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I'm always a little skeptical about these articles... But it brought back to mind the last time I rented a car. After verifying my driver's license, and confirm

I'm always a little skeptical about these articles... But it brought back to mind the last time I rented a car. After verifying my driver's license, and confirming my insurance, they asked me to give them a number for someone I was staying with. I was pretty frustrated, but even more frustrated that I gave up and told them.

vmception 5y ago
I just lie about the less consequential stuff, like a third person's phone number. Very seamless experience. I generally have lawyers on retainer to bounce questions off of to understand my liability vectors. So, yay, money privilege.
bb88 5y ago
I'm not sure why you're skeptical, it seems pretty easy enough to track down: arrest records, court papers, etc, and reports are as old as two years ago.
duxup 5y ago
Do you feel it is bad you gave them that number?
- brewdad 5y ago
  I can guarantee a company the size of Hertz has the means to track the car via GPS or other means. If they really need to track the car (or me) down, they can find it (us). Having the contact info of the person I'm staying with is completely unnecessary. It's an invasion of privacy of a completely unrelated third party to our agreement.
  - syspec 5y ago
    How can you guarantee that?
    - brewdad 5y ago
      Both of my cars have that feature and I didn't even ask for it. Car rental companies are absolutely asking for it. It might add $20 to the price of the car.
      - syspec 5y ago
        That's still not an actual guarantee.
  - duxup 5y ago
    Maybe they just wanted to know where they could reach you if you’re phone wasn’t working?
    - brewdad 5y ago
      Why would they need to reach me? If they really need to, they can ping the OnStar system, or whatever proprietary system is built into basically every new vehicle. This is assuming they don't add their own tracking system after taking delivery. A company the size of Hertz can absolutely know where every car they own is at any point in time. It doesn't mean that every employee can just look it up for fun but the info is available to those who need it.
      - duxup 5y ago
        Maybe they just need a alt number to call rather than something like on star? I think you’re over complicating it.

vmception 5y ago

I just lie about the less consequential stuff, like a third person's phone number. Very seamless experience. I generally have lawyers on retainer to bounce questions off of to understand my liability vectors. So, yay, money privilege.

bb88 5y ago

I'm not sure why you're skeptical, it seems pretty easy enough to track down: arrest records, court papers, etc, and reports are as old as two years ago.

duxup 5y ago

Do you feel it is bad you gave them that number?

brewdad 5y ago
I can guarantee a company the size of Hertz has the means to track the car via GPS or other means. If they really need to track the car (or me) down, they can find it (us). Having the contact info of the person I'm staying with is completely unnecessary. It's an invasion of privacy of a completely unrelated third party to our agreement.
- syspec 5y ago
  How can you guarantee that?
  - brewdad 5y ago
    Both of my cars have that feature and I didn't even ask for it. Car rental companies are absolutely asking for it. It might add $20 to the price of the car.
    - syspec 5y ago
      That's still not an actual guarantee.
- duxup 5y ago
  Maybe they just wanted to know where they could reach you if you’re phone wasn’t working?
  - brewdad 5y ago
    Why would they need to reach me? If they really need to, they can ping the OnStar system, or whatever proprietary system is built into basically every new vehicle. This is assuming they don't add their own tracking system after taking delivery. A company the size of Hertz can absolutely know where every car they own is at any point in time. It doesn't mean that every employee can just look it up for fun but the info is available to those who need it.
    - duxup 5y ago
      Maybe they just need a alt number to call rather than something like on star? I think you’re over complicating it.