I haven’t had a difficult time with car rentals - the only other companies I’ve ever rented from are owned by Enterprise. 
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