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National “blacklists” customer after credit card dispute

December 12, 2008

When Matt Ginsberg found an undisclosed dropoff fee on his National rental car bill a few years ago, he disputed the charge on his credit card. It worked. His credit card company sided with him. Case closed. Or was it?

About a year and a half later, I walked up to a National counter to pick up a car I had reserved through an online travel agency. I was told that I had been blacklisted and that National wouldn’t rent to me any more.

This was quite a problem — I was in St. Louis for a business meeting and needed to get to it. I wound up renting from Hertz at a much higher rate. This happened to me again when I tried to rent from Alamo, since National and Alamo have apparently merged.

Blacklisting is not an uncommon practice in the travel industry. I’ve documented National’s tendency to do it in the past. Airlines do it, too.

How do you get off the list? The best way is to ask. Nicely.

That’s what I suggested to Ginsberg. So he phoned National.

I just called National customer service and was told that on the basis of my driver’s license, I’m still blacklisted.

They said there was no reason in the record, but I don’t think it could be anything else (I have a clean driving record, etc.).
They said that my record included a phone number to call.

Ginsberg tried the number.

I waited on hold for an hour. A representative said that National had moved its headquarters in 2004 (when the original chargeback happened) and that meant that they would let me off.

Totally different from the last time I tried to sort this out with them but hey, it’s fixed. Thanks for your help!

National, and any of the other companies with similar blacklists, are well within their rights to refuse to do business with whomever they choose, of course.

But at a time like this, why would they?

Christopher Elliott is the author of Scammed: How to Save Your Money and Find Better Service in a World of Schemes, Swindles, and Shady Deals. Critics have called it “eye-opening” and “inspiring” — it’ll “grab your attention and won’t let go.” Order your copy now on Amazon, Barnes & Noble or iTunes.

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14 comments

  • Bob

    What’s troubling about this example is not that Ginsberg was blacklisted, but that National waited until he was at the rental counter at his destination before informing him that National would not be honoring his reservation due to the blacklist.

    National should not have accepted a reservation from Ginsberg if they had no intention of ever renting him a car again.

  • jonathan

    Bob: The blacklists operate off a renter’s Driver’s License number, which is not disclosed to the rental agency until the renter is at the counter.

  • http://www.gogalavaning.com Kim@Galavanting

    Poor guy, he seems like a good sport to continue using National after not only being overcharged, but also stranded.

    jonathan: That’s no excuse, I assume National has heard of C-O-M-P-U-T-E-R-S. Perhaps they could use one of those newfangled things to issue some sort of unique identifier that could be linked to a blacklisted person’s name + zip code, or cc#, or any number of things to prevent customers from becoming victims and left stranded at an airport. You know, out of common decency — yipes — that’s just not cool.

  • Robert

    I was blacklisted by Almo after a dispute with the over Damage to their vehicle(which I won). Almo then turned up on a vacation packake I had for Flordia. My travel agent contacted Almo which indicated it would not be an issue.

    It was when I got to the rental counter, they refused to rent the car eentough they already got the money. i had to rent f om another company. I got my money back from the package deal but also additional damages from Almo in the form of out of court setlement.

  • Richard C

    Am I missing something? Mr Ginsberg is treated disrespectfully, wastes several hours of his time begging to have his name removed from the no-rent-list and then thanks them for their help??? If it were me, I think telling National to make passionate love to themselves would have been the reply…

  • Jennifer

    Richard, I believe Mr. Ginsberg was thanking Elliott for his help in giving him the correct contacts at National– not thanking National itself.

    In any event, I would never do business with a company again that blacklisted me for complaining about an overcharge. Perhaps Mr.Ginsberg must use National due to his employer’s policy? There’s certainly enough competition in the car rental business to choose another.

  • Josh

    A company may within its rights to choose with whom to do business (with big exceptions for protected discrimination classes — for example, they couldn’t get a DMV listing of all “Race X” people and use that as the basis of their list).

    HOWEVER, if they’re going to do so I’d argue they must do so when the business transaction begins (the reservation); if they accept the reservation with a credit card number, and ESPECIALLY if they accept a pre-payment without intending to rent to that person, it’s fraud in my book. People suffer real damages and losses when a travel reservation isn’t honored.

    How they manage this is their problem — either key their database off the credit card number instead, or take the driver’s license number at reservation time.

    Thanks to Robert above who pursued this and got an extra settlement; the more people stand up for their rights, the less likely a company is to violate them for everybody else.

    Josh

  • Scott

    If it’s illegal to discrimate in housing, why is it legal to discriminate against consumers in business?

    Why do they get to victimize people twice with illegitimate fees? Once by slapping the fee on in the first place and second by attacking the consumer economically if they correctly resist it?

    I am very concerned we are moving in this country to corporate controlled “consumer labor camps” where everything we need to do or buy is controlled by some 150 page single space terms and conditions document that changes daily that we aren’t allowed to see or question, and if we do question, thanks to collusion, we are “off the grid”, and permanently.

    Our lives as human beings should never be controlled or limited or punished by “corporate royalty”. I am concerned about the development of secret global “blacklist” indexes above and beyond a credit report being used to maintain such an abhorrent reality.

    Certainly this would be a violation of our constitutional and civil rights, but with jokers like the outgoing Prez-Uh-Didn’t, I have to wonder whether our rights really matter in the real world any more…

  • Carver Farrow

    @Josh

    Its not fraud for a variety of reasons. At best its a breach of contract issue. If its being done in an unfair way however, the State’s Attorney General can always be called.

    @Scott

    That comparison doesn’t fly under any circumstances. You cannot discriminate based on race, religion,etc. Beyond that you can do pretty much what you want in business, housing etc. That’s why people with crappy credit have a hard time renting apartments.

    National’s position is extremely poor business and certainly unethical ONLY IF we believe Mr. Ginsberg was right. However, from National’s position, they’ve been stiffed. As such, why would they ever want to rent to Mr. Ginsberg again. I run a small law firm. There are problem clients that I will NEVER ever represent again. They were trouble and grief and generally a pain in my *ss.

    As long as there is reasonable competition in the marketplace, business are given a relatively free hand. As competition reduces, then the government is able to get involved that much easier.

    National’s actions are not a violation of either constitution or civil rights. Its basically a business decision that we disagree with because we believe that Mr. Ginsberg was in the right.

  • Michael A

    Whereas the original reason for blacklisting is impossible for us to determine was justified or not, I think it’s clear that refusing to provide a service after reservation and prepayment has been done is wrong and rightfully punished.

    For example: You travel with a flight operator. The next year you book a travel with the same operator. As you and your family go to the check in desk on the day to get the reserved ticket you have paid for, you are told that the company actually blacklisted you the last time and have no intention of letting you fly on any of their planes. This would clearly be unacceptable – and getting a car reservation and not being told until you are at the desk is quite similar.

    If there’s difficulties in implementing this they should be borne by the company. How about flagging by either name (if uncommon) or card number (if the name is common) and manually accepting or rejecting those flagged? It might mean that a John Smith who has changed both address and cards would be allowed to rent, but that’s a pain the company should take.

  • Jay

    Jonathan, you must be dense….. Here’s hoping someone, somewhere out there screws you and screws you good like Alamo did to me. You must be a moron “They operate off a renter’s DL#”, REALLY???!!!! I am as business friendly a guy as you will ever meet, and even I can see this for what it is….. not you apparently.

  • Jay

    Jonathan, you must be dense….. Here’s hoping someone, somewhere out there screws you and screws you good like Alamo did to me. You must be a moron “They operate off a renter’s DL#”, REALLY???!!!! I am as business friendly a guy as you will ever meet, and even I can see this for what it is….. not you apparently.

  • Jay

    I am a recent victim of the Enterprise, Alamo, National blacklist disgrace…. I arrive in LAX for a 1 week stay in SoCal. I arrive at the Alamo counter from a flight from Miami only to find that Alamo has me on a “no rent” list. They asked me, “do you have a dispute with Alamo?” NO!! I told them I do have a dispute with Enterprise, but even so, that was resolved and they were paid to settle the dispute. Turns out I am told, that Enterprise bought out Alamo, National and a few other companies and that they never took me off the no rental list. I was livid. They claimed they could not know I was on their list until I showed up at their counter to show them my DL. That is total garbage!!! This is organized, legal extortion, plain and simple. It is specifically designed to intimidate people into knuckling under. In my case they even accepted my CC payment!! Of course hey know you are most vulnerable right after a long flight…. they have you at their counter, all your baggage, away from the terminal… you are a stuck pig. And, assuming you can get a ride to another company, they will rape you because you don’t have an advanced reservation. This should be illegal. I will never rent a car from any of these companies ever again.

  • Jay

    I am a recent victim of the Enterprise, Alamo, National blacklist disgrace…. I arrive in LAX for a 1 week stay in SoCal. I arrive at the Alamo counter from a flight from Miami only to find that Alamo has me on a “no rent” list. They asked me, “do you have a dispute with Alamo?” NO!! I told them I do have a dispute with Enterprise, but even so, that was resolved and they were paid to settle the dispute. Turns out I am told, that Enterprise bought out Alamo, National and a few other companies and that they never took me off the no rental list. I was livid. They claimed they could not know I was on their list until I showed up at their counter to show them my DL. That is total garbage!!! This is organized, legal extortion, plain and simple. It is specifically designed to intimidate people into knuckling under. In my case they even accepted my CC payment!! Of course hey know you are most vulnerable right after a long flight…. they have you at their counter, all your baggage, away from the terminal… you are a stuck pig. And, assuming you can get a ride to another company, they will rape you because you don’t have an advanced reservation. This should be illegal. I will never rent a car from any of these companies ever again.

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