Technology

It's really funny here. There already exists software that does this stuff. It's existed for quite a while. I personally know a software engineer that works at a company that creates this stuff. It's sold to insurance companies. Hertz version must just totally suck.

I'm not sure how you can make the points you make, and still call it a "generally brilliant solution"

The entire point of this system - like anything a giant company like Hertz does - is not to be fair to the customer. The point is to screw the customer over to make money.

Not allowing human employees to challenge the incorrect AI decision is very intentional, because it defers your complaint to a later time when you have to phone customer support.

This means you no longer have the persuasion power of being there in person at the time of the assessment, with the car still there too, and means you have to muster the time and effort to call customer services - which they are hoping you won't bother doing. Even if you do call, CS hold all the cards at that point and can easily swerve you over the phone.

It's all part of the business strategy.

Sounds like they want to lose those customers.

You are spot on here. AI is great for sensitivity (noticing potential issues), but terrible for specivity (giving many false positives).

The issue is how AI is used, not the AI itself. They don't have a human in the checking process. They should use AI scanner to check the car. If it's fine, then you have saved the employee from manually checking, which is a time-consuming process and prone to error.

If the AI spots something, then get an employee to look at the issues highlighted. If it's just a water drop or other false positive, then it should be a one click 'ignore', and the customer goes on their way without charge. If it is genuine, then show the evidence to the customer and discuss charges in person. Company still saves time over a manual check and has much improved accuracy and evidence collection.

They are being greedy by trying to eliminate the employee altogether. This probably doesn't actually save any money, if anything it costs more in dealing with complaints, not to mention the loss of sales due to building a poor image.

Just spit balling here, but they probably tune the AI for different thresholds between return and rent out so that they can rake in the damage fees for things that "weren't there" during the first AI scan.

Too many people these days don't use or have access to credit cards for services like this. Many people I know only use bank debit cards, or worse, use the debit preloaded cash cards issued by their employers' payroll service provider.

Credit cards motivate banks to help you, because if you won't pay, and the business doesn't pay, the bank has to take the hit.

Debit cards will work as well if your bank values it's reputation - but not all banks do.

And I would not trust a preloaded card provider to assist. You are neither their business partner nor their customer and that puts your interests at the bottom of a very long list. You have to hope some law is on your side or that your issue is so trivial that resolving it is more cost effective then dealing with you.

Yup intentionally using dogy tools to extract more money from people under false pretenses, at this point I'm boycotting any company that claims to use AI, fuck em all

Except they are using computer vision, not an LLM