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“This lady was actually trying to intimidate me over the phone”

March 18, 2008

Ah, the lengths to which a car rental company will go to squeeze a few bucks out of a customer. Consider what happened to John Conkel of Las Vegas, Nev., when he rented a vehicle from Alamo in Denver recently. It kinda makes you wonder why they don’t just click on the IRS rebate calculator, like everyone else. But I digress.

While Conkel was driving in a rainstorm in Colorado Springs, he scraped his right front wheel. Hard enough so that he though it might go flat. So he phoned Alamo to report the probable damage.

The next day, I just went over to the gas station and filled the tire with a little free air at a 7-11 Store. Tire and wheel were fine. A week later I turned the car in back in Denver. There were no issues, and it passed inspection with the Alamo rep.

Conkel thought all was fine. He was wrong.

Two months later, I got a letter from Alamo telling me to call a rep referencing the damage I caused to their vehicle. I called. The Alamo customer representative insisted I provide her with my car insurance company and my insurance number so Alamo could make a claim with my company.

This lady was actually trying to intimidate me over the phone. It didn’t work. I told her to send me the invoice of the exact problem I had caused, and the associated cost to repair or replace.

I also told her that if any item would be replaced, my son, who lives in Denver, would stop by and pick up the damaged items since I was paying for it.

Alamo never called back.

“My advice?” he says. “Never trust them.”

This is fascinating. I wonder how many car rental companies log calls reporting probable damage and then try to collect on them months later? Is this a problem any readers of this blog have encountered?

If so, do tell.

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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7 comments

  • Jasper

    If the customer was honest and reported the possible damage and Alamo then accepted the car, they have no right whatsoever going after the customer.

    I would have asked for something clear in writing stating that I reported the incident and that the car was accepted as is.

    I once had a rental company charge me for a scratch that I had told them about when I picked up the car. They claimed that it had become larger. Idiots. As if there is a chance you hit a car in exactly the same spot as a previous customer. There was no way out. They charged my cc for the damage and waved my rental agreement in my face. I was too naive to get into a big fight about it. But I’ve never trusted a car company since.

  • Car Renter

    After a rainstorm, I followed a blind curve around a corner and down a hill, but discovered the curve wasn’t as tight as it looked. Instead, I was off the road and on the top of the hill instead. I hit the brakes, but due to the rain, the car didn’t stop and just slid down the grass and hit a hidden cement block drain, creasing the bumper at about 10 mph or so. It would have to be replaced.

    I reported the damage per the agreement, but nobody knew what to do to get it taken care of (the national number says call the location and the location says call the national number) and I kept trying to find someone to pay, but heard nothing for two months after multiple calls. Getting someone to even call us back on it was a major chore. (Imagine that, a car rental company NOT trying to get you to pay them faster than you possibly can – strange, but true) Finally we got through to someone in the finance department who said we owed nothing because the car had been sold as a matter of fleet rotation and I just happened to be the last person to rent before it was rotated out. Great – what luck!

    Fast forward six months later and 8 months after returning the car, I get a phone call from a collection company (not identifying themselves as an agent for the rental company) asking for payment and they were sending a bill with a detailed statement. Fair enough, I thought, I wasn’t as lucky as I had thought, but would have to pay them the several hundred dollars it would take to fix the bumper. But somehow, when the bill arrived, this bumper replacement turned into a $3000+ bill. Bumpers aren’t that expensive, even when I figured in the silly “loss of use” fees that they had no loss of use, since they were selling the car anyway. Still off a couple grand.

    I called & asked what was going on because we had been told no charge. The car couldn’t be sold, so they had to fix it. Fair enough again. The agent sent a detail on what was fixed. There were things like charges for repairing the inside of the doors, the rear view mirror, the side mirror and removing, repairing and reinstalling the gas cap, fixing a rear taillight and many other unrelated things.

    I explained the situation and told them I would be happy to pay to fix the bumper, but I was sure that I hadn’t damaged any of the non-bumper things. I had photos to prove it.

    The agent was quite apologetic and went to bat for me and after several back and forths between the rental company and the agent to figure things out, the rental company agreed that the repair company fixed everything wrong with the car and not just the bumper.

    It really felt to me like the rental company was not trying to scam me, but that they just didn’t read through what the accident was, nor did they tell the repair company specifically what to fix and/or just plain didn’t care. They even pulled off the loss of use fees for the hassle (although I did point out they weren’t going to be using it any more, since it was rotated out). I’ll rent with them again, because they really did try and consider my position, but good grief, they really need to work on the due diligence and attention to details.

  • Jasper

    @ Car Renter: You have been massively SCAMmed. The rental company should have been able to tell you on the spot how much to pay, if any – usually your cc or regular car insurance should cover the cost anyway.

    They have no (moral if not legal) right to change their mind on the reasons to charge you or not. You signed a contract that should be singly interpretable. If they don’t understand their own contract, then that’s their problem. They can not make up the rules as they go.

  • European rental

    Sixteen months after the rental of a car in Italy my credit card was charged $40 for processing a traffic violation. When I challenged the rental company for documentation nothing came forward. Thanks to time date photographs I can identify exactly where I was almost each hour throughout the time of the rental and I was waiting for the rental company to show what town, day, time of the so called violation.
    Fortunately my credit card company supported my contention that without further documentation of an actual traffic violation I should not have recieved the charge and they have reversed it. Thank you Capital One.

  • Don

    After a bad experience, using my mobile phone I now video each rental car when returning, starting with return mileage and gas indicator. I put them on my pc for archival purposes.

  • Tim

    1st time rental with Enterprise in Oct ’07. Picked the car up at San Antonio airport, drove to hotel on Riverwalk (20 mins), parked car while I went into hotel to register. Came out 10mins later, car wouldn’t start. Called Enterprise, went round and round with them about replacement vehicle. Enterprise finally dispatched road service (6hrs later), they couldn’t get car started. Vehicle towed back to airport location, another vehicle provided. Continue trip/closed out rental upon flying home. 10days later get a call from Enterprise Insurance Department, they tell me they have “good news” for me. Since my rental was covered under Federal Government Official Busniess Rate, I’m not responsible for either the repair charges (1k) or the “loss of use” charges for the 4days it was in repair garage. My two questions back to them were (a). what was the damage? (b) How could I possibly be liable for it since I’d only had the car for 30 mins? Their responses were: (a) Rat had chewed through electrical system wiring, disabling the entire electrical system. (b) Since I rented the car, it became my “personal vehicle” and I was liable for all repairs and associated loss of use.
    But again, since I had been on FG business, I wasn’t liable for damage, and I could have a good day.
    Needless to say, my one and ONLY time renting from Enterprise……

  • Jason

    Rented a vehicle from Enterprise in 06. I put it in my name and added my brother in law as a driver, since he would be the one using the vehicle. But he did not own any credit cards. We rent on a saturday at 3pm and tell them we need the vehicle for only 1 day, they quote me a rate of $59 a day. When we return the vehicle on sunday at 11am, they are closed, so we drop the vehicle off, get our paperwork time stamped and leave the keys and paperwork in the slot. I get a call on monday saying they are billing me for 2 days on rental, because ALL weekend rentals are two days since they are closed on sundays. Nobody ever disclosed this, and it was not posted anywhere in the building. And I didnt think to ask. After fighting with my Enterprise I got nowhere, and my CC company denied my claim. Thanks Enterprise, I am now a Hertz man.

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