Shawn writes:
About 3 weeks ago I had a job interview in California- I currently live in Philadelphia. The employer reserved a rental car for me with enterprise so I could get around town, with his credit card. I had a long flight with a lay over, and didn’t arrive at Enterprise until about 2 o clock Philadelphia time. There was a long line, and after about a half hour I was taken back and shown a Chevy Aveo. She handed me papers to sign saying there was no damage to the car, and that I would pay an additional 10$ a day for being 23 years old. I walked around the car, and didn’t see anything. I was eager to get to my hotel and go to bed, so I signed the papers and left.I used the car to get to my job interview, to my hotel, and back to the airport. Everything was in about a 5 mile radius of each other. I returned the car on Sunday with a full tank of gas. When I returned the car, I pulled up and started to take out my bags. The gentleman asked me how the car was and checking the car over for damage. After a few minutes, they told me I had to sign some papers for the damage to the car. I read the Consumerist a lot and a siren went off in my head…
I knew I was screwed pretty much right there. I dropped my bags and went to the car and asked him to show me the damage. Below the driver’s side door handle there was a dent/ripple in the door panel. The paint of the door wasn’t scratched at all, and it was covered in dust. If it had happened when I had the car, it had to have been on the first day or two. He told me it was no big deal, that someone probably opened their car door in a parking lot and dinged my car door. I thought it was a big deal. I started flipping out. I couldn’t even see if it was damage or the design of the car, because it was so difficult to spot. I told him that if the damage was there before I had the car, which it more than likely was, I would have never noticed it when I inspected the car.
He said he would have their loss department check to see if the damage was noted previously. I knew this was a load of crap and I was just going to get a huge bill in the mail in a few weeks. He asked me to sign papers accepting the damage. I told him there was no way I was signing it. We argued for about 10 minutes, and he added to the paper that I didn’t think the damage was there when I received the car. I needed to get my flight so I signed it and left.
Sure enough, I received a bill for $495.20 today, including $50 for administrative charges. The car brand new is only $10,000. They also included a summary of the charges, and 10 pictures of the car showing the damage. The funny thing is, there is no damage visible in any of the pictures. They are incredibly low res, and probably the most ridiculous part of this story. I have included the letter they sent me and the pictures. These charges are outrageous on so many levels. Do I have any recourse besides paying? Will they attack my credit, or go after the employer’s credit card first?
It’s hard to tell from the pictures, but it does look like something made an impression on the car. If you signed papers saying there wasn’t any damage before you rented, and now you signed papers saying there was damage that occurred after you rented the car, yes, you might be in a pickle. How much depends on how you did the insurance.
Did you pay for Enterprise’s, or did you waive it and put it on the credit card? If the latter, you need to get in touch with the employer and let him know the situation and see if his credit card company will pay for it (this is at no cost to him). If you took the Enterprise insurance, you need to see if it covers the damage they say is done to the car. Your situation is more complicated, though, because of it being paid for by your potential employer… hardly the foot you want to set out on. You still need to tell them because if the insurance was on their credit card, there could be a liability issue down the round.
These are just our best ideas based one what we’ve heard, are there any readers in the audience here with more experience with these issues who can share their insights?
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@ Redhelix
I am a 23 year-old college student who will be graduating in May. I have accepted a full-time position for which I had not one, but two seperate on-site interviews. Each of these interviews were multi-day affairs that were completely comped by my future employer. I know of more classmates then I can count who have had similar experiences, many of them with companies who ultimately don’t offer the a job. I even know of a couple who were flown overseas by a potential employer. I realize the idea of a 23 year-old traveling like this might seem out of place to you. But for my generation, it is the reality of business. We are adults as well, and as such we have the same business to conduct.
If you have signed the damage report saying that you caused the damage, and the initial rental contract saying that you agreed to the condition of the vehicle, they really do have you over the barrel. But I will say this:
If your employer rented the vehicle with his credit card, then he will have a credit card on file agreement with Enterprise. This means, that the company uses the credit card for rentals quite frequently and they more than likely have rental insurance through the card. Your employer would simply have to make a claim with the credit card company, and the damages would go on to the card and it would cost you and him nothing.
I work in the rental car business – and this is what I tell my customers. If they are simply going to have the car for a few days – take the rental company’s CDW (collision damage waiver: it’s NOT insurance as everyone believes, but it means that the rental company contractually waives their right to collect for damages). $20/day for a few days is WAY cheaper than a new bumper, windshield or body panel. I also tell my customers, if they are going to have their vehicle for a longer period of time, then they should check into their own personal coverage for rentals, either through an extension policy or a credit card. Cover your own ass people! You might be a safe driver, but look at all the other idiots on the road OR in the parking lot.
Next – the rental car companies are in business, and yes they sell CDW to make money, they are again a BUSINESS. They provide a needed service/product for profit – it’s what makes our wonderful world go around.
Finally, if you are renting with Enterprise, and you do have an unpleasant experience – make it known. Make sure your phone number is on the rental contract and get an area manager’s contact information. Enterprise has a customer satisfation survey for every branch and their employees cannot get promoted if their survey score is lower than average – if you’re unhappy, speak to a manager immediately, they generally will bend over backwards.
@ciaright: As a 23-year-old college student, you should find out how to spell the word “separate,” and should avoid starting a sentence with a conjunction, e.g., “but,” especially when a comma would be more appropriate in this case, i.e., “I realize the idea of a 23-year-old traveling like this might seem out of place to you, but for my generation…”
But I digress
@ciaright: As a 23-year-old college student, you really should learn how to spell the word “separate” correctly. Also, you should avoid starting a sentence with a conjunction, e.g., “but,” or fix it by not ending the previous sentence, i.e., “I realize the idea of a 23-year-old traveling like this might seem out of place to you, but, for my generation, it is the reality of business.”
But I digress :-p
I know the liability damage waiver seems steep, but it is so nice to be able to look the rental guy in the eye and say “I don’t know,” and then smile at him and say “And, you know what? I don’t care.” and then walk away.
@redhelix: I’ve had that happen to me when I was getting ready to graduate from colleg.e
Okay I just rented a car–not from Enterprise but another well known company. I have to say I didn’t sign any form saying that there was no damage to the car–and I think to have done so would be ridiculous. Most people don’t carefully inspect a rental car. I know I rented my car close to closing (6pm) and it was already dark so even if I had to go inspect it and sign off, there’s a good chance I wouldn’t have seen anything in the outdoor parking lot.
My rental company did try to sell me extra insurance (9 a day) that would cover anything and everything on the car with no deductible. I did think about it, but decided against it. Now this story makes me wish I had agreed to the extra fee.
I just rented from Hertz and so far, so good. But I wonder if it seems suspicious if I suddenly call up to ask for the extra 9 bucks a day insurance.
I have rented from Enterprise in the past and haven’t had any problems–amazingly, despite having the car for over 3 months one time–but they never charged me for extra damages or dings. But now that I think about it, Enterprise makes you do that inspection of the car. From my experience, Hertz doesn’t–and again, they didn’t ask me to sign something saying the car wasn’t damaged.
at the company i work for, we don’t get people for “minor damage” – the dents have to be bigger than a silver dollar, scratches must be longer than 2″ and have a certain depth, etc.
when i was a return agent, i rarely bothered people about damage like that, unless they were amazingly rude and i just wanted to waste their time.
enterprise is awful. i have almost been killed by their employees when driving while i’m just walking through the lots.
Morale of the story: Pay that extra $12 a day for insurance. Specially if it’s on your employer’s tab.
@redhelix: When you include all of the many and varied costs of hiring somebody (recruiters, ads, HR, time managers spend in interviews, marketing materials, and so on) I’m told that spending $30,000 to hire a skilled employee in a technical field is pretty reasonable. I work at a software company with 180-200 people and we have two full-time recruiters, with their combined salary + overhead probably in the $100k-200k range… and that’s just a fraction of the total costs for about 5 skilled/technical recruits and 15 nontechnical recruits (who are much easier to hire… most of that recruiting manpower is aimed at the technical folks). Spending up to a few thousand dollars on your target’s trip to make sure that everything goes smoothly (AND to make a good impression on him) is very reasonable. You don’t want to miss your chance to hire somebody good because they couldn’t afford to fly out there or some silly reason like that.
OH MY GOSH! I paid for the extra insurance at Dollar Rental for a car, I paid every extra damn thing last April especially because I was also only 23. I drove the car from airport to a city 2 hours away where my father was buried. The car was next to me at the cemetery; I was watching it while I ate, etc. It was parked in a garage for two nights (I only used it 2 of the 3 days). When I returned the car (mind you to a different drop-off so I had to pay more money for that), the guy walked around the car with me and said everything looked fine. I should have taken a picture apparently. Three months later I receive a bill for damage done to the rear bumper. Excuse me?!
After speaking with them several times that A)nothing happened to the car when it was in my care and B)I had bought the renter’s insurance that was out of my hands. They probably dinged it up themselves. They told me I should have filed a police report when I saw it, even for a hit and run. How can I file a police report when I returned the car in the same pristine condition?!
I said I’d file the police report now, for the fat lot of good it would do them. They are cheats and are trying to get money from innocent people. I am currently ignoring calls from them while I speak to a lawyer about what to do. I feel for you!
This is a HUGE scam. Especially by Avis and especially in the UK.
Although this [youmustbefromaway.blogspot.com] incident in France takes the cake
@ciaright: I’m actually in the exact same boat as you, at 22 years old graduating in August. I suppose this is a foreign concept to me because everyone I know who has had to travel for a job interview has had to pay their own travel expenses.
Then again, most of said people are pursing journalism, and both myself and my colleagues at school never have to travel to find a job because we’re all computer science and biology guys living in Massachusetts.
Am I missing something here? This guy signs a paper saying he has inspected the car and there is no damage to it when he admits he didn’t make more than a cursory glance, then he signs a paper saying that he’s responsible for the damage, and I’m supposed to feel sorry for him? Not only that, but he claims that there’s no visible damage in the pictures when I can clearly see damage in at least 3 extremely lo-res shots?
Inspecting the outside of a rental car before signing for it is Rental 101. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see that it’s time well spent.
When you contact the employer who rented the car for you, expect not to get the job. I wouldn’t hire someone who didn’t have enough savvy to prevent the position you’ve put yourself in.
It’s a a real world show of pressure and how you handle it. Even worse for all you know he might think you are lying and did cause the damage and are somehow trying to dump it on him.
yeah at the expense of sounding like a victim basher, i’ve been in a rental car for 5 weeks now. i’ve had to switch cars a few times (finally in one i like now 07 jeep patriot) and checking it for damage first is absolutely necessary. plus the op clearly admits the damage ‘could have’ happened within the first day or two. and the last time you signed your name with them, sealed your fate.
Hi – I’d rather not submit my name, as I work for Enterprise and I am on the other side of this situation at least 3-5 times per week. Let me say a few things for the record, to all you beleaguered renters, in the hopes of setting some of you (even if it’s just one of you) at ease:
1) PROFESSIONALISM – Nobody is accusing you of “doing the damage.” Any rental agent who goes down that road is crossing a professional line. The rental agent is either a manager, an assistant manager, or is being prepped for those positions. They’re not care-nothing corporate underlings, and they’re more than aware that the customer service image of our company reflects directly on their words, their behavior, and how they handle any number of tricky situations. Which leads me to
2) OWNERSHIP – Let me be clear: these are *our* cars. We bought them, we’ll be selling them, we wash them, take them in for check-ups and repairs, and all the other things regular owners do. And when damage isn’t caught when a renter returns the car, that fix makes an even bigger dent in our bottom line. Let me be clear: we gotta do what we gotta do. It comes straight out of our PAYCHECKS, for pete’s sake.
3) THE BURDEN OF PROOF – You’re asking: “How do you know it wasn’t there already?” Again with the bottom line. Your credit card, your insurance company, they want to pay for this damage like they want a HOLE IN THE HEAD. Believe me, they will put us through the ringer, and if there are any uncrossed T’s, any undotted I’s, we’re beat. For example, if the damage is marked on a previous contract.
Please listen carefully to us as we walk you through our procedure. Enterprise has been renting cars for over fifty years, on two continents. We will not ask you to sign an admission of guilt. This storied “report” that some of you were extorted into signing (/friendly sarcasm) is a disclosure of (a) our evidence, (b) relevant facts like your name and your address, and (c) your RIGHTS. That’s right! You have a full and fair set of rights. You are not up a creek just for having signed the darned “report.”
How do you know I’m not just whistling Dixie down here? Call any Enterprise regional office. Ask for our adjusters, who are called Loss Control Administrators. They are friendly, articulate, customer-oriented men and women (they have to be; they were promoted from rental) and they will be more than happy to answer your questions. And they’ll give it to you straight.
I will not disclose my thoughts re: Failing Enterprise because it involves certain four-letter words.
Shawn -
It looks like you made the following Critical Mistakes when you rented this car.
1. You did NOT do a thorough walkaround of the car – you likely made a quick pass and blew right through it.
2. You “flipped out” when the associate found the damage upon return.
and most importantly,
3. You SIGNED a rental contract that includes a picture of the car, with the “no damage” box marked. You also INITIALED this box.
Nothing pisses people off more then a customer “flipping out”, especially if it’s a 23 year old kid – I know, I’m 25 and we tend to have this problem with both accepting responsibility and a sense of entitlement…
I’ve rented from Enterprise almost exclusively for 6 years, both personally and on a corporate account. Their level of service is absolutely, and consistently, the undisputed TOP within the auto rental industry, especially for business clients.
I’ve had Enterprise respond to problems and issues favorably almost every time. Their employees are smart, career focused, college-educated, professionally-dressed, and give a damn. They are also empowered to make adjustments, resolve problems immediately (at the branch level) and generally make you very happy to have rented from them, provided you don’t act in a way that would disincline them to assist you.
In a situation like this, you automatically shot yourself in the foot when you missed the damage on a walkaround and signed the rental contract. Sorry. They have every right to bill you for the damage, and the fact that you are an underage driver, and therefore a greater risk for damage, doesn’t help much.
My end advice – when renting cars be VERY careful with what you sign and what you drive away with. Take the extra 3 minutes and really look the car over, ask any questions, and be absolutely sure you understand EVERYTHING. Unanswered questions are their fault, the unasked ones are yours.
Be twice as careful if you are renting on someone else’s account or dime, and be three times as careful if you are under 25.
On the positive side, you’ll probably never do it again, so take that as the silver lining and keep on trucking.
P.S. If you don’t man up and pay for the damage, and your prospective employer gets stuck with either paying the claim or the administrative hassles of fighting it, I wouldn’t be expecting a job offer anytime soon.
I realize I’m a bit late to this discussion, but I got hosed by Enterprise in a similar situation. I live in New York, but some years ago rented a car in Ohio for a month from Enterprise. No problems, but when I returned the car, the guy doing the walkthrough stared at the trunk for a long time, then sucked in his breath sharply and pointed out two invisible “marks” that he found on the top of the trunk near the back windshield. I got in close and squinted and after trying several different angles saw what might have been two tiny pin-point size divots in the trunk next to each other.
He wrote down that there were two dime-sized dents in the trunk (a gross overstatement, unless he meant dimes used by Lilliputians), and we had a nice chat which involved me saying things like “You must be joking!” and “How was I even supposed to see that without a magnifying glass when I rented the car?” I asked him how I could possibly have even caused “damage” like that, and he suggested, with a straight face, that I had parked under a tree and maybe acorns fell out of the tree onto the car.
Long story short, I refused to sign anything, and a month later started being harassed by someone in Enterprise for I think about $160. I wrote several letters and had a few phone calls with someone, and agreed to pay them half — not as an admission of wrongdoing, but because I didn’t want to have to deal with collection issues. I had moved back to New York by then, but if I was still in Ohio would have gone to court over it. Weasels.
I travel a lot for my job, including car rentals, and have several decades of productivity ahead of me. Guess what rental company will NEVER get my business ever again?
Only Avis and Hertz are capable of providing a satisfactory rental experience. All the others are scammers. Alamo’s the best of the scammers. Thrifty and Enterprise are the worst, in my experience.
Also, for what it’s worth, if your prospective employer isn’t willing to help you out with this it may not be the sort of place you want to work anyway.
they tried to pull that on me too, i left out of a dark garage, they didnt even have me look it over (my mistake really, was the first time i had ever rented a car), no one told me, when i brought it back they told me i put a small scratch on the door, made me fill out the same form, so in bold letters i wrote “I WAS NOT INFORMED OF INSPECTING VEHICLE ON PICKUP, DAMAGE IS PRE-EXISTING”
So far I’ve never had a rental car agency try to screw me over on damage, BUT I have had rental car agencies double-bill me. On the last service on my own car, the dealer was out of loaner cars and arranged for an Enterprise car at their expense.
Well, one month later I see a $60 charge on my credit card from Enterprise. Called the dealer who told me it was paid in full. Called Enterprise who said the dealer only paid for 1 day. Called the dealer back who said they’d take care of it.
1 week later the charge was still there. Called the dealer who said they’d already talked with Enterprise. Called Enterprise, they said they were aware of the issue and were working on it.
2 weeks later: Same deal. Told Enterprise they had 5 business days to figure out what the heck was up before I was going to file a dispute with Visa. They promised it’d be taken care of by the end of the day. 3 days later it still wasn’t processed. Called Enterprise again and let them know I was serious about filing the dispute with Visa. They said they were working on it.
3 weeks later: I filed a dispute with Wachovia. The Wachovia rep was very courteous and I faxed her my list of phone calls from my logs and people I spoke with and their responses. The next day I see a credit from Enterprise for the full amount. The day after that a nice letter from Wachovia arrives indicating what had happened and Enterprise’s sudden willingness to actually refund the charge.
Enterprise -5
Wachovia +5 in my book.
@cmdr.sass:
LOL I ALWAYS do that..the little car diagrams on the checkout forms are all pretty much covered with little “damage noted” circles, so if I do pick up a ding, it’s a better than 50%+ chance it’ll fall inside one of them.
@cmdr.sass, thanks for the tip. I was in a car accident on Friday that I know will end up with me getting a rental car while my car is fixed. I’m going to definitely put that one the forms if I have to.
I rent cars every single week. I know to stay away from Enterprise. If you use Avis or Hertz and you have insurance through your cc, your pretty much covered. I had somebody dent my bumper while I was in Minneapolis recently and Hertz told me not to worry about it. Talk about shocked! I thought my company was going to give me the bill. Also use amex to rent cars, they have great rental car coverage.
On the rental form, write the following.
I do not have any experience or qualifications in evaluating automobile damage. I require corrective lenses for viewing details up close and I do not have the corrective lenses available at this time.
I’m a former Enterprise employee (quit 12/07). Here are a couple insights:
1. Enterprise is the largest rental car company in North America, they did not get that way by consistently offering crappy service.
2. The document that Shawn signed was not a paper to “accept the damage,” rather, it’s an internal document that Enterprise uses to open a repair order and log the damage in their system. The actual rental agreement is what makes the customer responsible for any damage that occurred during the rental period that was not marked on the contract. If Shawn did not thoroughly inspect the car prior to signing the rental agreement, I can’t say I have too much sympathy for him.
3. Counterintuitively, most rental car companies do not make any money from actually renting cars. Instead, they profit from resale (“flipping,” to use industry lingo). However, Enterprise actually does make money from rental because they run their business at very high occupancy rates, which means that between 90 to 95% of the entire rental fleet is on the road at any one time. This further means that it is to the company’s advantage to get damaged cars repaired and back on the road as quickly as possible. Judging from the pictures, that damage could have easily cost $500 when you factor in labor at a body shop. Believe me, as a former Branch Manager, if I could have gotten that car fixed with paintless dent removal, I would have, as it would have meant that the car would be back on the road as quickly as possible.
4. Enterprise reps are thoroughly trained to check cars for damage. If Shawn didn’t see anything and neither did the rep who rented him the car, most likely that damage wasn’t there. I doubt that Shawn visually inspected the car for damage every time he got in it either.
5. Enterprise has in-house loss control departments in all of their local regional offices–they DO NOT outsource that function like most of their competitors. Having been on the inside, I can assure Shawn that if that damage was previously indicated on any of the past 5 rental contracts, he will not have to pay for it. Enterprise employees make mistakes, and I was personally on the receiving end of calls from loss control that essentially went like this: “sorry, we found that damage on an old contract and we’re charging your branch for it.” I was paid off of profits, so I had a very strong incentive to make sure my employees were extremely diligent about damage.
Basically, the rep who checked in Shawn’s car was just doing their job. If the damage isn’t marked, it’s the customer’s responsibility. Throwing a fit and biting their head off doesn’t change that fact.
There is a technique I learned for checking minor dents while I was a police officer, when we could be disciplined for a ding found by the next officer to use the cruiser, no matter when it happened. Stand at the courner of the vehicle, bend down, so you are at the level of the side of the car and look ALONG the side. Minor dents that do not affect the finish of the vehicle are very difficult to see straight on, but they show right up when you look at them sideways.
I had a similar experience with Enterprise. Rushed walkaround (I was tired from waiting for a car) Then when I returned the car, which was only driven a few miles, they accused me of causing damage in two places. They treated me like a criminal, with the agent even concocting a wild tale how this happened.
From years ago, I remember Enterprise as professional and their cars were in good condition, but no longer. In my experience, their relationship with me as a customer was completely adversarial.
I took my car into the Bill Jacobs BMW dealership in Naperville, IL for required work and was given a dripping-wet Enterprise rental car (the better to hide dings and scratches, I have apparently now learned) instead of a loaner as promised. I returned the car to the dealer the next day undamaged after it spent the night in my garage. The day after that, I received a call from the local Enterprise office alleging minor damage ($490 worth) to the car that they stated they intended to charge to me, despite no evidence of me causing damage and the dealer having possession of the car for a day. I was informed by the national office they would look into it. Now, a month later, I am being called by a collections agency on this! I actually rent cars during travel relatively often, and have never had this type of experience from other rental companies, nor from a dealer coercing me into a rental car situation.
If you have been the victim of a similar problem with Enterprise and would like to be part of a possible class action lawsuit, please contact me at althepa at yahoo dot com (written longhand to avoid spam, hopefully!) Thank you.