--- title: "Fake Hertz Employee Scams Ohio Woman Out of $630 in Gift Cards" description: "There's a new type of scam going around, and it seemingly involves fraudsters posing as [Hertz]() agents to ask customers for gift cards." date: "2025-01-13" modified: "2025-01-13" authors: - name: "Ronan Glon" job_title: "Contributing Writer" link: "https://www.thedrive.com/authors/ronan-glon" url: "https://www.thedrive.com/news/fake-hertz-employee-scams-ohio-woman-out-of-630-in-gift-cards" categories: - "News" --- # Fake Hertz Employee Scams Ohio Woman Out of $630 in Gift Cards ![Front of a Hertz store.]() *\Hertz\* There's a new type of scam going around, and it seemingly involves fraudsters posing as [Hertz]() agents to ask customers for gift cards. Speaking to *[Cleveland.com]()*, an anonymous woman explained she rented a car from Hertz and fell behind on payments. The company remotely bricked the car she was renting until she paid at least some of the money she owed. The car was disabled for about a week. The woman looked for the number to Hertz's customer service department online, found one that looked legit, and called it. She didn't know this at the time, but the number she found actually belonged to a scammer and had nothing to do with Hertz or its customer service department. The person on the other end of the line, identified only as "a male," instructed her to pay her debt by purchasing a $312 Walmart gift card. It must have felt like seeing a light at the end of a tunnel. The woman purchased a Walmart gift card for $320, called the same number, and gave the relevant information to the person on the other end of the line. After presumably saving the first card's details, the scammer told the woman that he couldn't accept it because it was $8 over the amount due. He asked her to purchase a second gift card for precisely $312, which she did. She called for the third time, the scammer accepted the second card, and he promised to return the $320 payment after Hertz got the car back. You can guess how this story ends. Someone posing as a Hertz agent got $632 for free and the woman still had a bricked car in her driveway. Police asked the woman to reach out to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and report the scam, according to *Cleveland.com*. There's no word on whether the fraudster has been identified, though the line the woman called has been disconnected. Hertz hasn't commented on the scam. *Got tips? Send ’em to [tips@thedrive.com]()* ## Author Ronan is a contributing writer for The Drive. He draws on over 15 years of experience to cover breaking industry news, cool one-off builds, and anything in between. He began writing for The Drive in 2021 and stepped into his current role in 2024. His obsession with cars started when a relative gave him a Majorette die-cast shortly after his first birthday. It hasn't flickered since. Ronan lives in France; He swapped Utah's Rocky Mountains, where he grew up, for the Alps. He's an avid hiker, mountain biker, and musician. He also restores classic European cars and mopeds, including a 1978 Citroen 2CV that he's rebuilding from the ground up. ### Author social links [Twitter]()