The Consumer Complaints Blog

ROBBED by Enterprise rental cars! Buyer Beware! I know this is long but please read it if you ever plan to rent from enterprise. It could save you hundreds of dollars.

My name is Ray Barton, I live in Suffolk County NY. I have recently had awful and frightening experience with Enterprise rental cars in bohemia, NY, that is unbelievable. I went to the Company website on Thursday July 22 and made an online reservation for a midsized car for weekly rental at $332. Unable to make it down there, I made a new reservation on Friday the 23rd at around 1pm. The website took all my information and I printed the reservation out, which says nothing on it about rental requirements except restrictions for people under 25 (or 23, whichever it was).

I arrived at Enterprise about 5:30 PM on Friday July 23rd all ready to rent my car. The gentlemen behind the counter hammered away at the computer and set up the rental asking for a driver’s license and Major credit card. I handed him my license and my company Visa Debit card. The gentleman (I believe named MATT) tossed the card at the counter and says, “I can’t take this”. “What?” I reply. He said policy states that it has to be a credit card and debit is no good. “So what do I do?” I ask. He say’s “I can’t rent to you.” Now becoming visually angry I asked him why it doesn’t say that on the site! And prod him further asking if there’s nothing I can do. He acted as though he could really care less. I storm out of the office stating that they just wasted my time. Leaving quite angry, I call the corporate headquarters where I am told that I need a Pay stub and a utility bill, and then he can rent to me but has to take a $400 deposit. Aggravated, but willing to accept that being understandable, I have no choice but to wait until Monday because it is now 5:45pm and I’ll never make it back by 6pm when they close. I live quite a distance away so it’ll have to wait.

First thing Monday morning on the 26th of July, I call headquarters again and ask if a Geico bill will do for the utility bill, they say it will. I call the Bohemia branch around 10:30am and explain the situation, telling them what corporate had told me. “That’s fine he say’s, bring it down and we’ll rent you the car.” I head down to the branch; See the same gentleman from Friday, give him the company debit card along with my pay stub and Geico bill in hand, and the rental goes smoothly. I get a $332 weekly rate and he tells me he has a Hyundai Sonata ready, but an impala coming in about an hour if I’d like to wait. I tell him I’ll take the Sonata and we do the paperwork. He even tells me that since I had a problem on Friday he’ll put down that the tank was empty even though it was full so at least I get a free tank of gas. He charges $400 to my card as a deposit and I leave with the car around 12 noon.

I drive the car for the week without incident, and return the following Monday, August 2nd to return the car. Everything goes fine until the guy says that the charge will be $786. What??! I exclaim, I had the weekly rate. He tells me I have had the car for a week and three days so at $149 per day for the extra three days, the total is $786. I explain that I took the car on Monday and am returning it Monday, that’s one week. He tells me (are you ready for this?) that I took the car on Friday!!! I know when I took the car! I calmly explain what happened and that I was there on Friday but had to come back. I told him why I came back Monday (with my business partner as a witness, I might add) and he insists that the paperwork says 7/23 so that’s when the car left. Now, I did sign the rental form. The form does say 7/23/2010 in tiny dot matrix computer printing, but I didn’t notice that the date was wrong, Even if I noticed the date I probably wouldn’t have realized that it was the 26th and Friday was the 23rd.

The salesman say’s he has to take it up with Matt (manager, and the guy I saw both Friday and Monday) when he comes in so, he will hold on to my copy of the receipt and when it is settled he’ll give me a call. I wanted something to show I returned the car but he refused to give me a receipt unless I was willing to pay the $786.

Two hours later, I check my bank account and see that in addition to the $400 deposit they took on 7/26 (MONDAY), they also took $300 out on Sunday and an additional $86.97 about a half hour previous to my checking. Infuriated, I call the branch for an explanation and the guy I speak to says “sir, you took the car on Friday, it’s impossible for you to have not taken it until Monday. Well, I am not accepting that, so he puts me on hold to get Matt, who is also the manager (and the guy who helped me). Matt picks up and say’s, “Sir, you picked up the car on Friday and you are being charged for it!” I am appalled, how on earth can they be charging for three extra days?! How can they think I took it on Friday when I didn’t even decide on a car until Monday? If I had taken the Impala, it would be easy because it didn’t come back until Monday so it would have been easy to prove. Needless to say I have been charged $786.97 for a $332 weekly rental.

I called your corporate headquarters and spoke to someone there named shelly who took my info and told me they would put me on hold, call the branch, and if we got disconnected, she would call me back. After about ten minutes I was disconnected, called back and was told nobody named shelly works there!!!! It’s now 8:00 pm and still no call back.

My only assumption is that Matt was angry that he had to rent to me with a debit card and is purposely lying about it to screw me. How can he not remember the events above only one week later?

I am not going to give up. I’m going to spread the word and file complaints with consumer affairs and the BBB as well as the Enterprise Regional office. First of all it’s a lot of money, second it’s really the principal. I am having my attorney draw up a law suit, I have sworn affidavits from two people who were with me and three others who know When I got the car, and I’m getting my money back from the branch or from the corporation. I will spend $100,000 to get back my $400 so it would be best for someone over there to check the security cameras or whatever it takes to fix this mistake. I have better things to do than try to screw a rental company out of $400!

I’m posting this everywhere so that Buyers BEWARE, and check the dates on any rental agreements they sign and most importantly STAY FAR AWAY FROM ENTERPRISE!!

They are franchises so they can screw you and the corporate office cannot do a thing. Beware!

Disclaimer
This article was submitted by one of our readers. Penciltrick cannot make any claims as to its authenticity but the article was accepted on a good faith belief that it is an accurate and truthful account of the events listed.