The Tribune (via CNN) kicks ass and names names, detailing a panoply of rental car “scams.” We're talking hidden riders, new fees and plain old cheating. For example… When a flight delay made Amy Villa late for her rental car pickup, Alamo exercised its contractual rights and revised the rate upwards; from $268 to $400. OUCH! Renter Penny McLain was whacked with a gas charge despite filling the gas tank as required (anything less than a pegged FULL needle isn’t full). ZAP! Rental companies are charging customers for damages inflicted on their sleds by previous customers. OOOOF! Drop-off fees are on the rise. Hertz used to allow frequent renter Warren Atwood to pick up a car in LA County and drop it off in Orange County without incurring a “drop off” fee. Not anymore. KA-POW! Holy read the fine print Batman! Caveat emptor old chum, caveat emptor.
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Oh ya, watch for the windshield charges to go through the roof. They love to charge for the same little chip over and over and…
Enterprise has been treating me pretty well at the airports for the past couple years. The around town offices are okay as well.
I’ve rented from Hertz (No. 1 Gold, etc) for twenty years and had not once been hit with a charge for damage to the car. Returning an Lincoln MKZ to the Seattle airport, the Hertz person noted that the paint on one corner of the bumper was scratched (no dent, but scratched) and asked me if I had done it. She helped me to fill out a form stating that it was not done while I was operating the car, “in order to keep them from charging me”, and I went happily on my way. Six weeks later I received a bill for $35.00 for damaging their car. First of all, you can’t do anything to a car for $35.00 and secondly it is the sort of damage that happens to virtually all modern cars with plastic bumpers (both my Honda and BMW have similar scars from imprecise parking by others).
Apparently, it’s easier to increase rental rates by add-ons than just increasing the damned rate.
Fortunately I suspect that competition among them will have one who begins to revise the policy and bring it back to reality. If I damage the car, I don’t mind paying for it, but charges for normal and unfortunate door dings and bumper scrapes are unreasonable. Particularly when the mechanical damage goes unnoticed at the lot – like how many times have I rented a car with warped rotors that went unrepaired.
I worked at a Hurts franchise while in college and my employers required that I write a testimony in a case they had against a customer who I knew did not damage a car. I didn’t lie, but they made me leave out crucial information. I felt dirty and quit several weeks later. Lazy management can lead to customers losing lots of money on damage inflicted by previous renters, or even employees. I’d advise anyone to take time-stamped photos of all angles of the car at the beginning and end of each rental.
Hence the market niche for Flexcar/Zipcar widens that much more.
Enterprise has always teated me well, Actually, better than well.
They didn’t even check the fuel gauge on the last car I turned in to them. I was honest and actually did buy gas.
Two weeks later, they sent me a coupon for either $20 off my next bill or a free upgrade ,my choice,
not $35 for bogus “damage”.
I’ve always felt that Hertz perhaps wasn’t worth the extra money and the comments I’ve seen here vindicate my frugality.
They tried to had out speeding tickets recorded with GPS devices and ran afoul of the law. No one deputized the rental agency.
The way I understand it, Enterprise has much stricter standards for hiring employees than the other companies. One reason they tend to have better customer service.
I was required to provide a receipt of fill up upon return of the rental I had yesterday (this was in Dallas with Advantage).
I had a rented Caravan several months back that was parked right up against a wall (< 1 inch) when I picked it up. Only to realize when I reached my destination there was a huge dent in the middle of the rear bumper. Called Budget and logged the time when I did this and got the person's name. Had to fill out an accident form upon return. Was contacted by Budget about the fact that they didn't note the damage on the car (which I bet they didn't check) nor did I (they noted I should have I pull it out into the flow of traffic just to do that final check). I refused to pay and said if they tried to collect payment I'd file a counterclaim and request my company never rent through them again (my company uses them often with some 20+ rentals a year just for my travels - we probably do some 1000+ rentals a year with them). Suddenly a manager got on the phone and decided to "write it off".
Some years ago someone scraped the side of my rental while it was parked at the hotel. There was quite some damage but no sign of the other driver. Not to worry – I had a LDW so it shouldn’t be a problem. I returned the car and Avis assured me that there would be no problem. Four weeks later I received an invoice for $2,500 for the damage. I called Avis and they claimed they had no record of the LDW and that I would have to prove that it was on my agreement. As it happened it was in a laptop bag that I had lost some weeks earlier. So I asked them to send me a copy of the agreement and they refused – I called the Avis rental place where I rented the car and they also refused but said that if I came there in person they would allow me to copy it. Fortunately I had another trip scheduled to that location and I finally received a copy which clearly stated that I was covered by the LDW. Avis then relented and admitted that I was covered.
Not only have I never rented from Avis again but in the light of the incident my company changed its travel policy to Enterprise which, since then, I have never had a problem with.
Renter Penny McLain was whacked with a gas charge despite filling the gas tank as required (anything less than a pegged FULL needle isn’t full).
I usually use Enterprise but I have to confess they robbed me with this con last year — the one where they kindly explain that you don’t need to fill the tank on return; for your convenience they’ll simply charge you for the gas — at slightly below local gas prices even! How can you lose?
What the nice young man didn’t explain (and I was too travel-weary to be on guard I suppose) was that what they actually do is charge you the cost of filling up AN ENTIRE TANK of gasoline — regardless of how much gas is actually in said tank. They simply add on that $30+ charge.
If you do ANYTHING other than return the car on fumes, empty of gas, pushing it the last 100 yards — they have simply stolen money for you.
Congratulations Enterprise, you rolled me and got away with it. Hope you’re proud of yourselves.
Unluckly you. It was actually cheaper for them (Enterprise) to fill it up than it was for me to fill it up. Crazy how gas prices work, huh?
I have to say, I rent WAY too many cars, but I almost always have a very good experiences at Enterprise. Hertz is *ok*, but I would never pick anything other than Enterprise without good reason. And it seems across the board – whatever town I go to, the experience is similar.
My local office in particular offers excellent service, and is happy to drum up an old invoice or lookup a past PO # if I need it, and a wide variety of vehicles (feel like a Hummer for a day? A Shelby? – me neither, but you can almost always get one there).
It doesn’t sound like I’m the only happy Enterprise customer, either.
In 30 years of driving and renting, I’ve never had a problem with National, Hertz, Thrifty, Enterprise or Avis. If anything, I screwed them over a few times by ill-treating their equipment. And I mean ill.
How can anyone even complain about car rentals when the airlines are 100 times worse?
Every location is different. I’ve returned a new 3.8L Mitsubishi Galant to Avis sans bumper (rear ended on an Interstate exchange ramp at 40 MPH) and the only thing they did to me was to give me a 3,000 mile Ford Taurus as a replacement (‘that’ll learn ’em” was what I heard in my head). I’ve also had to fight Enterprise trying to charge me for returning their filthy, scratched, dinged 40,000 mile Impala in filthy, scratched, dinged 40,250 mile condition.
I actually think it comes down to how big your business is for these companies. The bigger your business, the better they treat you.
Just from the anecdotal evidence here I’d be willing to bet there is more variation between individual rental agencies (which I assume are franchises? Or at the very least, individually managed) than there is between companies. That’s usually the way it goes – it’s the bean counter in the local office who wants to screw you because it helps his bottom line, and he doesn’t care if you rent another car from Avis, Hertz or whoever because he gets paid on salary anyway. Once the complaints get sent up to the corporate office and they realize that they are about to make a significant PR faux pas, they usually figure it’s cheaper and easier to write it off.
The last time I rented a car it was from Enterprise. The only grief I got was when I arrived at their front desk. I had not made any prior reservation. I just wanted to see what would happen. They told me they had nothing available. I walked around to the other companies counters and was told the same or quote some rediculous rate. So, I sat down at a snack bar, pulled out the Blackberry, and browsed to Enterprise’s web site. I made a reservation on their site for their cheapest car and got a confirmation. I walked back up to the Enterprise counter and told them I had a reservation. They upgraded me to the next car size up since the cheap one wasn’t available and off I went.
What a racket.
Rental car agencies just had their profit margins whacked because they can’t get garbage domestic sedans for basically free from the Detroit Three any more. So, they are making up for this by charging stupid fees, raising rates, and generally being a dick to their customers.
I worked as car prep/driver for Enterprise for a while when in college. Made sure I treated every customer with the upmost repsect, cleaned the piss outa the cars even when they had been returned in a thousand times worse state then when they had gone out, washed them thouroghly, etc. I drove customers all over the city (A few I even carted around for their errands), made sure to be prompt when picking them up, and always did a one last check to make sure they didn’t leave anything in the car. Yet for some odd reason, every customer still treated all the car prep and drivers like crap. Meh.
Virtual Insanity,
Then you can back me up on it when I say that folks treat rentals like garbage cans. I found lots and lots of interesting items in rental returns.
Keep in mind folks that many rental locations are franchises, especially local locations and those at smaller airports. These places have a lot of control independent of the corporate offices and will often come after the first person they can once they notice damage that may be weeks or months old.
Jazbo123: “How can anyone even complain about car rentals when the airlines are 100 times worse?”
You got that right. Unfortunately, we’re our own worst enemy. Airline A announces they’ll fly you from LA to NY for $200 and everyone jumps on, knowing that the only way to do this is to eliminate any semblance of customer service. Airline B says they’ll give you a better ride, but you have to pay $300 and they nearly go out of business. When we decided that the airlines were simply a commodity business, and that most of us would just fly the cheapest thing we could find, we ensured that we were stuck with lowest-common-denominator service. If we did the same with food, KFC would become known for “fine dining.”
Five years ago, a one-day-notice straight coach fare from SFO to NYC was $2000; today it is more like $600. The airplanes didn’t get cheaper, the pilots and staff don’t make up the difference, and the cost of airplane maintenance didn’t go down; imagine how they support the ridiculously low fares? Fill every inch of every airplane.
rant mode
Matthew Danda :
December 20th, 2007 at 12:35 pm
The way I understand it, Enterprise has much stricter standards for hiring employees than the other companies. One reason they tend to have better customer service.
Things are, of course, different across the country, but here Enterprise is the worst around.
Let me quasi-preface this by saying that I worked at a local Avis office for a year and a half and have worked at Hertz for five months additionally, but never fear – no bias here.
The Enterprise in our town (there are actually two locations) constantly calls us to bail them out when they have more renters than cars. Case in point – the last time this happened, about two weeks ago, an Enterprise representative (college student like me, no they don’t hire any more selectively here than the other rental companies in town) called the Hertz office to say they had booked an Explorer for a lady, had picked her up and taken her to their office (about 1/4 mile away from Hertz), and when they had arrived, had nothing but a base Chevrolet Cobalt (we’re talking crank windows, no cruise control, manual locks). She was understandably angry, and had the Enterprise rep demand that we give her an Explorer for the price they’d quoted her – about 15% lower than their rate. I did so, by price-matching, and she left our office happy in the car of her choice. Avis and Hertz both operate this way here – if you reserve a car, you get a car, and it will be the car that you reserved or larger. Enterprise operates very, very poorly here.
Return a rental car during office hours if you can.
Notwithstanding gassing up a couple of blocks from the agency, one charged a $45 refueling cost. I found out weeks later when I received my credit card invoice.
You can’t fight it. Registering a Small Claims Court action in this jurisdiction costs $73.
Subscribing…I’m gonna blog about all this wonderful stuff at my Conde Nast site.
re: “In 30 years of driving and renting, I’ve never had a problem with National, Hertz, Thrifty, Enterprise or Avis. If anything, I screwed them over a few times by ill-treating their equipment. And I mean ill.”
Haven’t you heard of the Golden Rule? Those cars eventually wind up with new owners. I’ve bought ex-rental cars, and I’d hate to think some renter’s demolition-derby tactics led to premature brake or drive line failures.
It wouldn’t bother me a bit if rental companies checked the car’s computer after each rental for indications of wild driving, and charged for it.