The next time you rent a car, that ding on the door might not slip under the radar. Powerful new AI-driven tools are helping Hertz and other companies catch every little scratch, and puzzled renters are being asked to pay up.

Hertz, one of the world’s largest car rental companies, debuted the technology last fall at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, and it’s now in use at five other US airports, said Emily Spencer, a Hertz spokesperson. Developed by a company called UVeye, the scanning system works by capturing thousands of high-resolution images from all angles as a vehicle passes through a rental lot’s gates at pickup and return. Artificial intelligence then compares those images and flags any discrepancies.

The system automatically creates and sends damage reports, Spencer said. An employee reviews the report only if a customer flags an issue after receiving the bill. She added that fewer than 3% of vehicles scanned by the AI system show any billable damage.

Still, unexpected charges for damage that’s barely visible to the naked eye are leaving renters wondering what’s going on.

‘It could have been a shadow’

Kelly Rogers and her husband rented a car from Hertz at the Atlanta airport over the July 4 weekend to travel to a family wedding in Birmingham, Alabama. The couple, who live in Scarsdale, New York, booked a minivan to shuttle family around, and the drive in both directions was uneventful, they said.

When they returned the car in Atlanta, they inspected it and saw no damage. A Hertz employee inspected the vehicle upon its return as well, they said, and did not flag any damage.

But once the couple had passed through airport security, they received a notification via the Hertz app that its automated system had detected a dent in the passenger-side front door. They were charged US$195 (RM827): US$80 (RM339) for the damage and US$115 (RM488) in fees, including those incurred “as a result of processing” the damage claim and the “cost to detect and estimate the damage” that occurred during the rental. Hertz offered to reduce the charge to US$130 (RM551) if they paid within one day.

An image from a car scanner shows the passenger-side front door of a minivan, as she returned it in Atlanta, with a spot Hertz claimed was a dent highlighted in red. As Hertz rolls out AI-powered scanners that generate damage reports and fees, unexpected charges for damage barely visible to the naked eye are leaving some renters wondering what’s going on. — Kelly Rogers via The New York Times

Rogers said the charge was inexplicable. “It could have been a shadow,” she said in a phone interview. “We were pulling it up on the app, and we’re like, ‘This is so bananas’.”

The couple has been in touch with customer service and is seeking to have the fee dismissed. Spencer said the incident was reviewed and confirmed as a new dent.

What the eye doesn’t see

UVeye, which makes Hertz’s scanners, says on its website that its technology can “detect 5X more damage than manual checks” and generate “6X higher total value of damage captured”.

Yaron Saghiv, the company’s chief marketing officer, said in an email that its technology “removes the need for manual walkarounds, increases vehicle safety, and ensures a reliable, objective record of vehicle condition”.

Spencer, the Hertz spokesperson, said the company uses the scanners to make sure customers “are not charged for damage that didn’t occur during their rental, while bringing greater transparency, precision and speed to the process when new damage is detected”.

As for the fees tacked on to the Rogers family’s bill, Spencer said that damage fees “are all incident-specific” and that they are calculated using multiple variables including “the costs that are incurred, identifying and quantifying the damage, and administering the claim”.

Hertz and its subsidiaries, Dollar and Thrifty, are using the technology at Newark Liberty International Airport, Charlotte Douglas International Airport, Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport, Tampa International Airport and George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston, as well as in Atlanta, Spencer said.

Hertz plans to expand the technology to other “major airport locations” this year, Spencer said, but did not specify how many or where.

Sixt, another major rental car company, uses a different AI-supported tool called Car Gate, a scanner that relies on “built-in sensors, cameras and a lighting system” to check for damage, according to the company’s website. “As part of the quality assurance, the photos are checked and verified,” the website says. Sixt did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

A spokesperson for Enterprise Mobility, which owns Enterprise, National and Alamo, said the company does not use AI in its damage review process.

Avis Budget Group, which includes the brands Avis, Budget and Payless, as well as the car-sharing company Zipcar, was reportedly testing AI damage scanning technology as early as 2019, but the company said via email that its damage assessment process “remains human-led”. It added, “While certain technologies, including AI, may be used to support internal efficiencies, they do not replace the judgment or involvement of our employees.” – ©2025 The New York Times Company

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.