Hertz employees left their posts hours early, which led to customers grabbing whatever keys were available.
Anyone who travels and rents a car knows the whole process can be a real pain. There are long lines, hidden fees, and most of the time you don’t get the vehicle you reserved—and that’s if your reservation is honored at all (just ask Seinfeld). Fortunately, these days some of the leading car rental companies have made changes to streamline the service, except things recently got a little too streamlined at the Syracuse Airport Hertz rental counter.
According to a CBS News report (via CarBuzz), things turned chaotic at the New York Hertz location when employees clocked out approximately six hours early, leaving the rental counter completely unattended—even as flights were still arriving with reservation holders onboard.
When travelers arrived after those employees left in order to pick up their reserved rentals, and no one was around to help them, some decided to help themselves. Approximately 20 customers simply grabbed keys for whatever car was available (or seeing which cars had the keys left in them) and went on their way. Note that this Hertz location isn’t quite dealing in autonomous rentals yet, so pulling a grab ‘n go with the keys was in no way an official option.
If that wasn’t strange enough, one of the customers that absconded with a vehicle was none other than Denver Mayor Mike Johnson. “We showed up and the rental car company was closed,” said Johnson. So, Johnson along with several others just walked up to cars with keys in them and drove off. “We took one we thought was for us.”
Later Hertz contacted Johnson to let him know he was in the wrong vehicle, and he was able to exchange it for the right one.
When the airport realized what was going on, officials tried to contact Hertz but couldn’t reach anyone that was on-duty.
It’s not clear if everyone who took a vehicle had to later swap it out or faced some sort of penalty. It’s also not clear why the Hertz employees left the counter abandoned for so long. What is clear is that it’s probably a good idea to double check with someone before taking a car from a rental lot just because it has keys in it—or, you know, go check the other rental companies’ counters (the attended ones) to see what they have to offer.
