Here to help
So many readers have accused Enterprise of running damaged rental car scams that I’ve lost count.
But something interesting has happened lately. The complaints have slowed to a trickle.
Why? (#5: Counting down the top articles of 2019)
Read more “How Enterprise determines if you damaged a rental”
Curtis Brown rented a car from Enterprise in London recently, but he didn’t get far. Less than two days after picking it up, one of his tires went flat.
“The cause was a nail in the tread of the tire,” he says.
Enterprise says he’s responsible for the damage, but he disagrees.
Read more “Nailed by Enterprise for a flat tire”
Alex Silverstein’s rental car is damaged before he picks it up. It’s still damaged, but now Enterprise wants him to pay for it. Should he?
Read more “Dinged for ‘normal wear and tear’ by Enterprise”
When Katherine LaFaso returns her Enterprise rental, she’s charged $500 for damages she says existed before she picked up the car. But how can she prove it?
Question: I rented a car from Enterprise in Paramus, N.J., for a month while my car was being fixed due to an accident. It was the only rental available that day, and an Enterprise employee told me there was an open claim with some damages, which were pointed out to me. I was told I would be contacted in a few days to switch out the car for one without any damage, but that never happened.
When I returned the car, there was a more detailed inspection done by a different employee. The damage in question didn’t even look like damage; it looked more like bad repair work or an imperfection. But the bottom line is: I did not damage the car.
Enterprise charged my credit card $500 without my authorization, and my credit card company recently sided with me and credited my account. Enterprise’s damage-recovery unit is now giving me an ultimatum: Pay up, or we’ll send this to collections, and you could face legal consequences. What are my options now? — Katherine LaFaso, Paramus, N.J.
Answer: You could pay this bill — or fight it.
Here are the reasons to pay: Enterprise claims that you damaged its car, and if you don’t settle up, the car rental company will have to cover the damages. Also, your damage claim may be referred to a collections agency, and you might be added to Enterprise’s “Do Not Rent” list.
Here are the reasons to fight: Your claim raised several red flags that were so troubling even your credit card company sided with you in the dispute. There is the arbitrary $500 charge (despite the fact that Enterprise showed you no repair invoice). And any claim at or near $500, which is the normal amount of an insurance deductible, is suspicious, because it looks as if a car rental company is going for the easy money and trying to keep your insurance company out of its business. By your account, Enterprise lost the credit card dispute, which means it couldn’t prove that you were at fault.
I think this easily might have been avoided. First, never accept a damaged car, even if it’s the last one on the lot. If, for some reason, you feel you have no choice, then take lots of photos or videos of the vehicle with your phone. Document any pre-existing damage in writing, ask a manager to sign the rental agreement, and then get the manager’s business card. You’ll probably need it later.
If you’d shown Enterprise the images and a signed rental agreement with the damages documented, you never would have been charged $500, and you wouldn’t be receiving threatening letters now from the damage-recovery unit.
I’m getting a little tired of these cases. If car rental companies simply asked their customers to photograph their vehicles before driving them off the lot and offered a clear way to document any pre-existing dings and dents, then these cases would disappear overnight. I can’t imagine why they wouldn’t want to end these time-wasting claims, unless they are amazingly profitable.
I contacted Enterprise on your behalf. It reviewed the claim, and although it said there is “no evidence” to support the allegation that the damage was pre-existing, the regional manager who was handling this claim has left the company. As a result, Enterprise couldn’t clarify some questions and follow normal protocol. Enterprise dropped its claim.
Loading ...Henry Sheng makes me feel like a failure.
Read more “Are consumer advocates about to go extinct?”
Cases like Amanda Chambers’ are never easy.
Read more “Is Enterprise trying to “scam” her for damage she didn’t do?”
Question: I’m fighting with Enterprise about a damage claim, and I need your help. I recently rented a Hyundai Sonata. Both a manager and I inspected it and we both thought it looked OK.
When I returned the car a few days later, we did the same thing, and the manager considered the car to be in good shape and he accepted it.
About four hours later I received a phone call from the manager, claiming that there was “hidden” damage — specifically, several scratches to the underside of the car.
A few days later, I was notified by mail that a damage claim against me had been filed. My credit card was billed for $186 for paint scratches on the rocker molding, and that costs totaling $106 for “administrative” fees, loss of use and diminishment of value were waived. Included in the claim were two rather poor black-and-white photocopies of the claimed damage.
Read more “Enterprise sent me a bill for “hidden” damage”
Question: I recently rented a Mazda 2 from Enterprise. When I picked up the car, a representative and I did a walk-around. I’m normally very careful when picking a car up. I noticed the fender well on the front driver’s side was popped out of place, and I noted that with the representative.
My mistake: I didn’t look under the front bumper to see what would have caused that to happen.
I drove the car home, where I parked it in my driveway, which is sloped. When coming out of my garage, I was able to see damage to the underside of the bumper cover. In an effort to do the right thing, I immediately called Enterprise and explained what had happened. I talked to the manager and told her I was on my way back.
Read more “Am I responsible for damage under my rental car?”
But six months later, Harris received a repair bill for $570. Among the charges was a $62 fee for “loss of use” – a fee that Harris, a physician from Chicago, considers “unreasonable.”
Some drivers agree. Rental companies used to write off the time a car spent in a garage as an expense. But shrinking profits forced them to add a loss-of-use charge to their repair bills, which allows them to recover the revenue they would have collected if the vehicle had been rented.
“Car rental companies were leaving tens of millions of dollars on the table by not collecting loss-of-use charges,” says Neil Abrams, a car rental consultant. “I think there’s a recognition that there’s a legitimate responsibility of the renter that extends beyond the rental of the vehicle.”
Read more “Losing it over car rental “loss of use””
Something about the $667 repair bill that Enterprise Rent-a-Car recently sent Jerry Bitting looked suspicious to him.
For starters, the car didn’t appear to be the one that Bitting, an account executive for a federal agency in Washington, had rented. The dates when the damage occured didn’t match the dates on which he’d driven the Mazda 3. The pictures were taken weeks after he’d returned the car. And questions to Enterprise’s damage recovery unit, asking for an explanation of the inconsistencies, were met with silence.
“I told them that the damages were not there when I picked up the car or dropped it off,” Bitting says.
Read more “Could the Canadian car rental scandal spread?”
