Hertz Car Rental - Philadelphia - Essington Avenue Hle — Local services in Philadelphia

If I could give zero stars I would. I rented through their partnership with Uber (negative 10 on customer service for Uber.) let’s start with booking on the app, I would give it a 10 for ease and convenience or so I thought (keep reading). I called in about two hours before my appointment gave my booking information and let them know it was for Uber. I wanted to make sure my vehicle would be there. I was told they don’t have a large 7 seater SUV because someone extended their booking, but they could offer me a 5 seater SUV and it was there and ready and they were not waiting for anyone to bring it in. There should be a rule on when you have to extend by so they can know their exact inventory. Rating would be a 6 if this is what happened. (Keep reading). I asked if I could come get it around 12pm instead of 2pm and was told no. I did have to call twice to get someone and the phone did ring off the hook the first time no answering service or machine so I will have to deduct points. I give it an 8. ease of the location I give it a 2 there were no clear signs that said for Uber rentals walk or drive to the right side of the building. I walked into the front of the building and the woman sitting on the right hand side at the fist desk did not give clear instructions so I went to the left side of the building because she told me I could walk out the side door on the left instead of just telling me to go out the way I came and go to the other side. She gets a 1 because lack of care as soon as she found out I wasn’t there to buy a car and attitude of I’m someone else’s problem. When I did get to the wrong side there were two very wonderful women who gave me proper instructions and even got up from behind the desk to make sure I went the right way. They get a 10. Once in the right section there was no one to greet you just signs and locked doors. It looks unprofessional with chairs scattered around the room and signs asking you not to knock. I now know why they are there. It’s because they are completely not proficient. Rate 1 on looks. Wait time 0. Processing time 0. Once they called us all back there was another long wait time 0. I got there around 1pm I left as they were closing. The two staff members were overwhelmed and checked out with no support and lack of resources. I don’t think this was entirely their fault. So I will give grace and give a 5. The car I came for which was a SUV 5 seater was not there. They gave it away. I heard them give one to someone who was there not sure if that was originally mine or not. The only thing they had was a compact car Chevy bolt ev. I’ve driven this car for maybe 4 hours and I’ve already had to recharge, negative ZERO. I don’t care if it is cheaper to charge the car the gas. If I can only do two rides and then have to sit for an hour and a half just to charge it, negative 10. With Uber you’re allowed to drive a total of 12 hours but if I have to stop every three-ish hours just to charge for another hour and a half I’m losing time I could be making money. Convenience of charging station near me on the app I was told I have to use, 0. I was also also told just to set up the app and add the car and it would automatically be billed to my Hertz account, but that didn’t happen and I have to pay for it directly big fat ZERO(I have a gas card that I had planned to use that I get points on) Now there were other problems like Uber saying they couldn’t see the paperwork on file for the car like my registration and inspection. This might have been a system issue with Uber or a communication issue with the systems between Uber and Hertz, but as a customer, I shouldn’t have had to deal with it, especially because you guys are in a partnership with one another and have an agreement. I will not hold Hertz solely accountable for this, but I do feel like they should’ve been the ones to be on the phone with the other company figuring it out. Overall experience 1. What was the point of the reservation and ease of app use? Zero. I would love to trade in the car...

If I could give Hertz zero stars, I would. This place is a complete nightmare from start to finish.

Let’s start with the in-person experience: the young guy checking me out looked like he’d rather be anywhere else. Disheveled, rude, and utterly unhelpful, he treated me like I was a huge inconvenience. I asked simple questions about the electric vehicle, how to charge it, battery life, everything and all I got was irritation and the same obnoxious question 7 to 10 times: “Would you like to cancel the contract?” No answers, no guidance, just pure attitude. He clearly never properly charged the car on purpose. I waited nearly 45 minutes and the charge barely increased, only a 4 kW bump!

His co-worker was just as bad, nasty, disheveled, and defensive of her lazy colleague, even though she was out of the office 85 to 90% of the time during our interaction. They both acted like customers were a burden.

The waiting room looked like a dump: filthy carpets, dim lighting, broken blinds, loose and open ceiling tiles, 4 to 6 filthy chairs, and windows so grimy you couldn’t see out of them. The whole place is a disgrace.

The car? A disaster. Inside, there was a water bottle lodged under the driver’s seat, a cracked screen, a scratched steering wheel, a missing piece on the trunk handle, and napkins thrown all over the back seat. The rims were scuffed like they didn’t care about a single detail. Outside, all they did was rinse the SUV with water, didn't clean it, thrown aome water on it just enough to make it look like they cleaned it.

I rented the car for a 2-day road trip, which I ended up canceling because it was an electric vehicle, and the town I was going to didn’t have Kia EVOGO charging options, something I would’ve known if the customer reps were actually helpful. When I asked multiple times for a gas vehicle and what that would entail, instead of answering, the representative just sucked his teeth and kept asking if I wanted to cancel my contract. That wasn’t my question at all, just ignorant and frustrating!

The drop-off was a breeze but only because the two awful employees I dealt with the day before weren’t there. Instead, the branch manager was on-site. She had a positive, upbeat attitude, but one person alone can’t save a company with such horrendous, consistently terrible customer service.

The nightmare extended to the 1-800 customer service, too, rude, dismissive agents who sounded like bill collectors with terrible language skills and zero empathy. Their tone was aggressive and condescending, arguably worse than the staff on-site. It’s clear Hertz doesn’t care about its customers, vehicles, or reputation.

Hertz has completely dropped the ball on customer service from the phone lines to the rental desk. This location should be shut down immediately.

Do yourself a favor and avoid this disaster. If you must rent from Hertz, stick to the Philadelphia airport or Market Street locations, anywhere is better than...

The website told me that if I was going to use debit that I had to check out in person and couldn't complete my transaction online. When I went to the airport, they said I couldn't use my debit card and to go to the Essington location. I went here, but they don't take debit. This is already hours of my day. Hertz customer service by phone? No chance of getting help there. It's all robots.

I was told by the staff (who were very friendly) that I had to get the car back before 5PM on Labor Day because that's when they closed instead of the 8PM I originally reserved my car for. I asked if I needed to get there sooner in order to have time to actually return the car. They said yes. So, I got there at 3PM on Labor Day. It turns out they were closed for Labor Day. There were no instructions for after hours drop off. No key slot, etc.

I ended up spending more than 13% of my total rental fee in additional ride share expenses (Uber/Lyft) to get there and back home the next day to process the return when they were actually open. That's 100% their fault for giving me bad info and for nobody being able to tell me if I could just use the car an extra day without getting charged.

I also fault Hertz corporate for cutting costs and not letting people just call local numbers to talk to actual humans. Or having an option on the automated phone system to talk to a human vs. getting hung up on. It would help a ton. I'll never rent from Hertz again. It was a nightmare from beginning to end.

But I want to be clear, the local staff was great, very friendly and helpful, other than giving me very bad info about needing to return the car on Labor Day when they weren't even open.

The "owner" responded in record time. It's a canned response that can only be a bot. If Hertz corporate wants to do something to fix this, then they can do more than have yet another bot run around to spread...