A car rental company has banned my wife – but compared with some Hertz customers she may have got off lightly

The firm is being sued by hundreds of clients who allege it made false theft reports against them. Hertz has denied it - but could it be another Post Office scandal?

About a year ago, my wife was filling in paperwork to hire a car when the woman behind the counter suddenly looked up in alarm. I'm sorry," she said in a stage whisper. The computer is saying: Do not rent to this woman under any circumstances.' It seems you're banned for life?" There was an awkward pause before she leaned forward conspiratorially and said: What did you do?!"

Good question. The short answer is nothing; my wife is innocent. What happened is this: she and I hired a car to visit her family for Thanksgiving and dropped it off in Boston at 9am. The company - which I won't name because I don't want it to set its lawyers on me - said we returned it at 9pm and insisted we pay them an extra $350. We said: Hell, no," so it referred us to debt collectors who hounded us for weeks. This could have had a terrible knock-on effect on our credit score and ability to get a mortgage, but a lawyer friend helped us get the issue dropped - except we hadn't realised the company had banned my wife from ever using it or its many subsidiaries again. (Which we would never do by choice - however, rental car costs have gone up 43% and it was the cheapest option.)