Hertz Rent A Car

I have rented many vehicles in the past, never from Hertz and never again. The mess started the night before we were supposed to pickup the vehicle. My wife called in to verify the pickup location, they explained that the vehicle has been moved, the new location is 25 minutes from my house instead of 5. No big deal, it happens. I arrive the next morning to an empty office. No agent, just a note on the door stating the person would be back. After waiting patiently for about 20 minutes i called the number on the door. My call was answered by the St. Charles office, the gentleman who answered simply stated that the agent should be back any minute. I waited another 10 minutes and called back, this time the only thing i was told was that he does not know where the agent is and he should be there. By this point i am almost an hour late departing from my planned trip. It was only after calling another Hertz office that i was informed that the vehicle is at the Penske Rental it was initially supposed to be at, the one 5 minutes from my house. So i make the drive to Penske and meet the most passive aggressive unfriendly person i have ever encountered. My hint should have been the neatly printed warning not to write on the front counter that read something to the effect of «if you or your children want to write on the counter like Kindergartners we will be happy to charge you a $ 100 clean up fee.» The gentleman that worked there was just awful, he must have been born without people skills or something. He never explained any of the charges (i will get to that in a bit), and said everything in a sort of sarcastic tone as if our presence was bothering him. We picked up the van, which was an almost new Kia, in great shape, and very clean. When we dropped the van back off 3 days later we once again met Mr Personality. We had to wait again about 15 minutes because he was just too busy doing something else to take 30 seconds to walk over and get the key. This in itself was an awful experience, the train wreck of picking up the vehicle delayed my trip by over 2 hours. But it wasn’t over yet. My wife went to an ATM to withdraw cash and noticed something not right. She checked the transaction log and noticed we had an additional 300 something dollar hold on our account. We had been charged for the total amount of the rental up front, and now we have this mystery charge. We called Hertz and they explained that Mr Personality at Penske charged us incorrectly, but also the hold was pretty standard practice and should drop off in a few days. NONE of this was explained to us up front. I rent vehicles at least once a year, but often 2 or three times a year. Not only will i be sure to never rent from Hertz again, i am going to steer others away from potentially having the same frustrating experience i have had.