Car rental giant Hertz is facing some blowback as customers report that its "AI-powered" vehicle scanner charges them hundreds of dollars for tiny cosmetic dings.
Earlier this summer, a Hertz customer in Atlanta was charged a jaw-dropping $440 for an inch-long bit of curb rash — a cosmetic scuff — on the wheel of his rental, as our sister site The Drive first reported. Out of that, $190 was earmarked for "processing" and "administrative" fees, which were automatically calculated by the rental company's opaque scanning system.
According to additional reporting by The Drive, another customer named Adam Foley was charged $350 for two dime-sized bumps on his rental car, which he said could have been "dirt or anything else that could throw off a camera." That fee, Foley seethed, was "literally the price of the entire four-day rental, minus $5."
In both cases, the Hertz app refused to connect the customers to a human agent to explain the sky-high charges, or the vague processing and administrative fees behind them.
What's more, the app pressured both customers into paying as quickly as possible, offering sizeable discounts if they settled the tab right then and there, and a smaller discount for paying within seven days.
All this price-gouging is possible thanks to Hertz's partner, UVeye.
Originally founded in 2016 as a military tech company in Israel, UVeye calls itself "a global leader in AI-driven vehicle inspection systems." Their bread and butter is diagnostic imaging equipment, which comes in a variety of sizes for different commercial applications, according to the UVeye website.
While "AI power" features prominently in UVeye's marketing, it's not clear how exactly it fits into the scanners. The model Hertz is most likely using, the Atlas lite, is described as a "modular 360 scanner" featuring 15 cameras and a handful of LED strips to document a vehicle.
"Machine learning detects any damages to the body panels, headlights, and glass," reads an Atlas lite press blurb.
But as far as Hertz is concerned, it's less important to know how the "AI-powered scanner" works, and more important that it brings home the bacon.
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