Seeking advice for hail damage

[Albany Renter]

I received a claim from enterprise for $717 for what I strongly suspect is a discovered damage scam and I'm looking for advice.

When I returned my Enterprise rental car the agent noted in her “Accident Report,” “Upon inspection of vehicle I noticed small dents on hood and many dents on roof top … looks like it could be hail damage.” When she pointed them out, I could see the many small but inconspicuous dents, and indeed they did look like hail damage. However, there were no hail storms during my trip.

Rather, I suspect these damages were incurred during an earlier rental period and were not noticed in my pre-rental inspection, because the pre-rental inspection was a farce. In fact, the rental agent addressed this pre-rental inspection very casually. She asked me to initial the “condition” section of the form prior to conducting the inspection, and then proceeded to breeze around the car nonchalantly, without attending to the condition of the car. Consequently I did not treat the inspection seriously either, and I did not notice these inconspicuous dents. And the rental agent either did not notice these dents, or purposely downplayed the importance of the inspection with the deceitful intent to have the dents discovered after my rental period.

When I brought back the car, the rental agent took a full twenty minutes to inspect the car, which made me late for a meeting, and then another half hour to fill out the forms, which denied me the ability to protest on the spot because I was already late.

I'd appreciate any advise you can offer.

Albany Renter -

When you sign the contract you are accepting the condition of the vehicle. Your only saving grace will be if the damage is documented on another previous contract. The loss control administrator should be investigating those documents. If it is not noted - I am sorry to say you are responsible for the damage.

Hail damage is VERY difficult to catch. If you are picking the vehicle up on a very cloudy day or a very bright sunny day it can be very difficult to see light hail damage. I do hail damage repair on the side and it a very tricky art to find it. Many times it looks like improfections in the paint. To and untrained eye - Hail damaged can be missed. I am not clear by your post whether you noticed the dings on the walk around (at the start) ... Always remember we/the rental agent is there to serve you... If there is something on a vehicle you want documented ask him/her to write it down. . . if they don't want to ask to speak to a manager.

Best wishes --

Per the post above, your best resource at this time is the Loss Control Administrator. When they touch base with you (which should be about a 48 hour window after they receive the report) explain the situation to them, and they should have access to the database to allow them to pull the 10 previous rental agreements to double check. Since it sounds like the employee was in a rush when checking you in (which despite what ERAC may say, a rushed, careless check-in happens more often than they care to admit) chances are another ERAC employee may have caught this damage on a prior rental contract.

If the damage is not documented, and if this damage was truly no fault of your own, I'd suggest climbing the ladder and asking for a supervisor and then perhaps the RVP. Since the car isn't a wreck and the damage can be called into question as to whether or not it was missed, chances are someone higher up may prefer to just write the damage off to save your future business.

I have worked for this company for five years and I personally don't know of anyone who purposely sets up a customer to pay for damage that was missed previosley. I personally never cared enough about missed damage on a car to set up a customer.

However, especially when busy, it is extremely easy for damage to be missed on a car. Most often, because the person checking you into the car is more concerned with getting you on the road and helping the next customer. We are so worried that having that next customer wait more then two minutes will lead to a bad ESQI. Hail damage is soooooooooooooooooooooooo easy to miss. I am actually surprised that they even made an issue out of it since its hard to prove when it happened. The other guy's advice is great. Talk to the loss control department, and if that doesn't work go all the way to the top. In the end, Enterprise will rather eat the damage then have a pissed off customer telling everyone he know how much we suck.

This same scenario happened to me. I rented for five days and brought back the car. I was called outside and shown the "hail damage" on the vehicle that you can only see if you get level with the roof and squint in a good light. I rented on a cloudy day...did I think to check the vehicle for hail damage??Of course not. Only one problem with there little scam..IT DIDN'T HAIL in Chicago on the five days I had the car.

The desk clerk knew that my MasterCard would cover my insurance deductable to pay the damamge (IMAGINE THAT). Sure enough, MasterCard claims they see this all of the time.

I have filed a claim with BBB and will tell everyone I know never to rent from this place. What a rip off....guess I should of hit a tree or something to make this really worth while. BTW Why was there other UNREPAIRED damage on the vehicle if ENRC is sooooo concerned about repairing damage???

Never again in Chicago

[Matrix123]

I am an MA at ERAC and would not charge anyone with hail damage. If you purchased CDW, then it is covered from "Acts of God". Let them send it to Loss Control. Its going to get them no where!

[jaded1234]

Same with me on the "hail damage". Gave me the car on a cloudy/overcast day. But they found the damage within seconds under a lighted tent (during the day). Hail storm was well before my rental started.

How can this not be a scam??? Sounds like they follow a specific protocol to get this.


Ask for the DX reports for the rental time after the last hail storm (have the dates). Specificy that those dates are when it hailed. They will probably stop contacting you as they did me.

seems pretty cut and dry. Hard to have hail damage in the time of the rental if there wasn't any hail

Originally Posted by Albany Renter

I received a claim from enterprise for $717 for what I strongly suspect is a discovered damage scam and I'm looking for advice.

When I returned my Enterprise rental car the agent noted in her “Accident Report,” “Upon inspection of vehicle I noticed small dents on hood and many dents on roof top … looks like it could be hail damage.” When she pointed them out, I could see the many small but inconspicuous dents, and indeed they did look like hail damage. However, there were no hail storms during my trip.

Rather, I suspect these damages were incurred during an earlier rental period and were not noticed in my pre-rental inspection, because the pre-rental inspection was a farce. In fact, the rental agent addressed this pre-rental inspection very casually. She asked me to initial the “condition” section of the form prior to conducting the inspection, and then proceeded to breeze around the car nonchalantly, without attending to the condition of the car. Consequently I did not treat the inspection seriously either, and I did not notice these inconspicuous dents. And the rental agent either did not notice these dents, or purposely downplayed the importance of the inspection with the deceitful intent to have the dents discovered after my rental period.

When I brought back the car, the rental agent took a full twenty minutes to inspect the car, which made me late for a meeting, and then another half hour to fill out the forms, which denied me the ability to protest on the spot because I was already late.

I'd appreciate any advise you can offer.

The advise you are receiving from the ERAC rental employees is only partially correct. They are trained in rental procedures but NONE of them are trained on the laws pertaining to subrogation for damages occuring to rental vehicles. Keep in mind that subrogations laws vary from state to state.

There is a simple solution to any damage that a DX (Accident Report) is created to document that ERAC is attempting to claim occurred during your rental. Unless you were in a obvious accident, deny the damage occurred while you had the rental vehicle. By law, ERAC cannot subrogate against you or your insurance caririer, cannot send you to collections and cannot litigate the cost of repairs through small claims court. The only thing that ERAC can do is put you on their "DO NOT RENT" list.

If you truly feel that ERAC is attempting to subrogate you for damages that did not occur during your rental, why would you want to rent from ERAC in the future and being on their "DO NOT RENT" will have no effect on you whatsoever.

Originally Posted by jaded1234

Same with me on the "hail damage". Gave me the car on a cloudy/overcast day. But they found the damage within seconds under a lighted tent (during the day). Hail storm was well before my rental started.

How can this not be a scam??? Sounds like they follow a specific protocol to get this.


Ask for the DX reports for the rental time after the last hail storm (have the dates). Specificy that those dates are when it hailed. They will probably stop contacting you as they did me.

By law you are not entitled to any previous DX or contract, unless they were your own, as the personal information of previous renter's is protected by "3rd Party Disclosure". Would you want some future renter to have access to your personal information? The only agency that is entitled to copies of DX's and rental agreement would be a law enforcement agency and only after providing a subpeona specifically stating the information they are seeking.

What you can do is request for the previous 20 rental agreements to be pulled by the Loss Control person assigned to the file. ERAC now has all rental agreements scanned by a Xerox data imaging center so it should only take about 4 to 6 weeks to pull the previous 20 rental agreements to see if the damage was truly previously documented to the rental vehicle.

If you are still not satisfied with the answer you receive from Loss Control, deny the damage occurred and ERAC cannot subrogate or litigate to recover for the cost of repairs from you, your credit card company, or your insurance carrier. You cannot be sent to collections as that would be a violation of the Fair Debt and Collection Act.