My horror story with Hertz OR Tambo

My horror story with Hertz OR Tambo.

I booked a car to use in SA as I was attending my graduation. Paid for it in full (perhaps my first mistake in retrospect). It was for a 7 day rental so the amount was a bit substantial too.

Got to the branch on the 30.04.2022 and I was served by Thulani and Kirsten. They told me I couldn't take the car as I needed to provide a card to prove my Australian permanent residency (given my licence is from Australia). They showed me some woman's documents, she had a residency card from Kuwait or Qatar, I don't quite recall.

So I explained that Australia doesn't do cards, their visas are electronic, still no, they needed a card. I explained that Australia has a VEVO online system where they can verify that my visa is legit, no they werent interested in any of that

Anyway, by chance I located a copy of my Australian permanent residency visa in my downloads folder on my phone and I provided this to the staff and they still refused to accept this. They said it has to be a physical copy because they had to hold it up for the cameras in the office to see (didn't make much sense to me either).

Anyway so, this was now 7pm in Jo'burg I had just found out I couldn't collect my rental (what fun) so I asked what I had to do to resolve this. I was given the Central Reservations number. I explained that I didnt have a South African sim card and asked if it was okay for me to call this number from the Hertz phone, the lovely gentlemen both said no

So there I was stranded at 7pm in Johannesburg with no means to contact anyone.

I had communication with the branch manager, Sheldon the next day. Now the reasoning they couldn't give me the car was because my license was from Australia (because I live and work in Australia) and my passport was not Australian (well because I'm not Australian). Sheldon was worried that this meant I could ***** their car, he didn't want to be responsible if I stole their car so he said we aren't releasing the car.

I'm sorry but I wouldn't recommend this service at all. My graduation experience was ruined because of them.

For reference on their website both on their T&Cs and their FAQs, there is nothing about a residency card or passport and licencebeing from the same country