NC woman gets reimbursed months after rental car strands family, call to ABC11 Troubleshooter

FAYETTEVILLE, N.C. (WTVD) -- What was supposed to be a one-day drive home from Indiana turned into a frightening, multi-day ordeal for a Fayetteville woman and her two brothers after their rental car broke down in the mountains of West Virginia.

After months of trying to get reimbursed for nearly $1,000 in out-of-pocket expenses, Qi'Andrea Younger contacted ABC11 Troubleshooter Diane Wilson for help.

Younger said she and her brothers were driving home to Fayetteville from Fort Wayne, Indiana, when a warning message suddenly appeared on the dashboard of their Hertz rental car.

"It was so scary," Younger said. "I just remember we were going around the bend on the mountains, and the car just started slowing down." She said the steering wheel locked up, but she was able to safely guide the vehicle to the side of the road before it came to a complete stop in West Virginia, hours away from home.

Younger said she immediately called Hertz Roadside Assistance. "I let them know, like, 'Hey, we're stuck, and I need help,'" she said. "They were like, 'Your location is really bad. We're going to try to send somebody out.'"

Despite waiting about four hours, Younger said no one from Hertz Roadside Assistance ever arrived. Instead, she said assistance came from the West Virginia Turnpike roadside team, which helped get the disabled vehicle towed, but the problems didn't end there. Younger said Hertz representatives directed her to three different locations in an attempt to pick up another rental vehicle.

"They sent me to a total of three locations," she said. "One of them was at an old airport. That airport no longer had the Hertz open. The second one was a hotel which did not have a Hertz at all. And the third one did not have a vehicle on standby."

Unable to secure another rental car from Hertz, Younger and her brothers spent the night in a West Virginia hotel. Meanwhile, their parents drove from Fayetteville to West Virginia to pick them up. The family finally made it back home.

Younger later asked Hertz to reimburse her $953 in out-of-pocket expenses, including Uber rides to multiple Hertz locations, a hotel stay, meals, and the gas and tolls her parents paid while driving to rescue them. Younger said she spent weeks trying to work with Hertz but was ultimately denied reimbursement.

"After months of coordinating, they denied me," she said. "I was shocked to see their lack of customer service. It really made me feel small, like they didn't care about me and my experience."

Frustrated, she reached out to ABC11 Troubleshooter Diane Wilson. "Their response was very quick once you got involved," Younger said to Wilson. "I'm getting courtesy phone calls like, 'Hey, are you okay?' You guys didn't care all these other months. But now that I called Diane, I'm getting these phone calls. How lovely."

Wilson contacted Hertz and the company sent Younger an email apologizing for the experience and agreed to reimburse her entire $953 in expenses. Hertz also credited 1,900 Hertz Gold Plus Rewards points to her account.

"I appreciate you guys," Younger said. "It was a very scary experience, but you guys helping really made me feel better."

A Hertz spokesperson told Wilson that customer care remains their top priority, and in this instance, Hertz didn't meet their standards. The company said that while roadside assistance was contacted, the breakdown occurred in an area with limited-service provider availability despite its nationwide network. Hertz also said it is reinforcing its internal processes and providing feedback to the appropriate teams to help improve the customer experience moving forward.