I always have the rental car company inspect my car…if there’s something wrong they really need to state so then. If she didn’t damage the tire then I’m a rather surprised that she’d settle. The only thing I can figure is that perhaps when they showed her the documentation that she remembered where and when it could have taken place or what happened. (Perhaps they ran over a curb or maybe hit a road hazard something and didn’t think about it at the time because the car seemed to still be fine). Thus the reduced fee would have been “generous”.

Tires are often made fairly well these days…it IS entirely possible to drive for a while on a damaged (not flat or blown) tire and not realize it.

Too bad the flicker image didn’t show the part number of the tire. It looks like Chinese adhesive not holding the tread to the tire.

Here lies open trade
Between America and China
Killed by the 35% Tire Tariff
And cost is higher from Korea

RIP
Nobody was Faster

@LeeAnne, appreciate your careful reading of this story and thoughtful comments.

To our surprise, we later found a $250 charge on our American Express for a damaged tire. But that didn’t make sense. If it had been damaged we wouldn’t have been able to drive the car back to the airport.

She isn’t saying that the tire wasn’t damage. She’s saying that if there was damage, it wasn’t severe.

You really have to read this letter carefully. She invited the Hertz representative to inspect the car. Why would anyone ask the car rental company to inspect the car, under those circumstances?

Then she quickly agreed to split the difference with Hertz. Again, I believe this was a paperwork problem. I think the OP probably ran over something. At any rate, the resolution was presented to me, and she agreed to pay the reduced fee. So Hertz showed her something that satisfied her documentation needs.

“To our surprise, we later found a $250 charge on our American Express for a damaged tire. But that didn’t make sense. If it had been damaged we wouldn’t have been able to drive the car back to the airport.”

And then she disputed the charge.

I don’t see any way to interpret this other than she didn’t believe she’d damaged the tire. But after reading your clarifications, it appears she did, in fact, damage the tire…and Hertz was able to provide adequate documentation to prove this.

So, that being the case, good job in getting Hertz to bring the charge for the damage back down to a reasonable level.

That being said, you, like the rest of us, occasionally make mistakes. So if I call attention to something that I believe is in error, please don’t take it personally.

On this story, the bottom line is simply this: DID she damage the tire, or didn’t she? It’s a black and white issue. If she did, she should pay for the damage. If she didn’t, she shouldn’t. Simple as that.

If Hertz provided evidence that she did, then she should pay. If she has any question in her mind that she might have caused it, and Hertz provided documentation that she did, then she should pay.

But your article seems to indicate that she is dead certain she didn’t. And your article does not mention that Hertz provided any evidence whatsoever that she did. Your statement at the end that they furnished “additional documents” gives us no indication what those documents are, and it definitely does not give the impression that these documents are any kind of evidence that she did the damage.

Rental car damage scams are legendary. Just read the comments thread in any of the several articles you’ve written on this topic. Or do an internet search. They happen frequently, and need to be stopped. If this was not one of those scams, then it’s really just a standard customer-damaged-car-and-doesn’t-want-to-pay-for-it story. If that’s the case, then you definitely helped her by bringing the cost of the damage down to a more reasonable level (I would agree that $250 for a tire is a rip-off!).

That puts an entirely different spin on it.

If you go back and read your article, you will see that it makes it very clear that Ms Osborne does not believe she damaged the tire. You said nothing in your article to refute that. So, if one was to ONLY read your article, one is led to believe that Ms Osborne is being asked to pay $125 for damage that SHE DID NOT INFLICT on that vehicle.

If that were the case, then it would be a scam.

Again, I appreciate your follow-up. But please try to understand why so many of us, myself included, believed this was a scam. It’s because of how you wrote your article.

I would encourage you to provide a brief update at the end of your article to make it clear that Hertz furnished documentation indicating that Ms Osborne actually damaged the tire. Without that information, your article is doing a disservice to Hertz.

If this were an out-and-out scam, then believe me, I would have said it.

This is a rental company scam, and a well-known one. It’s been written about on this site before. And frankly I’m dismayed that Christopher ended his article with the implication that he did Ms Osborne any favors at all by getting them to cut an illegal charge in half. Paying a PENNY to these scam artists is being a victim of a crime.

After hearing so many horror stories, I now do pretty much exactly what Don above describes – before I leave the lot, I take time-stamped photos of every single mark on the car, no matter how slight. When I check the car in, I insist that the agent write “no damage” on the receipt. I haven’t had one decline to do that yet – but apparently (from what Don says) that seems to be their latest tool in their scam arsenal – so I guess I will now start videotaping them saying “no damage” too.

Does anybody see how wrong it is that we have to do this to protect ourselves from these scammers?

I did have a rental office attempt to scam me into paying for a scratch on a car that I was returning. I’ll never forget the look on the manager’s face when I showed him the photo on my camera, time-stamped for before I left the lot, showing the exact same scratch on the car.

If Ms Osborne pays that $125, she is giving into a criminal scam…AND she is reinforcing the behavior. Every time this scam works, these car rental companies are encouraged to do it again – and more hapless travelers will be illegally scammed out of their money. STOP the car-rental damage scam!

In fact, given the picture, and lack of any tread showing in the photo, it appears as though the rental company has something wrong with their car that needed to be fixed. You can screw a sidewall up by rubbing it on the curb while turning, but it takes a mechanical problem to scrub all the tread off the tire.