I called Hertz yesterday morning like I said I would. Instead of blasting the nice and professional representative about the errant charge, I politely told her the charge was in error. She then politely removed it from my bill and apologized for the inconvenience. She was wrapping up the call when I felt obligated to ask how this might happen.

“Oh, I’m sure it was some mistake,” she said. “We’ve taken care of it.”

“Well, doesn’t it seem a bit dishonest?” I challenged. “I mean, you charged me for something that wasn’t needed.”

She repeated her apology and to her credit sounded genuinely sorry. “Sir, I can’t tell you what happened because I’m in Oklahoma City and this happened in Chicago,” she said, a little flustered.

Fair enough, I thought, and I eased up on the hammers as John Wayne used to say. I told her I wasn’t upset with her, but I did want an address where I could write a letter. She and I ended our call peacefully and politely.

I then took a few minutes to dash off a letter to Hertz. It said that, in spite of the excellent treatment by Hertz’s customer service staff, I was still disappointed in the lack of integrity shown by the fraudulent charge added to my bill. In essense, the rep’s apology wasn’t enough of an apology for my taste.

Before I could put the letter in the envelope, I got a call back from Celeste, the wonderful agent I spoke with Friday. She told me she had tried to email me but she didn’t have access to the database with the email addresses. I gave her my address and then told her she didn’t need it since the previous rep had removed the charge.

So, at this point the charge has been removed. Now I’m waiting for a response to my letter to see if I’ll ever rent from Hertz again. If only their garage staff was as friendly and genuine as their customer service staff.