Misleading.com Staff Writer David R. ‘Return the Car, Get a Bill: Hertz’s AI Is the New Scam Artist in Town“
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You return the car. You grab your luggage. You head toward the terminal, maybe a little tired, maybe a little relieved the trip’s over. Then your phone buzzes. “Damage detected.” You open the message. It’s from Hertz. There’s a photo of a scuff on the tire. You don’t remember seeing it. You don’t remember causing it. But there it is—along with a bill for $440. Welcome to the future of car rentals, where artificial intelligence scans your vehicle and spits out charges before you’ve even made it to the gate.
Hertz calls it innovation. Customers are calling it a scam.
The technology behind this mess is a system developed by UVeye, an Israeli company that builds AI-powered scanners for vehicle inspections. Hertz has partnered with UVeye to roll out these scanners at 100 airport locations by the end of 2025. The scanners are designed to inspect the body, glass, tires, and undercarriage of every car before and after rental. Think of it like an MRI for your rental car. You drive through, and the system compares images from pickup and return. If it finds a discrepancy, it flags it. If it flags it, you get billed.
In theory, this sounds great. No more subjective human inspections. No more disputes over whether a scratch was there before you rented the car. Just clean, objective data. But in practice, it’s turning into a billing trap. Customers are getting charged for damage they didn’t cause, for wear and tear that used to be considered normal, and for scuffs so minor they wouldn’t even register in a traditional inspection.
Take Zhenguo Lin, who rented a car from Hertz in Atlanta. Before he even left the rental center, he got a text saying damage had been identified. He was shocked. He hadn’t seen anything. The bill? $80 for damage, plus $140 in fees. That’s $220 for a mystery ding. Lin tried to dispute the charge. He called. No answer. He tweeted. They told him to email. He emailed. No response. Eventually, he had to file a complaint with the Better Business Bureau. Only then did Hertz remove the charge.
Lin’s story isn’t unique. Reddit is full of similar complaints. Customers returning cars in perfect condition, only to be hit with bills for tiny scratches, scuffs, or dents. Some say they were charged for damage that was already there. Others say they were charged for damage that didn’t exist at all. One renter in Houston got a message saying “Damage detected” just minutes after returning the car. Concerned, he went back to inspect the vehicle. Nothing. No visible damage. He even filmed a video to prove it. Still got the bill.
Another customer was charged $440 for a one-inch scuff on the wheel of a Volkswagen. The breakdown? $250 for repair, $125 for processing, and $65 for administrative fees. Hertz offered a discount if he paid within two days. A smaller discount if he paid within a week. But he couldn’t get past the chatbot system to speak to a human. It took ten days to get a response. By then, the discount window had closed.
This is where the AI system really starts to feel misleading. Hertz says the technology is designed to improve transparency and efficiency. But customers aren’t getting transparency. They’re getting automated bills with no explanation, no human review, and no easy way to dispute the charges. The scanners flag damage, the system generates a bill, and the customer is left scrambling to figure out what happened.
Hertz claims that over 97% of vehicles scanned show no billable damage. That sounds reassuring. But it also means that 3% of rentals result in charges. With hundreds of thousands of rentals happening every month, that’s a lot of surprise bills. And when those bills are based on AI assessments with no human oversight, it’s a recipe for frustration.
The company insists that damage disputes are determined by humans. They say customers can contact their Customer Care team via email, phone, chat, social media, or in person. But in reality, many customers say they can’t reach anyone. The chatbot system doesn’t connect them to a live agent. Emails go unanswered. Phone calls lead to long hold times or dead ends. And by the time someone responds, the billing clock has already ticked forward.
This isn’t just a customer service issue. It’s a systemic problem. The AI system is designed to be fast, efficient, and automated. But it’s also rigid. It doesn’t understand context. It doesn’t know if the car was wet from rain, if the scuff was already there, or if the scratch is just normal wear and tear. It sees a discrepancy, flags it, and bills it. That’s it.
And Hertz isn’t the only company using this kind of technology. Sixt, a Germany-based rental company, is rolling out a similar system called Car Gate. But there’s a key difference. Sixt requires human staff to review any damage flagged by the AI before billing customers. Hertz doesn’t. Hertz is the only major rental company in the U.S. that issues damage assessments without human review. That’s why Congress is getting involved. The House Subcommittee on Cybersecurity, Information Technology, and Government Innovation has asked Hertz to provide a briefing on its AI scanning technology. Chairwoman Nancy Mace sent a letter to Hertz CEO Gil West demanding answers. The subcommittee wants to know how the system works, how damage assessments are made, and how customers can dispute charges. They’re also concerned about how this technology might impact federal employees renting cars for official business.
The letter points out that other rental companies use AI as a tool, but Hertz uses it as a final authority. That’s a big difference. It means customers are being billed by a machine, not a person. And when they try to fight back, they’re met with silence. This isn’t just about technology. It’s about trust. For years, rental car companies have struggled with damage disputes. The process was manual, subjective, and inconsistent. Hertz says its new system solves that. But it’s solving it by removing the human element entirely. And that’s not a solution—it’s a shortcut. AI can be a powerful tool. It can speed up inspections, reduce fraud, and improve consistency. But it can also be abused. When companies use AI to automate billing without oversight, they risk turning efficiency into exploitation. That’s what’s happening here. Hertz has found a way to monetize minor damage at scale. And customers are paying the price.
The irony is that Hertz markets this system as a win for transparency. They say it gives customers confidence. But confidence comes from clarity, not automation. It comes from knowing that if you’re charged for damage, you’ll have a chance to dispute it. It comes from knowing that a human being will look at the evidence and make a fair decision. Right now, customers don’t have that. instead, they have a scanner, a bill, and a chatbot.
This is the darker side of AI adoption. It’s not about improving service. It’s about cutting costs and boosting revenue. By replacing human inspectors with machines, Hertz saves money. By automating billing, they increase damage claims. And by making it hard to dispute charges, they ensure those claims stick.
It’s a clever system. But it’s also misleading.
Customers are being told they’re getting a better experience. What they’re actually getting is a faster path to a surprise bill. And once that bill arrives, the burden is on them to prove they didn’t cause the damage. That’s a reversal of the usual standard. In most industries, the company has to prove the customer did something wrong. With Hertz’s AI system, the customer has to prove they didn’t.
That’s not transparency. That’s a trap.
So what can renters do? Consumer advocates recommend taking photos and videos of your rental car at pickup and drop-off. Document everything—the body, the tires, the roof, the undercarriage. If you can, do it in good lighting. If it’s raining, wait until the car is dry. And keep those images for at least a few weeks after your rental. If you get a bill, you’ll need them. You also have the right to see the images Hertz used to assess the damage. You can request before-and-after photos, an invoice for the repair, and a breakdown of the charges. If they can’t provide that, you don’t have to pay. But getting that information isn’t always easy. You may have to go through multiple channels, file complaints, or even take legal action. That’s the reality of renting a car in the age of AI. It’s faster, yes. But it’s also riskier. And unless companies like Hertz start putting people back into the process, it’s going to stay that way.
Technology should make things better. It should make things clearer. But when it’s used to automate billing without accountability, it becomes a weapon. Hertz’s AI car return system may be the future. But right now, it’s misleading customers, eroding trust, and turning a simple rental into a legal headache.
If Hertz wants to lead the industry into the future, it needs to rethink how it uses AI. It needs to bring back human review. It needs to make dispute resolution easier. And it needs to stop treating every scuff as a payday.
Until then, renters beware. The next time you return a car, don’t assume the scanner is your friend. It might just be the most expensive part of your trip. Joint Misleading.com, we want to hear from you
