Hertz will never ask customers to pay for their car rental with a gift card… but a scammer will. Unawareness of this basic fact led one couple to lose $800 to a devious international scheme.
Is there any way to get that money back?
During a recent trip to London, Mary L. thought she had discovered a secret hack to Hertz car rental discounts. After she called a prominently displayed number in a Google search for Hertz, the person who answered clued her in. He told Mary she could unlock giant savings by paying for her rental car with an American Express gift card.
A jet-lagged Mary agreed and followed the stranger’s instructions, including looping her partner David into the phone call. Back home in Georgia, David would need to buy the gift card at a local Walgreens. Then, he would share the gift card number and pay for Mary’s rental car, which would be delivered to her.
Only after completing all the steps and after the “agent” hung up did the couple begin to suspect something wasn’t right. But by then, their $800 was already gone. The person they thought worked for Hertz was just a common call center scammer — and that bargain rental car would never materialize.
Now, the bamboozled couple is asking Consumer Rescue for help retrieving the money they lost in this gift card scam.
But if a consumer willingly shares a gift card number with a scammer, is there any way to claw back that money?
Note: I’m not using the couple’s actual names because they’re crime victims and embarrassed about falling for this scam.
Be careful calling phone numbers found on the Internet
Mary was spending three days at the London Heathrow Hilton Hotel and decided to do some exploring.
“She just needed a rental car for the weekend,” David told me. “So she did a Google search for Hertz and called the first number in the results.”
That was a mistake. As regular readers of this site know, I’ve been sounding the alarm since last year about fake call centers posing as popular companies on the Internet. These scammers have been able to infiltrate the Google search results and trick consumers, credit card companies, airlines and others with their operations.
I first reported on this phenomenon over at The Points Guy last summer after Cathy Chang was scammed by a fake airline customer service center.
That article started an avalanche of similar complaints here at Consumer Rescue. Suddenly, the scammers seemed to be appearing everywhere, pretending to be nearly every customer-facing company a consumer could search for.
Unfortunately, things haven’t improved since I began investigating these scammers. If anything, as I recently reported over at Fodor’s Travel, the fake customer service crime rings seem to have become better at tricking consumers and Google.
But Mary had never heard about this problem and so assumed she could trust the Google Search results.
How a Google Search led a car rental customer right into a gift card scam
David explained how he and his partner ended up in the clutches of this scammer.
[Mary] Googled “Hertz Car Rental” to obtain the phone number near London Heathrow. Trusting the Google search results, she chose the wrong phone number and got the slick, silver-tongued fraudster on the line offering $400 next-morning rental car delivery to the hotel.
Yes, you read that right. Initially, this car rental scam only involved one $400 gift card.
However, as is typical with predators, this con artist knew he had a victim on the hook and wasn’t quite ready to release his prey. After David shared the numbers of the first gift card, this bad guy decided to double down on his scam.
The scammer asks his victims to buy another gift card to pay for the rental car
The phony car rental employee explained he was having problems processing the gift card payment.
He told me that when he ran the Amex gift card through the Hertz system, it was blocked. So [the scammer] said I needed to go back [to Walgreens] and get a specifically identifiable “GO2Bank” Visa debit card for another $400. I have a voice recording of “Bob from Billings” (the scammer). His number is 855 620-3276. I realize this is probably not his real number.
Scam number alert: 855 620-3276 is associated with other online car rental scams. Victims report that the person at the other end of that number is pretending to be from Enterprise Rent-a-Car. However, consumers should always remember that scammers can make nearly any number appear in your caller ID. Consumers should never be lulled into a sense of security based on the number displayed on their phones.
David says that looking back now, he’s shocked that he fell for this scam, not once, but twice. He returned to Walgreens and purchased the additional gift card at the scammer’s request. Soon, he was back on the phone with “Bob from Billings.”
After David shared the $400 GO2Bank Visa debit card number, the fake Hertz employee had good news. Mary’s reservation was confirmed and the rental car would be delivered in the morning to the hotel.
It was late in London, and Mary was looking forward to getting to bed. She wrote down the reservation number for reference and thanked “Bob from Billings” for his help. The scammer cheerfully wished them both a good night and hung up.
It had been an extremely good night for this online predator.
Is there any way to get money back from a gift card scammer?
The following day, Mary made her way down to the lobby to wait for the rental car. As the clock ticked past the scheduled time, she was at first annoyed with the delay. But after an hour passed and no vehicle materialized, she began to get an uneasy feeling. Now, well rested, the scheme to buy gift cards to pay for her car rental looked a little different. In a bit of a panic, Mary called the local Hertz using a number given to her by the hotel.
That’s when a real Hertz employee broke the bad news about her car rental reservation: Mary didn’t have one. The agent also explained that they don’t accept gift cards as prepayment to reserve a vehicle.
When the promised Hertz rental car never came, [Mary] was in tears, realizing we had been scammed out of $800. Then, she had to go to the real Hertz location near Heathrow to legitimately rent a car. Please help us get American Express and GO2Bank to refund the two gift cards the scammer took.
David to Consumer Rescue
Of course, I felt terrible for the couple. But I also instantly knew there would be no way to retrieve the value of those gift cards.
Gift cards are virtually untraceable, which makes them a favorite payment method for scammers worldwide. In fact, only traditional wire transfers and Zelle, the instant money transfer app, surpass gift cards in popularity among online criminals.
The only possible way to retrieve a gift card balance after you’ve shared the numbers with a scammer is by canceling it before the thief starts spending.
The bad news for these scam victims
Hertz customers should be aware that it isn’t possible to use a prepaid debit card or gift card to secure a rental car.
Only a credit card is a valid prepayment method because car rental companies also require a traveler to prove they have the ability to cover additional expenses and possible damages to the vehicle. While a traveler may be able to pay some of the final balance at the end of the rental with a gift card, every Hertz customer must provide a valid credit card to reserve a vehicle.
No real Hertz employee will ever ask you to go on a gift card-buying spree. That type of request is a scam 100 percent of the time.
Unfortunately, by the time David became aware of this scam, the balance on both gift cards was zero.
Of course, the phone number for “Bob from Billings” wasn’t valid. In fact, as in other cases, I tried to call the scammer back, but the number was perpetually busy. There is no way this couple will be able to track down the stranger who conned them out of $800.
Regrettably, this case is unsolvable. However, it can serve as a valuable warning to others who still may be unaware of the lengths criminals will go to separate you from your money. And that’s the best we can hope for when it comes to gift card scams, I’m afraid.
How to avoid losing your cash in a gift card scam
- Treat gift cards like cash: Always treat your gift cards as if they were cash because that’s how the issuer views them. Sharing your gift card numbers, in most cases, has the same outcome as if you shared a wad of cash with a stranger who ran away with your money. There is no way to track down the anonymous person. Remember, no one needs an ID to use a gift card. Make sure to read the terms of use of your gift cards so that you understand precisely what you should and shouldn’t expect from your purchase. (See: How to quickly lose $1,100 in a Walmart shopping scam)
- Never share gift card numbers over the phone or in a text: Under no circumstances should you ever share a gift card number over the phone or in a text. You wouldn’t give a stranger the PIN to your bank account. Right? Giving an unknown person the code on the back of your gift card is essentially the same thing. You’re giving that stranger full access to the balance on that card. Scammers have their computers open and are ready to spend your card the moment you give them the number. By the time you realize you’ve made an error in judgment, that thief likely already has drained your gift card, and there will be no way to get the money back. (See: This is how a Craigslist thief drained his Target gift card)
- Gift cards should never be purchased at the insistence of a stranger: The only person who will ever ask you to buy gift cards to pay for something is a scammer. Remember that. There is no legitimate reason why anyone should ask you to use a gift card instead of cash for anything. That includes car rentals, hotels, airfare, cruises, and any other travel-related or non-travel-related items, like utilities. (See: eBay gift card scams are running wild. Here’s how to avoid becoming a victim.)
- Report online scams: If you’re a victim of an online fake customer service scam, it’s crucial to report the crime. It’s true, you likely won’t get your money back. However, you should still report the crime to the FBI Internet Crimes Unit and to the company the predators are pretending to be. Make sure to provide as much information as possible about the scammers. The more the authorities learn about these giant crime rings, the greater the possibility they’ll be stopped.
The bottom line
The only “businesses” that prefer to take payment with random gift cards they’ve instructed you to buy are scam rings. So keep that in mind the next time someone offers you a great deal, but only if you buy some gift cards. You’re talking to a criminal, and you can guarantee that you’re not going to get a discount on your car rental or anything else if you follow their instructions. In fact, you’re not going to get a rental car at all, but the fraudster will definitely be taking you for a ride.
Never let your desire for a good deal cloud your common sense. If you do, unfortunately, not even our advocacy team can retrieve your money from a scammer. (Michelle Couch-Friedman, Consumer Rescue)
You said it at the end. Use your common sense.
In this case, I think jet lag also had a little bit to do with it…
Gift Cards. I could be in the middle of having a stroke and know that was a scam!
Everybody needs to go directly to the company's website for contact information. And everyone reading this comment needs to ensue their family and friends know this.
For about 99.9% of companies, add .com to their name for the website. For instance, instead of googling Hertz, go to hertz.com by typing in your browser "hertz.com" (without the quotation marks) and pressing Enter or tapping the arrow icon.
People need to get out of the habit of using Google to get to websites (even my son does this) since this leads one to a scammer.
I can't imagine being able to Google Hertz and then wanting to call to make a car reservation.
Once again… amazing people like that exist! So sad.