Yesterday evening I called Hertz:
- “I’m calling to find out if I can return my rental car at Oakland instead of SFO.”
- “What’s the RR number at the top right of the contract?”
- “67383893”
- “What’s the name on the contract?”
- “Greenspun”
- “First name?”
- “Philip”
- “Are you ‘Philip Greenspun’?”
I never established who Hertz suspected might be calling about a rented-out car other than the person who rented it.
Having learned that it would cost $500 extra to return the car at Oakland, I drove the few extra miles to SFO and returned the car there. At the beginning of the security checkpoint, a uniformed TSA agent looked at my driver’s license and boarding pass and then, as he had been doing with every other passenger, asked “Please verify your last name.”
I once had an airport checkpoint person scrutinize my driver’s license intently, then look at me and say “Are you Mr. Elkins?”
Wow, $500 is a lot for just across the water. Don’t know what you were doing visiting our neck of the woods but I hope you had a good trip.
Maybe the Hertz operator knew who you were, and they couldn’t believe they had the good fortune to be talking to THE Philip Greenspun!
They are trying to catch total idiots.
Wives do business for their husbands all the time. I can easily see calling about a contract with my husband’s name on it, and replying to the last question, “No, but I’m his wife,” and then then business simply proceeds — they are used to that kind of thing. I suppose its unlikely they thought you were Philip Greenspun’s wife, but they might perhaps in this liberal age thought you might be his gay civil partner — or his butler, or something else along those lines.
I’ve never figured out why, at some stores, if you don’t sign the back of your credit card, they ask to see ID… however, IF you actually do sign the card, they don’t ask you for anything. So stealing a card and signing it – full proof.
Rebecca: As noted above, I opened the conversation by saying “MY rental car”, not “my husband’s rental car”.
[A separate question would be “Would their answers be different if I were a spouse or secretary calling on behalf of the renter?” Would the drop-off fee, for example, be different if it weren’t the actual renter calling?]
@ Josh Volchko – I’m always having people ask to see my credit card after I swipe it, because the computer tells them to. I have no idea why, because they don’t even look at the back. I guess if you steal a credit card, you’re supposed to write STOLEN across the top in black marker.
Meanwhile, in the immature amusement department: At Safeway, the checker is required to say “Thank you, Mr/Ms So and so” based on the name on your Safeway club card, not your credit card – hence I get called by the wrong name because someone else applied for a club card using the same phone number I did and their name apparently overwrote mine in the system.
I knew a guy who filled out a club card application with a last name that isn’t suitable for use in polite company (he added a “d” before the last letter, to make it look legitimate). The card was approved and now the checker always has to stop and look at his name and try to figure out how to say “Thank you, Mr – ” without calling him what appears to be an obscene name.
You know what annoys me? When I answer the phone and the person on the other end says “Who’s this?”
Now let’s have a quick English lesson, for the benefit of the callers who are unfamiliar with their own native language. “This” refers to the speaker or someone or something close to the speaker; “that” refers to someone or something farther away from the speaker.
For instance, when making a phone call one may identify oneself by saying “This is John Smith,” or when making a light-hearted social call to a friend or relative, one may say “Hello, Aunt Mary. Do you know who this is?”
So, literally, “Who’s this?” means “Who am I?”.
If you don’t know who you are, don’t call me! Call your doctor!
@CCG:
Merchants ask to see the front of your credit card to confirm that the card has an embossed account number and that the last four digits of this account number match those in the account number read from the magnetic stripe.
This is intended to make it more difficult to use a card–either a genuine credit card that has been altered or a blank card obtained elsewhere–with a magnetic stripe encoded with a fraudulently-obtained account number.
The common denominator appears to be a lack of anything resembling common sense. While that has minimal effect with the (outsourced?) rental car agents, it’s troubling to see it in a security agency that portrays itself as the Impenetrable Bulwark Against Terrorism and represents itself as responding to the Latest Robust Intelligence.
The TSA, after all, is supposed to make the public feel reassured that the Homeland Security Department is several steps ahead of the terrorists. Actions that make no sense would seem to undermine that reassurance. But perhaps they assume that the public, like the terrorists from whom they claim to provide highly effective protection, are as intellectually obtunded as the people who staff the agency.
I have called up to arrange to return Hertz cars I rented at SFO at SJC before, and I believe the fees were $40-$100, not $500. I am a member of the ‘#1 Club Gold’ I am not sure if that helped me but I think that it depends on the class of car that you rent. I always rent the cheapest car possible.
I’ve been waiting to test my “INTENTIONALLY LEFT BLANK” card (came with an insurance card mailer which was apparently intended for two cards) on the TSA when prompted for ID:
“Verify your last name?”
“‘Blank’.”
“Move along.”
(That, or the shock of encountering an artifact of bureaucracy as ineffectual as himself sends him into an irrecoverable catatonic state)
re the physical handling of the card : there are different levels of charges levied by the credit card processor depending on a number of factors. One of them concerns whether or not the card is physically present, and if so, the fee is less. That is why all companies above a certain size require the cashier to physically handle the card and type in some kind of confirmation – they will save 0.25% or more of the total amount of the transaction.
“The common denominator appears to be a lack of anything resembling common sense.”
To quote (and slightly butcher) Voltaire, common sense isn’t.
“it in a security agency that portrays itself as the Impenetrable Bulwark Against Terrorism and represents itself as responding to the Latest Robust Intelligence.”
As I likely read here, Bruce Schneier calls it “Security Theater”.
“But perhaps they assume that the public, like the terrorists from whom they claim to provide highly effective protection, are as intellectually obtunded as the people who staff the agency.”
Plato regarded the public as children to whom the State must tell lies “for their own good”. I’d call that the model for all States before and since.
A nice example I ran across yesterday:
http://libertystreeteconomics.newyorkfed.org/2011/05/historical-echoes-communication-before-the-blog.html
As the person who pointed me to this link said, “I can think of some better slogans:
‘The Federal Reserve: Flinging fresh fiat since 1913.’
‘The Federal Reserve: Currency Debasement R Us’
‘The Federal Reserve: Don’t forget to ask about our special deals for the super-wealthy.’ “
@CCG, the quote from Plato sounds like the approach the TSA takes (and I’m not considering the Bush administration that created it as a whole, not that Obama is significantly different). But “Blogger Bob,” a disciple of Joseph Goebbels who runs the TSA Propaganda Department blog, surely has not even heard of Plato. Or if he has, he sees it as a misspelling of “Play Dough,” a substance screeners would confiscate as a dangerous liquid if someone tried to carry it onto a plane.
And yes, the TSA is security theatre. Everyone outside the DHS recognizes it is such. But “Blogger Bob’s” mission is to advance the official delusion that the TSA is an Impenetrable Bulwark Against Terrorism even in the face of indisputable evidence that it’s not. Our tax dollars hard at work.
I am a #1 Club Gold member. Because I rent from Hertz often, I now qualify for a one-class upgrade. Since Hertz knows that I am a mid-late 40s male highly likely to be in the midst of a mid-life crisis, the one class upgrade consistently turns out to be… a Mazda minivan. I’m figuring that Philip’s problem comes from the same process that generated this outcome for me?