Rental car snafu leaves angry holiday travelers scrambling for transportation

ATLANTA — Eight hour waits for rental cars that were not where they were supposed to be left over a hundred people fuming Saturday night.

All of them were travelers who made their holiday plans based on getting a rental car from Hertz.

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Channel 2 Action News Investigative reporter Ashli Lincoln could not get anyone from Hertz to comment on the lack of vehicles or plans to help stranded customers.

Many of those customers told her that Hertz officials are blaming the pandemic, a rental car shortage, understaffing and Labor Day crowds for the delays.

“If you have a reservation, you have a minimum of five hours, we’ve been here for 8 hours,” Tim Rogers said. “We heard one of the staff members yell out, just so everybody knows it’s going to be about a five hour wait if you have a reservation.”

Rogers flew into Atlanta from Sarasota, Florida. He was in town to attend a wedding in north Georgia. Rogers said he’s frustrated and has been waiting hours for a rental car he said was reserved months ago.

“We’re like ok, what other options do we have?” Rogers said. “And it turns out they had no cars anywhere. But we had reservations. We’ve been waiting since 2:45”

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Lincoln spoke to Kehosha McCrimmon who flew to Atlanta from Dallas with a group of friends to celebrate a birthday. When they talked McCrimmon said she and her friends had been waiting over five hours. She was very frustrated.

“NO cars, as you can see all of the people back here everybody waiting we confused, what’s going on,” McCrimmon said. “We’re just hoping we’re not going to sleep here tonight, because it seems like that’s a hefty possibility”

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All the customers Lincoln spoke with said they had to cancel or rearrange plans because they could not get where they needed to go. Each told her the excuses Hertz gave them is unacceptable.

Channel 2 Action News did try to get a response from Hertz workers at the rental car center, but they declined to comment. Lincoln attempted to call the company’s corporate offices, but at this time, there has been no response.

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